Abstract：Objective To investigate the characteristics of working memory ability on emotional faces and related event-related potential (ERP) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods The Chinese Facial Affective Picture System was used as test material, and the event-related potential system was used to record the electroencephalographic data when 16 ASD children aged 6-12 years (ASD group) and 14 normal children matched for age (control group) were completing the facial emotion delayed match-to-sample task. The characteristics of P3b component were analyzed for both groups. Results Compared with the control group, the ASD group had a significantly longer reaction time (1 527 ms vs 1 060 ms; P < 0.05) and a significantly lower accuracy rate (76% vs 88%; P < 0.01) in the facial emotion delayed match-to-sample task. There was a difference in the amplitude of P3b component during the encoding stage between the two groups. In the ASD group, the P3b component on the left side electrode had a higher amplitude than that on the right side electrode (P < 0.05), while the control group had no such characteristics. Conclusions There is a difference in P3b component during the encoding stage between school-aged ASD children and normal children. In ASD children, working memory on emotional faces may depend more on the related neural pathway in the left hemisphere.
XU Cai-Juan,ZHANG Ling,PAN Ning et al. Event-related potential of working memory on emotional faces in children with autism spectrum disorder[J]. CJCP, 2017, 19(3): 280-285.
Dawson G, Webb SJ, Mcpartland J. Understanding the nature of face processing impairment in autism:insights from behavioral and electrophysiological studies[J]. Dev Neuropsychol, 2005, 27(3):403-424.
[7]
Morgan HM, Klein C, Boehm SG, et al. Working memory load for faces modulates P300, N170, and N250r[J]. J Cogn Neurosci, 2008, 20(6): 989-1002.
[8]
Morgan HM, Klein C, Boehm SG, et al. Working memory load for faces modulates P300, N170, and N250r[J]. J Cogn Neurosci, 2008, 20(6):989-1002.
[9]
Kok A. On the utility of P3 amplitude as a measure of processing capacity[J]. Psychophysiology, 2001, 38(3):557-577.
[10]
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders[M]. 5th ed. Arlingtion, VA:American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013:50-59.
Neath-Tavares KN, Itier RJ. Neural processing of fearful and happy facial expressions during emotion-relevant and emotion-irrelevant tasks:A fixation-to-feature approach[J]. Biol Psychol, 2016, 119:122-140.
[16]
Dolcos F, Iordan AD, Dolcos S. Neural correlates of emotion-cognition interactions:A review of evidence from brain imaging investigations[J]. J Cogn Psychol (Hove), 2011, 23(6):669-694.
[17]
Feldmann-Wüstefeld T, Schmidt-Daffy M, Schubö A. Neural evidence for the threat detection advantage:differential attention allocation to angry and happy faces[J]. Psychophysiology, 2011, 48(5):697-707.
[18]
Johnson KJ, Waugh CE, Fredrickson BL. Smile to see the forest:Facially expressed positive emotions broaden cognition[J]. Cogn Emot, 2010, 24(2):299-321.
[19]
Codispoti M, Ferrari V, Bradley MM. Repetitive picture processing:autonomic and cortical correlates[J]. Brain Res, 2006, 1068(1):213-220.
Ranganath C, D'Esposito M. Directing the mind's eye:prefrontal, inferior and medial temporal mechanisms for visual working memory[J]. Curr Opin Neurobiol, 2005, 15(2):175-182.
[22]
Kanwisher N, Mcdermott J, Chun MM. The fusiform face area:a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception[J]. J Neurosci, 1997, 17(11):4302-4311.
[23]
Koshino H, Kana RK, Keller TA, et al. fMRI investigation of working memory for faces in autism:visual coding and underconnectivity with frontal areas[J]. Cerebral Cortex, 2008, 18(2):289-300.
[24]
Gunji A, Inagaki M, Inoue Y, et al. Event-related potentials of self-face recognition in children with pervasive developmental disorders[J]. Brain Dev, 2009, 31(2):139-147.
[25]
Gunji A, Goto T, Kita Y, et al. Facial identity recognition in children with autism spectrum disorders revealed by P300 analysis:a preliminary study[J]. Brain Dev, 2013, 35(4):293-298.
