Emotion Recognition and Social Understanding

EMOTION RECOGNTION IN SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING 1
Emotion Recognition in Social Understanding
Mehvish N Khan
Dr Jennifer L Mayer
KHA12348108
University of Roehampton

Abstract
Despite research suggesting that individuals with autism are associated with difficulties to
understand and identify emotion of others and self (Loveland et al., 1997), the results
provided are inconsistent. Pervious research has established that autistic traits are found
across the general population (Robinson et al., 2011) with higher levels of autistic traits
correlating to lower empathy (Gökçen et al., 2014). However Capps et al., (1992) found that
identifying emotion in ASD is in fact unharmed. The current study aimed to explore these
inconsistencies, by introducing alexithymia (a sub-clinical construct described as difficulty to
recognise emotional states. The current study hypothesised that that there would be
significant correlations between autistic traits, empathy and alexithymia, More specifically, it
was further hypothesised that alexithymia would act as a potential mediator between the
autistic traits and empathy relationship in an attempt to explain the lack of empathy
expressed. The Autistic Quotient (AQ), Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the Toronto Alexithymia
Scale-20 (TAS-20) were used and results were collected from 100 participants (n= 88
females and n=12 males) from the general population. Following a correlational analysis,
significant correlations were established between autistic traits, empathy and alexithymia.
After conducting a multiple regression analysis, the findings showed that alexithymia did not
act as a mediator in the relationship between autistic traits and empathy meaning it cannot
explain the low empathetic deficits that are expressed. These findings suggest that co-
occurring alexithymia is a possibility in explaining the emotional deficits of autism and
clinicians need to consider implementing this in the diagnostic principles.
Keywords
Autistic traits, empathy, emotion recognition, alexithymia, social understanding

Emotion Recognition in Social Understanding
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder
characterised by impairments in social communication and social interaction and restricted
and repetitive behaviours. More specially, deficits in social communication and social
interaction lead to complications in shared interests, emotions and are unable to initiate or
respond to social interactions. Nonverbal deficits in social interactions are also present in
ASD, ranging from abnormalities in eye contact and body language, deficits in understanding
gestures and the lack of facial expressions (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Kanner’s (1943) first description of autism mentioned the difficulty to share emotional states
with others. This inability to understand mental state and emotion recognition has been
established by several researchers since (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Hobson, 1993).
Emotion is a fundamental aspect required to experience social interaction and is
essentially needed for the process of development (Golan & Baron-Cohen, 2006) as it allows
the individuals to recognise the intentions of others to adopt an appropriate response (Bal, et
al., 2010). Emotion understanding is an appropriate concept to research in ASD, as the core
deficits in ASD involve social communication and social interaction deficits. Research
conducted in this area has resulted in some inconsistencies. A majority of findings have
established deficits in emotion (Hobson, 1986; Mazefsky & Oswald, 2007; Weeks & Hobson,
1987) however some research has found no evidence that there are impairments in emotion
(Adolphs, Sears & Piven, 2001; Castelli, 2005). Facial-emotion recognition is the
fundamental research carried out in this area; yet unclear results have been established, with
studies finding evidence for (Ashwin, Chapman, Colle & Baron-Cohen, 2006) and against
(Castelli, 2005) deficits of emotion-recognition in autism.

Persons with autism unveil a large selection of abnormalities in the social domain such
as impairment in using social gaze, inability of joint attention contact, lack in peer interest,
preference for companionless play and atypical affective behaviour (Frith, 1989; Sigman,
Mundy, Sherman & Ungerer, 1986; Tantam, 1992). Through observation, research has shown
that autistic individuals have a strange and inappropriate reaction to emotions when it comes
to other people (Loveland et al., 1997). Autistic individuals have demonstrated to intact
emotion abilities and emotion concepts involving happiness, sadness, fear and anger (Capps,
Yirmiya, & Sigman, 1992). However, they may express deficits in emotions that contradict
between their expectations and their knowledge e.g. surprise (Baron- Cohen, Spitz & Cross,
1993) and attempting to relate that emotional expression to a social context (Heerey, Keltner
& Capps, 2003). However, it has also been found that autistic individuals may understand
certain types of emotions for example those caused by desire but have difficulties in
understanding the emotions which may be caused by thoughts and beliefs (Baron-Cohen,
1991), indicating that emotion understanding of others is possible to an extent depending on
factors e.g. the nature of the emotion.
Key factors have been suggested as the reasons behind these inconsistent findings in
research, which need to be taken in consideration in future research. A meta-analysis review
conducted by Weigelt, Koldewyn and Kanwisher (2012) established that there are issues with
methodology as this was widely varied across studies, so thorough attention needs to be made
on what methodology is suitable to provide the reliable and accurate results. A second issue
with research developing inconsistent results is the differences in demographic variables e.g.
IQ and age. Some clusters are seen to show deficit in autism, as it may only be present in a
certain stage of development or a particular functioning range (Harms, Martin & Wallace,

