Brief report: Emotional processing in high-functioning autism--physiological reactivity and affective report.

Bölte et al. (2008) showed the adults pictures that trigger fear, sadness, joy, or disgust. Half had high-functioning autism. Half were neurotypical. The team tracked skin-conductance and heart-rate while each person rated how aroused and in-control they felt.

The goal was to see if autistic adults react to emotions with the same body signals and feelings as peers.

Autistic adults showed the opposite pattern. Their skin-conductance stayed low while viewing sad images but jumped high for neutral ones. They also reported feeling more in control during fear and sadness than controls did.

Heart-rate told the same story: blunted response to sad, heightened to neutral.

Nuebling et al. (2024) meta-analysis pools 16 years of data and concludes autistic people have more emotion dysregulation overall. Bölte et al. (2008) is inside that pool, showing one way the dysregulation looks in the lab.

van den Broek et al. (2006) found autistic adults had lower heart-rate during public-speaking stress but normal cortisol. Sven saw the same blunted heart-rate, yet skin-conductance went up. Different body systems, different stories.

Riches et al. (2016) repeated the skin-conductance test with kids using music instead of pictures. They also saw reduced reactivity, proving the pattern starts early and crosses sensory channels.

If you run social-skills or CBT groups, do not trust your eyes. An autistic client may look calm while their body is on high alert, or look bored while their body is quiet. Pair self-report with quick bio-feedback like a cheap heart-rate watch. When teaching emotion regulation, start with neutral triggers first; they may be the real stressors.