Reading emotions through the eyes

The "Reading the Mind in your Eye Test" (RMET) was designed by Baron-Cohen et al (2001) to measure social cognition (emotion identification) by looking at the images of the eyes of people. Using the RMET, the author found a significant difference in the social cognitive abilities of people with high functioning autism or Aspergers syndrome.

In another study by Baron-Cohen et al (2015) found that control adult females tend to score higher on the RMET than control adult males. This suggested the presence of gender /sex hormone influence on social cognitive abilities. When controlled for gender, the RMET score difference was greater between autistic females and control female. Also, autistic males and autistic females had similar scores suggesting that both groups shared common difficulties in emotional recognition. Interestingly, there was a strong correlation between the RMET/EQ score in only the autistic female group (the study didn't examine the IQ factor). This finding is in line with the reported differences in male and females with autism (https://pro.psychcentral.com/child-therapist/2019/11/comparison-of-males-and-females-with-asd-gender-differences-in-people-with-autism-spectrum-disorder/). The lower incidence in females than males might likely be due to "masking" that could be attributed to IQ or biologically the developmental effects of the female sex hormones.

Although the reliability of the instrument as a measure of Theory of Mind is still being developed, the RMET has the potential to be a useful tool in measuring social cognition e.g in emotional recognition.

What stood out was the importance of emotion recognition through the eyes for complex emotions. This seemed to be the strategy used by typical adults which is the area of difficulty in individuals with autism (Baren-Cohen, S & Jolliffee, T, 1997). This also means that when we are teaching social skills, it would be important to train students to observe the eyes and explicitly teach them to understand that he direction and object that the eyes are looking at acts as a reference for them to understand or infer the intentions and plans of the other person. One of the 4 steps in social communication found in the Social Thinking curriculum (by Michelle Garcia and Pamela Crooke) is exactly - "think with your eyes".

References:

Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., & Jolliffe, T. (1997). Is there a ‘‘language of the eyes’’ ? Evidence from normal adults and adults with autism or Asperger syndrome. Visual Cognition, 4, 311–331.

Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y., & Plumb, I. (2001). The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test revised version: a study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 42(2), 241–251.

Baron-Cohen S, Bowen DC, Holt RJ, Allison C, Auyeung B, Lombardo MV, et al. (2015). The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test: Complete Absence of Typical Sex Difference in ~400 Men and Women with Autism. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0136521. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136521

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