2010). Finally, a call of concern is raised in research suggesting that subdivisions in the ASD
cohort are the reason behind these inconsistencies (Weigelt, Koldewyn & Kanwisher, 2012)
such as alexithymia, which future research needs to study.
An important component when looking into emotion is empathy. Empathy, a key
ability, is required in order to get through daily routines as it is the ability to understand the
feelings of other individuals and what their thoughts could be (Baron-Cohen and
Wheelwright, 2004; Decety & Lamm, 2006; Eisenberg, 2000; Wispé, 1986). It needs to be
noted that empathy involves two major components: affective empathy, the ability to share
feeling of others and cognitive empathy, the capacity to distinguish in self-other discrepancy
(Bird et al., 2010; Rogers, Dziobek, Hassentab, Wolf & Convit, 2007). When a person
empathises, the experience of emotional state of another person takes place, raising
consciousness that we are aware of our own mental states and the states of others (Eisenberg,
2000; de Vignemont & Singer, 2006). Empathy is considered to be a motivation to unselfish,
pro-social behaviour (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). On the other hand, studies by the likes of
Björkqvist, Österman, and Kaukiainen, (2000) and Geer, Estupinan, and Manguno-Mire,
(2000) have established that individuals who express a lack of empathy are related to anti-
social behaviour.
Research conducted on the ASD population has established that they have a weak
emotional (affective) empathy and cognitive empathy (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Blair, 1995;
Smith, 2009) and research has provided strong evidence those individuals with ASD
particularly have deficits in cognitive empathy (Baron-Cohen, 2002; Blair, 2005; Bons et al.,
2013). In regards to affective empathy, mixed results have been reported. No significant
difference was found between ASD adults and control on affective empathy when using the

Multifaceted Empathy Test (Dziobek et al., 2008). Similarly, Schwenck et al. (2012) found
alike results in children with an ASD diagnosis. Once the children watched video clips,
which expressed emotion, they were asked to indicate how much it had affected them.
Ratings provided by ASD children were no different to the control group of children.
Research has continued support this (Deschamps, Been & Matthys, 2014; Hadjikhani et al.,
2014). These studies therefore imply that the ASD population has an intact affective
empathy.
Yet, there is research that presents finding suggesting affective empathy in ASD is
limited. Sigman, Kasari, Kwon & Yirmiya (1992) observation on responses to adult distress
found that children with ASD expressed lower concern towards their parents and the
experimenter, compared to a control group. Similar findings have been resulted in adult ASD
populations, who showed limited responses whilst observing the pain of others, using
electromyography (Minio-Paluello, Baron-Cohen, Avenanti, Walsh & Aglioti, 2009). More
generally, research has found that individuals with ASD do understand the concept of
empathy.
Yirmiya, Sigman, Kasari and Mundy (1992) study established that to some extent
children with ASD did express empathy. Their research consisted of high-functioning (HF)
autistic children who watched a number of video clips of emotion being expressed by
children. Following each clip, they were required to identify what the emotion was.
Compared to a control group, who were not diagnosed with ASD, the HF autistic children
scored lower in identifying the emotion, illustrating difficulties in empathy. However,
Yirmiya et al., (1992) also reported that empathy was not completely absent. Inconsistent
findings raise concern on if the difficulties in emotional empathy are common across the

entire ASD population. The severity of autistic traits expressed by a certain sample size could
have an affect on the results. Research has found that HF autistics report lower empathy than
low-functioning (LF) autistic (Gleichgerrcht, Torralva, Rattazzi, Marencco, Roca & Manes,
2013), so the distinguish needs to be made on the severity of the traits. Also, methodological
flaws could be possible reason e.g. ignoring other potential sub-clinical constructs is the
reason behind the mixed results. From this suggestion, the current study was conducted.
More specifically, it was addressed that alexithymia could be co-occurring in the ASD
population and, to an extent, explain the impairment of emotion experience in ASD.
Alexithymia, a subclinical construct, has been defined and characterized by the deficit
in recognizing, describing and distinguishing feelings of emotional arousal from bodily
sensations (Nemiah, Freyberger & Sifneos, 1976; Taylor, Bagby & Parker, 1997). More
specific difficulties associated with high levels of alexithymia include poor social skills and
lack of interest with others. (Vaheule, Desmet, Meganck & Bogaerts, 2007). Alexithymia has
a prevalence rate of 10% in the general population (Salminen, Saarijärvi, Äärelä, Toikka &
Kauhanen, 1999) however between 40-65% of individuals with autism have been reported to
have alexithymia (Hill, Berthoz & Frith, 2004; Lambardo, Barnes, Wheelwright & Baron-
Cohen, 2007; Bird & Cook, 2013). Taylor, Bagby and Parker (1999) have associated increase
of alexithymia with failure to experience positive emotions, emotional distress, and limited
imagination. Even though there is a clear overlap in the difficulties experience in alexithymia
and ASD, the clinical profession has not taken much consideration in implementing
alexithymia as a possible reason for the deficits reported in ASD. It needs to be noted that
autism and alexithymia are independent constructs. For an ASD diagnosis, alexithymia is not
necessarily required and is not a universal in autism. Equally, large amounts of people
express severe levels of alexithymia, yet they do not demonstrate autistic-related symptoms.

