Can individuals with autism abstract prototypes of natural faces?
High-functioning adults with autism struggle to form a mental "average" face, so social-skills lessons should include explicit prototype training.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gastgeb et al. (2011) asked high-functioning adults with autism to look at many faces.
The team then tested whether the adults could form a mental "average" face.
Eye-tracking cameras made sure any failure was not just from looking away.
What they found
The autism group could not build a clear average face.
Control adults formed the average easily.
Poor eye contact did not explain the trouble; both groups looked at the eyes the same amount.
How this fits with other research
Falcomata et al. (2012) later showed the same weakness starts in childhood and lasts into adulthood.
Hartston et al. (2024) found the root cause: autistic brains update face memories too fast, so no stable template forms.
Cook et al. (2014) seems to disagree—they saw normal facial after-effects in autistic adults. The tasks differ: after-effects test quick calibration, while prototype tests long-term storage.
Why it matters
If your learner cannot build an average face, subtle social cues will stay hard to read. Add brief lessons that point out shared features ("most smiles turn up at the corners"). Use clear photos, not cartoons, and show many examples side-by-side so the learner can see the pattern you already notice.
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Show five photos of real smiles, trace the common upturned line, then test discrimination of new smiles versus neutral mouths.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
There is a growing amount of evidence suggesting that individuals with autism have difficulty with face processing. One basic cognitive ability that may underlie face processing difficulties is the ability to abstract a prototype. The current study examined prototype formation with natural faces using eye-tracking in high-functioning adults with autism and matched controls. Individuals with autism were found to have significant difficulty forming prototypes of natural faces. The eye-tracking data did not reveal any between group differences in the general pattern of attention to the faces, indicating that these difficulties were not due to attentional factors. Results are consistent with previous studies that have found a deficit in prototype formation and extend these deficits to natural faces.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2011 · doi:10.1007/s10803-011-1190-4