Face processing in children with autism spectrum disorder: independent or interactive processing of facial identity and facial expression?

The current study investigated if deficits in processing emotional expression affect facial identity processing and vice versa in children with autism spectrum disorder. Children with autism and IQ and age matched typically developing children classified faces either by emotional expression, thereby ignoring facial identity or by facial identity disregarding emotional expression. Typically developing children processed facial identity independently from facial expressions but processed facial expressions in interaction with identity.