This concept describes ‘the alexithymia hypothesis’ proposed by Bird & Cook (2013.
Recently, alexithymia has been associated with broader emotion research such autism.
Tani et al., (2003) research found that individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS)- a milder
form of autism- were more alexithymic compared to control individuals. One reason why
alexithymia is suspected to be a co-occurring construct with autism, as alexithymia traits are
associated with impairment in emotional recognition e.g. atypical ranking of emotional face
expressions (Lane et al., 1996; Swart, Kortekaas & Aleman, 2009). Hill, Berthoz & Frith
(2004) further found support after results established that 27 high functioning autistic adults
reported to have higher alexithymia, who were compared to a similar age group. Berthoz,
Lalanne, Crane & Hill (2013) found that more than half of the ASD sample in their study (37
ASD participants in total) were considered to be alexithymic. Bertnoz & Hill (2005) further
found that these traits in emotion were consistent and steady across time in ASD; therefore
implying that the role alexithymia has is a possibility for the emotion difficulties experienced
by ASD individuals.
The ability to identify emotional expressions has been found to be consistent and
similar for ASD individuals and those who were in an alexithymia control that was matched
(Cook, Brewer, Shah & Bird, 2013). Furthermore, the regression analysis carried out by
Cook et al (2013) revealed that alexithymia was the predictor of expression-attribution
precision, implying that alexithymia could possibly be a mediator in this relationship and
could explain the difficulty in empathizing. Recent research conducted by Aaron, Benson &
Park (2015) established that alexithymia is one possible mechanism that can explain
empathetic deficits found in ASD traits in the general population. This was supported by
previous research conducted by Lockwood, Bird, Bridge and Viding (2013). Both Aaron et

al., (2015) and Lockwood et al., (2013) found that alexithymia did not mediate empathy as a
whole, but aspects of it. Even though ASD as a whole is assumed to be associated with
empathetic deficits, Silani et al., (2008) and Bird et al., (2010) established that those ASD
participants with higher levels of alexithymia expressed more empathetic deficits. Reflecting
back to empathy, research has found that affective empathy is the primary reason for the
impairment in alexithymia (Silani, et al., 2008). This study found that the ability to report and
distinguish one own emotion was impaired and this was associated with alexithymia and
anterior insula activation. Anterior insula and alexithymia levels are also associated with self-
reported empathy scores. Similar relationship between empathy, anterior insula and
alexithymia were found in both ASD individuals and typical adults, suggesting that
alexithymia is co-occurring with ASD and can also be present in a typically developing
population, yet as an independent construct (Bird et al, 2010; Press & Richardson, 2011)
This research has been supported in several studies (Allen, Davis, & Hill, 2013; Bird &
Cook, 2013; Heaton et al., 2012). Further imaging research has established that individuals
who are high in alexithymia, present neural responses which are abnormal when doing tasks
that evoke empathy (Moriguchi et al., 2007). The ‘shared- network hypothesis’ is a possible
theory that can be used to explain the relationship between alexithymia and deficits in
empathy. This theory is based on the fact that networks associated with processing ones own
emotion are the exact neural networks used to process the emotions of others (Singer &
Lamm, 2009).
Traits that were only considered to be associated with autism are now become part of a
broader concept of individual differences in the general population (Constantino & Todd,
2003). Researchers believe that traits associated with ASD now lie on a continuum and can

