Labelling faces as 'Autistic' reduces the inversion effect. (August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Civile, Ciro; Colvin, Eamon; Siddiqui, Hasan; Obhi, Sukhvinder S
• Is Part Of: Autism. Volume 23:Number 6(2019)
• Page Start: 1596
• Page End: 1600
• Publication Date: 2019-08
• Subjects: autism -- face inversion effect -- face recognition -- objectification -- stigma; Autism -- Periodicals; Autism in children -- Periodicals; 616.85882005
• DOI: 10.1177/1362361318807158
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1362-3613

Abstract

Does the belief that a face belongs to an individual with autism affect recognition of that face? To address this question, we used the inversion effect as a marker of face recognition. In Experiment 1, participants completed a recognition task involving upright and inverted faces labelled as either 'regular' or 'autistic'. In reality, the faces presented in both conditions were identical. Results revealed a smaller inversion effect for faces labelled as autistic. Thus, simply labelling a face as 'autistic' disrupts recognition. Experiment 2 showed a larger inversion effect after the provision of humanizing versus dehumanizing information about faces labelled as 'autistic'. We suggest changes in the inversion effect could be used as a measure to study stigma within the context of objectification and dehumanization.