Atypical response to tactile input is associated with greater socio-communicative impairments in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study examined overt orienting to caregiver-initiated touch in 12-month-olds at high risk for ASD (HRA) with (HRA+) and without (HRA-) a later diagnosis of ASD compared to low-risk comparison…

Establishing whether implicit responses to emotional cues are intact in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is fundamental to ascertaining why their emotional understanding is compromised. We used a temporal bisection task to assess for responsiveness to face and wildlife images that varied in emotional salience. There were no significant differences…

Using an attentional blink paradigm, we show that the typical enhancement of perception for emotionally arousing events is significantly reduced in Asperger's syndrome (AS) at short inter-target intervals. Control experiments demonstrate that this finding cannot be attributed to differences in the perceived arousal of the stimuli, or to a global…