be present in typically developing individuals, but the autistic traits are at a lower severity.
Regardless of this, a diagnosis of ASD is not necessarily given. Researchers have studied
these traits, known as Broader Autism Phenotypes (BAP), (Bailey et al., 1995) in family
members of those with ASD and in the general population. This development of the
continuum approach led Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin and Clubley’s (2001)
to generate the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ)- a self-administrated instrument to measure
the degree to which traits associated with the autistic continuum are present in adults with
normal intelligence- hence this measure was used in this study.
In their study, they carried out the assessment on the general population members,
individuals with Aspergers Syndrome (AS) or high functioning autism (HFA), students from
Cambridge University and the Mathematics Olympiad winners. They established that ASD
individuals scored significantly higher than the general population, as expected. Furthermore,
they found that students studying a science related course scored higher than those studying a
social science or humanities related score. Research however has been conducted on relatives
of individuals with ASD (BAP), with findings establishing that they present mild forms of
autistic traits, which are not strong enough for an ASD diagnosis. Correlations carried
between autistic traits and empathy on the general population has found that higher levels of
empathy correlated to lower autistic traits (Gökçen, Petrides, Hudry, Fredericks & Smillie,
2014). This is especially true as ASD and autistic traits are known to be across the same
continuum, therefore the severity varies (Robinson, Munir, McCormick, Koenen &
Santangelo, 2011).
Studies have established that parents of ASD children expressed more social difficulty
behaviours e.g. unsocial and lack of feelings expressed (Piven et al, 1997; Piven et al., 1994;

Wolff, Narayan & Moyes, 1988) and cognitive deficits. Szatmari et al., (2008) found that
parents with autistic children scored higher on alexithymia measurement tests compared to
controls. Further support of this came from a review of 1300 reports (Hughes, 2009), which
established that alexithymia was a psychological change parents with autistic children
experienced. Several researchers (Austin, 2005; Hurst, Mitchell, Kimbrel, Kwapil & Nelson-
Gray, 2007; Stewart & Austin, 2009) have established that a ‘social’ difficulty is a common
element in the general population, and heightened alexithymia levels have been reflected in
the population with ASD traits (Lockwood et al., 2013). Skuse, Mandy, & Scourfield (2005)
suggested that the continuum allowed the general population to explore further about the
severity of autistic. As the traits are distributed across the population, understanding the
borderline of severity was difficult and limited. Therefore, this continuum being functional to
the general populations overcomes these doubts and knowledge is gained on the traits
associated with autism
Thus, the current study wanted to look further at the findings established by Aaron et al
(2015), in order to examine the role alexithymia played in the relationship between autistic
traits and empathy. By addressing sub-groups, it provided an attempt to explain why
empathetic deficits are associated with autistic traits and it addressed the inconsistency of
findings from previous literature. Secondly, this study allowed to explore the possibility that
alexithymia could be a co-occurring factor, providing a foundation in why research findings
vary in understanding if empathy deficits is associated with higher levels of autistic traits.
The findings of the study could be applied to both the general population and to an extent the
ASD population as a majority of autistic individuals display alexithymic traits. From this, the
current aims were to look at the relationship between autistic traits, empathy and alexithymia,
using a sample of the general population. More specifically, this study wanted to explore the

role of alexithymia in relation to empathetic deficits by studying if alexithymia acted as
mediator between the autistic trait and empathy relationship. The current study proposed the
following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: There will be a decrease in empathy when the autistic trait levels are
higher in the general population sample.
Hypothesis 2: An increase in autistic traits will associate with higher levels of
alexithymia.
Hypothesis 3: There will be a significant negative relationship between alexithymia
and empathy.
Hypothesis 4: Alexithymia will act as a mediator between autistic traits and empathy,
providing an explanation to the low empathy experienced in autistic individuals.

Methods
Design and analysis
A questionnaire survey design was employed in this study consisting of one
independent variable (autistic traits) and one dependent variables (empathy) and a mediator
variable (alexithymia). Correlations and multiple regression analysis were run on the data
using IBM SPSS version 21.0.
Piloting
A pilot study was conducted prior to the current research study, using the AQ, EQ and
TAS-20 on sample of controls that was separate from the actual study (n=15). This was
carried out to establish if the required time frame provided (30 minutes) was sufficient
enough and to establish whether the participants understood the statements and items
provided on each scale. A statistical test was not conducted on the data collected, as the
sample size was small, however all the instruments seemed acceptable to use in this study.
Participants
The current study recruited 100 participants (88 females, 12 male) through
opportunity sampling. The participant’s age ranged from 18- 29 (M= 19.92, SD= 1.52). A
majority of the participants were from a white background (White British- 26%, White other
background- 15%). Participants were collected via opportunity sampling. Roehampton
University Psychology participants who took part for course credits (0.5 credits) signed up

through the Roehampton University SONA website. Other external participants were
recruited through social media e.g. email, Facebook and Twitter, which was ethically
approved by the Roehampton University Psychology Extended Research Ethics Committee
(Appendix A)
Measures and materials
A Consent form (Appendix B) was present before the study began and a debrief form
(Appendix C) was provided once the study had been completed. A demographics
questionnaire was also presented (Appendix E).
The Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) (Appendix F)
The AQ is a fifty-item questionnaire, which measures traits of autism in adults with
normal intelligence (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin & Clubley, 2001). This
self-administrated instrument is used in scientific purposes- who is ‘affected’ and who is not
and comparison of cases- and also for application – for screening purposes for potential
individuals, providing a referral for diagnosis. Five distinct components of structure are used
in measuring autistic traits; 1) poor social skills (e.g. ‘I enjoy social chit-chat’, reverse scored,
2) attention to switching (e.g. ‘It does not upset me if my daily routine is disturbed’), 3)
attention to detail, (e.g. ‘ I tend to notice details others do not’), 4) poor communication (e.g.
‘I frequently find that I don’t know how to keep a conversation going’) and 5) imagination
(e.g. ‘If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind’). A
four-range Likert scale was used where respondents answered each item on a scale from
“definitely agree” (1) to “definitely disagree” (4). A scoring method proposed by Baron-

Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin & Clubey (2001) was used; answers that were more to
the ‘autistic’ direction were given a score of 1, and answers toward the ‘non-autistic’ side
were given the score of 0. The AQ has demonstrated to have an acceptable internal
consistency and inter-rater reliability (Allison, Auyeung & Baron-Cohen, 2012; Baron-
which
is not within the internal consistency. In order to make this acceptable, the attention to detail
subscale was removed (-
The Empathy Quotient (EQ) (Appendix G)
The EQ is a forty-item self- assessment questionnaire, which was used to measure
empathy on adults with normal intelligence (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). This scale
is intended to measure how easily you are able to pick up the feelings of other people and
how strongly you are affected by other people’s feelings. This instrument was measured on a
4 point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (4). The EQ
consists of 3 subscales: 1) Cognitive Empathy (CE) (e.g. ‘I can tune into how someone else
feels rapidly and intuitively’), 2) Emotional Reactivity (ER) (e.g. ‘seeing other people cry
does not really upset me’) and Social Skills (SS) (e.g. ‘ I find it hard to know what to do in a
social situation’. Participants were asked to score each item to their agreement for example
‘Friendships and relationships are just too difficult’ or ‘It is hard for me to see why some
things upset people so much. The EQ scores are 2, 1 or 0 depending on the statement and the
ithin the moderate
range. Factors were not removed, as this would lower the reliability and validity. However
the EQ has shown acceptable internal consistency, convergent validity and concurrent

validity (Preti et al., 2011; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004
.62 was accepted.
Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) (Appendix H)
The TAS-20 is a instrument designed to measure deficits in emotion processing in
adults (Bagby, Parker & Taylor, 1994). It is a twenty-item self-report questionnaire that looks
into the deficits in communication, processing in cognitive ways and identification, key
characteristics associated with alexithymia (Taylor, 1995). Scores are answered across a five-
point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The TAS-20
consists of three subscales; 1) Difficulty Identifying Feelings (F1), 2) Difficulty Describing
Feelings (F2), and 3) Externally -Orientated Thinking (F3). Factor 1 (DIF) consists of seven
items, looking at being able to identify feelings (e.g., ‘ When I am upset, I don’t know if I am
sad, frightened, or angry’). Factor 2 (DDF) contains of five items looking at the ability to
involve other people in describing their feelings (e.g., ‘ People tell me to describe my feelings
more’). Finally, factor 3 (EOT) involves eight items, looking into thinking which is
externally oriented (e.g., ‘ I prefer talking to people about their daily activities rather than
their feelings’). The TAS-20 has demonstrated strong reliability across several researches
Bagby, 2003; Hale, 2012). A Cronbach’s alpha of .58 was resulted, which is not within in the
internal consistency of reliability. After the remova

Procedure
The current study was an online-based study, with all the required materials- consent
form, demographics, and measureable questionnaires and debrief form- presented on an
online platform called Qualtrics®, (Qualtrics Lab Inc., Provo, UT). Participants were
required to confirm that they were over the age of 18 and were required to agree to the
consent form. They were asked to provide a 6-digit participant ID that would be used to
identify each participant and be used if the participants wanted to withdraw from the study.
Before the questionnaires were presented, respondents were required to complete a
demographic questionnaire, which asked them general questions (e.g. gender, ethnicity, year
of study etc.). Participants were presented to each questionnaire and were required to provide
one answer for each statement on the Likert scale. Once all the questions were answered and
submitted, a debrief form was presented, outling the true nature of the study and information
regarding any additional support they may require was provided. The questionnaires were
counterbalanced to avoid order effect.

