Face Perception in High-Functioning Autistic Adults: Evidence for Superior Processing of Face Parts, Not for a Configural Face-Processing Deficit A. Lahaie and L. Mottron Ho ˆpital Rivie `re-des-Prairies and University of Montreal M. Arguin University of Montreal C. Berthiaume and B. Jemel Ho ˆpital Rivie `re-des-Prairies D. Saumier University of Montreal and Institut Universitaire de Ge ´riatrie de Montre ´al Configural processing in autism was studied in Experiment 1 by using the face inversion effect. A normal inversion effect was observed in the participants with autism, suggesting intact configural face process- ing. A priming paradigm using partial or complete faces served in Experiment 2 to assess both local and configural face processing. Overall, normal priming effects were found in participants with autism, irrespective of whether the partial face primes were intuitive face parts (i.e., eyes, nose, etc.) or arbitrary segments. An exception, however, was that participants with autism showed magnified priming with single face parts relative to typically developing control participants. The present findings argue for intact configural processing in autism along with an enhanced processing for individual face parts. The face-processing peculiarities known to characterize autism are discussed on the basis of these results and past congruent results with nonsocial stimuli. Keywords: autism, configuration, face perception, inversion, peaks of ability, visual processing It has been hypothesized that deficits in processing faces under- lie the social difficulties observed in the autistic spectrum (Hobson, Ouston, & Lee, 1988; Langdell, 1978). Various face-processing impairments have been reported in this population. For example, high-functioning individuals with autism and Asperger’s syn- drome perform worse than their matched controls in the recogni- tion of face identity across changes of facial expressions or orien- tation (Davies, Bishop, Manstead, & Tantam, 1994). Low-func- tioning individuals with autism also experience difficulties matching faces according to age and gender (Hobson et al., 1988). They are impaired on facial expression matching (Braverman, Fein, Lucci, & Waterhouse, 1989) and when detecting an incon- gruent face relative to typical controls (Tantam, Monaghan, Ni- cholson, & Stirling, 1989). The poor performance of low-function- ing individuals with autism is also observed in the immediate recognition of unfamiliar faces, whereas that of nonfacial stimuli is preserved (buildings: Boucher & Lewis, 1992; shoes: Gepner, de Gelder, & de Shonen, 1996). The delayed recognition of previ- ously seen faces also reveals a face memory deficit in low-func- tioning individuals with autism (Hauck, Fein, Waterhouse, & Feinstein, 1995). Functional MRI investigations of face processing in autism have provided evidence for an absence of activation of the fusiform face area in face discrimination tasks, whereas typical individuals show maximum activation in this region (Schultz et al., 2000). Indeed, Schultz et al. observed an activation of the inferior temporal gyrus, a region implicated in object recognition in typical individuals, when individuals with autism were looking at faces. Pierce, Mul- ler, Ambrose, Allen, and Courchesne (2001), though replicating the absence of typical fusiform face area activation, emphasized that the loci of maximal activation were not restricted to the inferior temporal regions and extended to individual-specific neu- ral sites in persons with autism. However, the possibility that these atypical patterns of activation result from atypical attentional strat- egies during the task, rather than a perceptual deficit, has been raised (Hadjikhani et al., 2004). A. Lahaie, Pervasive Developmental Disorders Specialized Clinic, Ho ˆ- pital Rivie `re-des-Prairies, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and Department of Psychology, University of Montreal; L. Mottron, Pervasive Developmental Disorders Specialized Clinic, Ho ˆ pital Rivie `re-des-Prairies, and Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal; M. Arguin, Department of Psychol- ogy, University of Montreal; C. Berthiaume and B. Jemel, Pervasive Developmental Disorders Specialized Clinic, Ho ˆpital Rivie `re-des-Prairies; D. Saumier, Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, and Cen- tre de recherche, Institut Universitaire de Ge ´riatrie de Montre ´al, Montreal. This work was supported by Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche-Fonds de Recherche en Santé du québec studentship (to A. Lahaie); by an operating grant of the Canadian Institute of Health Research, “Characterizing cognitive deficit in pervasive developmental disorders” (to L. Mottron); and from a scholarship from the Fonds de la Recherche en Sante ´ du Que ´bec (to L. Mottron). M. Arguin is supported by a scholarship from the Fonds de la Recherche en Sante ´ du Que ´bec and is also supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We thank Scott Yu for creating Greebles and Bob Abelson for having named the Greebles (Gauthier & Tarr, 1997). Michelle Dawson gave insightful comment on the manuscript and contrib- uted toward ensuring it was written in a nonoffending way for people with autism. We are especially grateful to Alessandra Schiavetto and Michelle Dawson for editing the manuscript. We thank all participants and families who participated in this research. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to L. Mot- tron, Clinique Spe ´cialise ´e des Troubles Envahissants du De ´veloppement, Ho ˆpital Rivie `re-des-Prairies, 7070 Boulevard Perras, Montreal, Quebec H1E 1A4, Canada. E-mail: mottronl@istar.ca Neuropsychology Copyright 2006 by the American Psychological Association 2006, Vol. 20, No. 1, 30 – 41 0894-4105/06/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0894-4105.20.1.30 30