JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Impaired facial emotion expression recognition (FEER) has typically been considered a correlate of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Now, the alexithymia hypothesis is suggesting that this emotion processing problem is instead related to alexithymia, which frequently co-occurs with ASD. By combining predictive coding theories of ASD, and simulation theories of emotion recognition, it is suggested that facial mimicry may improve the training of FEER in ASD and alexithymia.

Objective:

The current study will evaluate a novel mimicry task to improve FEER in adults with, and without ASD and alexithymia. Additionally, this study will aim to determine the contributions of alexithymia, and ASD to FEER ability and assess which of these two populations benefit from this training task.

Methods:

Recruitment will primarily take place through an ASD community group with emphasis put on snowball recruiting. Included will be N=64 consenting adults, equally divided between participants without an ASD, and participants with an ASD. Participants will be screened online using the K-10 (cut off score of 22), ASQ-10 and TAS-20 followed by a clinical interview with a provisional psychologist at the Federation University psychology clinic. The clinical interview will include assessment of ability, anxiety and depression as well as discussion of past ASD diagnosis and confirmatory administration of the Autism Mental Status Exam (AMSE). Following the clinical interview, the participant will complete the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ), and then undertake a baseline assessment of FEER. Consenting participants will then be assigned using a permuted blocked randomisation method into either the control task condition or the mimicry task condition. A brief measure of satisfaction of the task and a debriefing session will conclude the study.

Results:

The study has Federation University Human Research Ethics Committee approval and participant recruitment is predicted to begin in quarter one of 2021.

Conclusions:

This study will be the first to evaluate the use of a novel facial mimicry task condition to increase FEER in adults with ASD and alexithymia. If efficacious, this task could prove useful as a cost-effective adjunct intervention which could be used at home and thus remove barriers to entry. This study will also explore the unique effectiveness of this task in people without an ASD, with an ASD and with alexithymia. Clinical Trial: The study is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials (ACTRN: ACTRN12619000705189).