Results
Mean, standard deviations and range scores of the total scores and subscale scores of
each questionnaire (AQ, TAS-20 and EQ) are presented in table 1.
Table 1- Showing the mean, standard deviation and range of the total score and
subscale scores.
N=100 Mean(SD) Range
AQ Total Score a 17.04 (6.35) 3.00- 32.00
AQ SS a1 2.39 (2.16) .00-8.00
AQ AS a2 4.76 (2.12) .00- 10.00
AQ AD a3 5.25 (2.32) .00-10.00
AQ C a4 2.50 (1.97) .00- 8.00
AQ I a5 2.14 (1.73) .00- 7.00
EQ Total Score b 44.73 (11.59) .00- 70.00
EQ CE b1 13.12 (4.60) .00- 22.00
EQ ER b2 13.83 (4.34) .00- 22.00
EQ SS b3 5.60 (2.40) .00- 11.00
TAS- 20 Total Score c 48.64 (10.49) 27.00- 80.00
TAS F1 c1 17.00 (6.05) 7.00- 30.00
TAS F2 c2 13.26 (4.21) 5.00- 24.00
TAS F3 c3 18.38 (3.60) 9.00- 27.00
Notes: N= number of participants
aAdult Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin &
Clubley,1991)
a1 AQ Social Skills; a2 AQ Attention Switching; a3 AQ Attention to Detail; a4 AQ
Communication; a5 AQ Imagination,
b Empathy Quotient (EQ) (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004)
b1 EQ Cognitive Empathy; b2 EQ Emotional Reactivity; b3EQ Social Skills
c Toronto Alexithymia Scale- 20 (TAS-20) (Bagby Parker & Taylor, 1994)
c1 TAS- 20 Difficulty Identifying Feelings; c2 TAS- 20 Difficulty Describing Feelings;
c3 TAS-20 Externally- Orientated Thinking

Skewness and Kurtosis
The skewness value was looked at to test for normality and the kurtosis value was
looked at to test for homogeneity of variance. The value given for skewness was .50 for the
Autistic Quotient, -.81 for the Empathy Quotient and .36 for the TAS-20, which are within
the acceptable range. The kurtosis for the Autistic Quotient was .48, 1.47 for the Empathy
Quotient and -.051 for the TAS-20, which are all within the acceptable range. The data
should therefore be treated as normally distributed for each variable. The data was measured
at an interval level, meaning that the data met the parametric assumptions and therefore a
parametric Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation was used to determine the relationship
between the variables.
It needs to be noted that the attention to detail (AD) subscale from the Adult Autism
Spectrum Quotient and factor 3 (externally orientated thinking) from the Toronto
Alexithymia Scale-20 was removed, therefore it was not analysed and will not be discussed.
Correlation analysis
A correlational analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between autistic
traits, alexithymia and empathy. Further correlation analyses were conducted on the subscales
of each measure, as shown in table 2.
To test the hypothesis on the relationship between autistic traits and empathy, a
Pearson’s Correlation was carried out on the AQ total scores and the EQ total scores. This
correlation revealed a significant negative relationship between autistic traits and empathy

from a correlational coefficient, r= -.46, p<. 01. This therefore suggests that higher levels of
autistic traits relates to lower empathy, as shown in figure 1.
Figure 1-A scatterplot graph showing a negative relationship between autistic traits and
empathy.
More specifically, a significant negative correlation was found between the AQ social
skills subscale and the cognitive empathy subscale from the EQ, r=-.22, p<. 05 and a negative
correlation was established between the AQ social skills subscale and the EQ emotional
reactivity subscale, r= -.23, p<. 05. This suggests that an increase in poor social skills causes
impairment on the ability to describe feelings and associated those feeling to the self.
Furthermore, a significant negative correlation was established between the AQ social skills
subscale and the EQ social skills subscale, r=-.47, p<. 01.
The only significant negative correlation found for the AQ attention to switching
score in association with the EQ was with the social skill subscale, r=-37, p< .01. A Pearson’s
correlations between the AQ communication subscale and the EQ cognitive empathy
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
EmpathyQuotientTotalScore
Autistic Quotient Total Score

subscale revealed a negative relationship, r = -.43, p< .01. This therefore suggests that as the
deficit in communicating increased, it caused a decrease impact on the recognising the
thoughts and feelings of others. Communication was also negatively correlated with EQ’s
emotional reactivity r=-.40, p<. 01 and EQ’s social skills r=-.41, p<. 01. Correlations were
carried out on the AQ imagination subscale. AQ imagination was significantly negatively
correlated with EQ subscale of cognitive empathy, r= -.37, p< .01. Imagination was also
negatively correlated with AQ subscale emotive reactivity, r=. 45, p< .01 and negatively
correlated with EQ social skills subscale, r= -.23, p< .05.
A second correlation was carried and analysed to test the hypothesis on the
relationship between autistic traits and alexithymia. This analysis revealed a significant
positive relationship between autistic traits and alexithymia, r= .35, p< .01 as expected. This
implies that higher levels of autistic traits relate to higher levels of alexithymia, as shown in
figure 2.
Figure 2- A scatterplot graph showing the positive relationship between the autistic
quotient scale and the TAS-20 scale.
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 10 20 30 40
TAS-20TotalScores
AQ Total Scores

