ISSN : 1226-9654
The purpose of this study was to investigated quantitative change in emotional intensity ratings with the addition of contextual information in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD). Participants in the current study were 20 children with ASD and 20 typically developing children(TD) with their full scale IQ and age matched. All participants were asked to assess the emotional intensity of a single emotion(happy/anger) from images presented under two conditions(context-free and context embedded). The results showed a significant interaction effect between groups and conditions in only an anger block. Further analysis revealed that children with TD reported lower intensity of an anger face embedded with happy faces, however, there was no difference in intensity levels for children with ASD inspite of the addition of contextual cues. The results suggests that ASD have impairment in using contextual cues to moderate their assessment of emotional intensity. Clinical implication and limitation of the study is further discussed.
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