A new study shows that autistic and non-autistic people may express their emotions using different facial movements. This may help explain why they sometimes misunderstand each other’s feelings.
The research was done by scientists at the University of Birmingham and offers a closer look at how people show emotions like anger, happiness, and sadness through facial expressions.
The researchers used advanced technology to track facial movements in great detail. They studied 25 autistic and 26 non-autistic adults. Each person was asked to show happy, sad, and angry faces while making sounds and also while speaking.
The researchers collected nearly 5,000 different facial expressions, recording over 265 million data points to analyze how faces moved during each emotion.
They found clear differences between the two groups. When showing anger, autistic participants moved their mouths more and their eyebrows less than non-autistic people.
For happiness, autistic participants smiled less broadly, and their smiles often did not reach their eyes, which is a common way people show true joy. When expressing sadness, autistic individuals raised their upper lips more, creating a different kind of frown.
The study also looked at something called alexithymia. This is a condition where people have trouble recognizing and describing their own emotions. It is not the same as autism, but many autistic people also have alexithymia.
The researchers found that people with higher levels of alexithymia showed less clear facial expressions. For example, their angry and happy expressions were harder to tell apart, which made them seem more neutral or confusing.
Dr. Connor Keating, the lead researcher, said that these findings show how facial expressions may be formed differently in autistic and non-autistic people.
He noted that the expressions not only look different but also take shape in different ways. This might help explain why people sometimes have trouble understanding each other’s emotions if they come from different groups.
Professor Jennifer Cook, one of the study’s senior authors, added that the differences between how autistic and non-autistic people show emotions may be similar to speaking different languages.
Both groups may be expressing their feelings in meaningful ways, but because the “language” of facial expressions is different, it can be hard to understand each other. She said that more research is being done to explore this idea further.
This study is important because it challenges the idea that autistic people are simply “bad” at reading emotions. Instead, it suggests that both autistic and non-autistic people may struggle to read each other because they express feelings differently. It points to a two-way problem in communication rather than putting all the blame on one side.
The study used very detailed tools and data, giving researchers a new way to explore how emotions are shown on the face. By looking at facial expressions closely, scientists can learn more about how people connect with one another and how to improve communication between different groups.
Overall, this research encourages a more balanced view. Rather than seeing autistic people as lacking emotional expression, it suggests that their expressions may just follow a different pattern—one that is equally meaningful, but not always easy for others to recognize.
This insight may lead to better understanding, support, and inclusion for autistic individuals in everyday social settings.
If you care about autism, please read studies about a new cause of autism, and cats may help decrease anxiety for kids with autism.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about vitamin D that may hold the clue to more autism, and results showing strange eating habits may signal autism.
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