Looking more specifically into the subscales, the social skills subscale from the AQ
correlated a positive correlation with factor 1 from the TAS- 20, r=. 21, p<. 05 and positively
correlated with factor 2 of the TAS-20, r=. 28, p<. 01. The attention to switching subscale
positively correlated with factor 1 r= .37 and factor 2 from the TAS-20, r=. 33, p<. 01. The
communication subscale from the AQ was significantly correlated with factor 1 of the TAS-
20, r=. 23, p<. 05 and factor 2 of the TAS-20, r= .36, p<. 01. A further significant correlation
was established between the AQ imagination subscale and factor 1 subscale of the TAS-20,
r=. 25, p<. 05. The imagination subscale also correlated positively with the factor 2 subscale,
r= .39, p<. 01.
Furthermore, a Pearson’s correlation was carried to test the hypothesis on the
relationship between alexithymia and empathy. The correlation revealed a significant
negative correlation between empathy and alexithymia, r= -.37, p< .01. This finding implies
that as levels of alexithymia increased, a decrease in empathy was experienced as shown in
figure 3.
Figure 3- A scatterplot graph showing a negative correlation between the empathy
quotient total score and the TAS- 20 total score.
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 20 40 60
TAS20TotalScore
Empathy Quotient Total Score

Final correlations were carried out on the subscales from the EQ and the TAS-20. A
significant negative correlation was established between the EQ emotional reactivity subscale
and factor 1 from the TAS-20, r= -.20, p< .05. Emotional reactivity also had a negative
relationship with factor 2 r=-.23, p<. 05. EQ social skill subscale was correlated negatively
with the factor 1 of TAS-20, r= -.38, p< .01 and also negatively correlated with factor 2 of the
same scale, r=-.26, p< .01. No correlations were found between the cognitive empathy
subscale from the EQ and any of the factors from the TAS-20 questionnaire.

Table 2- Showing the Pearson’s correlations between each subscale from the AQ, TAS-20 and EQ.
Note: *p<. 05 **p<. 01 ***p<. 001 (two –tailed)
AQ SS AQ AS AQ
AD
AQ C AQ I TAS F1 TAS F2 TAS F3 EQ CE EQ ER EQ SS
AQ SS -- .424** -.008 .580** .304** .207* .277** .052 -.220* -.228* -.471**
AQ AS .424** -- -.069 .393** .215* .371** .329** -.210* -.101 -.100 -.371**
AQ AD -.008 -.069 -- -.056 .072** -.049 .020 -.177 .118 -.059 .053
AQ C .580** .393** -.056 -- .532 .228* .364** .131 -.431** -.398** -.409**
AQ I .304** .215** .072 .532** -- .249* .384** .262** -.386** -.453** -.230*
TAS F1 .207* .371** -.049 .228* .249* -- .631** .142 -.181 -.202* -.377**
TAS F2 .277** .329** .020 .364** .384** .631** -- .151 -.149 -.232* -261**
TAS F3 .052 -210* -.177 .131 .262** .142 .151 -- -.236* -.304** -.134
EQ CE -.220* -.101 .118 -.431** -.386** -.181 -.149 -.236* -- .436** .339*
EQ ER -.228* -.100 -.059 -.398** -.453** -.202* -.232* -.304** .436** -- .360**
EQ SS -.471** -.371** .053 -.409** -.230* -.377** -.261** -.134 .339* .360** --

EMOTION RECOGNITION IN SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING 25
Multiple Regression Analysis- Mediation
Figure 4- Alexithymia presented as a possible mediator between autistic traits and
empathy. Standardised values (β-, p- and R2) are presented. Values associatedwith
hypothesis 4 (the mediator alongside the predictor in the analysis of the outcome
variable) are presented in brackets.
Multiple Regression Analysis (Mediation)
A multiple regression analysis was carried out to examine a possible mediation
(alexithymia) between autistic traits and empathy relationship. This was investigated using
the procedure proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986). For a mediator variable to be
considered, the following criteria needs to be met; a) the predictor significantly affects the
change in the mediator (i.e., Path from autistic traits to alexithymia); b) a significant
relationship is needed between the mediator and the outcome variable (i.e., Path alexithymia
to empathy); c) change in levels of the predictor variable significantly changes the outcome
(i.e., the total effect on autistic traits and empathy is significant); and d) the previous
β= -.37, p<. 001
R2= .14

