Browsing by Author "Lorenzi, Jill Elizabeth"

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    Ability of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders to Identify Emotional Facial Expressions
    Lorenzi, Jill Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2012-05-01)
    Previous research on emotion identification in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has demonstrated inconsistent results. While some studies have cited a deficit in emotion identification for individuals with ASD compared to controls, others have failed to find a difference. Many studies have used static photographs that do not capture subtle details of dynamic, real-life facial expressions that characterize authentic social interactions, and therefore have not been able to provide complete information regarding emotion identification. The current study aimed to build upon prior research by using dynamic, talking videos where the speaker expresses emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and excitement, both with and without a voice track. Participants included 10 children with ASD between the ages of four and 12, and 10 gender- and mental age-matched children with typical development between six and 12. Overall, both ASD and typically developing groups performed similarly in their accuracy, though the group with typical development benefited more from the addition of voice. Eye tracking analyses considered the eye region and mouth as areas of interest (AOIs). Eye tracking data from accurately identified trials resulted in significant main effects for group (longer and more fixations for participants with typical development) and condition (longer and more fixations on voiced emotions), and a significant condition by AOI interaction, where participants fixated longer and more on the eye region in the voiced condition compared to the silent condition, but fixated on the mouth approximately the same in both conditions. Treatment implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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    Young Adults' Social Interest in Complex Film Clips: Impact of Autism Characteristics
    Lorenzi, Jill Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2015-05-18)
    Deficits in social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be explained in part by the limited salience of or reward value associated with the social world, relative to individuals with typical development (e.g., Jones and Klin, 2008; Mundy, 1995; Mundy and Neal, 2005). However, despite many calls for the use of ecologically valid, rich, complex stimuli when investigating deficits in social attention and interest in ASD, few studies have adopted these recommendations. The current study investigated social interest in a non-clinical college student population (n = 78; 72% female; M age = 20.41 years) by analyzing participants' verbal descriptions of dynamic film clips. It was predicted that as level of self-reported ASD characteristics increased, proportions of verbal descriptions devoted to higher-level social information (e.g., relationships, mental or emotional states) would decrease, while holding self-reported social anxiety, autonomic flexibility (i.e., heart rate variability), and verbal ability constant. In other words, self-reported ASD characteristics were hypothesized to impact social interest above and beyond the effects of other predicted covariates. Results, however, did not reveal significant differences in social interest across varying levels of ASD characteristics, and neither social anxiety nor autonomic flexibility served as a moderator of this association. Variations of the current study and the inclusion of a clinical population are discussed as possible future directions to refine the study and better target intervention efforts aimed at ameliorating social deficits in ASD.