β= .35, p<. 001,
R2= .12

Alexithymia
Autistic Traits Empathy
β= -.47, p<. 001, R2= .20
(β=-.38, p<. 001, R2= .26)

significant correlation between the predictor variable and outcome becomes no longer
significant when the previous paths are controlled for, with a mediation be the strongest when
the predictor variable to outcome variable path is zero.
Referring to figure 4, criterion a) was met as there was a significant positive
relationship between autistic traits levels and alexithymia, β= .35, p< .001, R2=. 12. Criterion
b) was also met, with a significant negative relationship between alexithymia and empathy,
β=-.37, p < .001, R2=. 14. Also, criterion c) was satisfied as a significant positive correlation
was established between autistic traits and empathy, β=-.47, p< .001, R2=. 20. However,
criterion d) was not met in this study as the relationship between autistic traits and empathy
remained significant once the mediator was controlled for β= -38, p<. 001, R2= .26, therefore
implying that the alexithymia mediator cannot be accepted and that a mediation effect did not
occur between autistic traits and empathy.
Discussion
In the present study, the aim was to establish and evaluate the relationship between
autistic traits, empathy and alexithymia. More specifically, the current study wanted to look
further at the contribution alexithymia has on affecting emotion understanding by acting as a
potential mediator in the relationship. The findings of this study revealed significant
correlations between the variables, supporting three hypotheses, however the mediation
hypothesis regarding alexithymia was not supported. Subscale correlations were also
conducted to see specifically where the strongest significant correlations occurred.
In this study, it was hypothesised that there will be a decrease in the level of empathy
expressed when there is an increase in the level of autistic traits. From the results and analysis

conducted, this hypothesis was supported as the correlational analysis revealed a significant
negative correlation between autistic traits and empathy; therefore ‘the alexithymia
hypothesis’ (Bird & Cook, 2013) was supported. Results from previous research measuring
traits associated with ASD and empathy were replicated, illustrating that regardless of being
diagnosed with ASD, those reporting higher autistic traits are reported to have lower empathy
levels, with the literature being consistent (Baron-Cohen, 2002; Smith, 2009; Bons et al,
2013). This finding, like previous literature, supports the idea that autistic traits across the
continuum are associated with deficits in social communication and social interaction, with
empathy being a key component within this. This further indicates that those individuals that
express a higher level of autistic traits find it more difficult to attribute and understand the
emotions of others and struggle to know how these emotions affects them.
When correlating the autistic trait subscales with the empathy subscales, significant
correlations were established through all. Unsurprisingly, the strongest negative correlation
was recognised in poor social skills associated with autistic traits and social skills in empathy.
Previous research literature has supported this with results focusing on parents with ASD
children who have reported to articulate more social difficulties e.g. unsocial and limited
feeling behaviours (Piven et al, 1997; Wolff et al, 1988). This has also been illustrated on the
general population with research finding showing that typically developing individuals’
express difficulties associated with social interaction (Autsin, 2005; Hurst et al, 2007). From
the current findings and previous literature, it is evident that deficits in social communication
and social interaction is present in the general population, suggesting that this deficit could
potentially explain the difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication and restriction on
expressing feelings, which is associated with empathy.

It was also hypothesised that an increase in autistic traits would be associated with an
increase of alexithymia related traits. As expected, the results from this study supported this
hypothesis, with the Pearson’s correlation revealing a positive correlation between the two.
Previous literature looking into this relationship between alexithymia and traits associated
with autism have illustrated consistent finding to that of the current study. Research has
established that parents of autistic individuals – the general population- scored higher on
alexithymia measurements compared to a control group (Hughes, 2009; Szatmari, et al,
2008). Further research done has illustrated this more specifically in an ASD sample, with a
milder form of autism –Asperger’s Syndrome (AS)- (Tani et al, 2003) and high functioning
autistics (Hill et al, 2004) both scoring higher on the alexithymia measurement. This
therefore implies that alexithymia is a construct that is present across the autistic continuum,
in both ASD individuals and the general population. Furthermore, this result provides the
foundation that alexithymia, not autism, explains the deficits in empathy, which needs to be
taken into consideration.
Further subscale correlations were conducted to establish where specifically in the
general population sample autistic traits were associated with trait alexithymia. Interestingly,
the strongest positive correlation of significance was between the lack of imagination
subscale associated with autistic traits and the difficulty to describe feelings, which is linked
with alexithymia. From this, it can be suggested that individuals with a poorer imagination
are unable to form an image regarding others feelings, leading to the inability to describe the
feelings of others. This has been supported by previous research done by Taylor et al (1999),
which associated alexithymia traits to emotional distress and impaired imagination. From this
study and previous research it is evident that the traits associated with ASD and alexithymia
traits have a crossover effect and overlap.

It was further hypothesised that there would be a significant negative relationship
between alexithymia and empathy. This hypothesis was supported in this study as the
correlation analysis revealed that higher levels of alexithymia traits were associated to lower
levels of empathy. Research from previous studies assessing alexithymia to explain the
deficit in empathy has supported this hypothesis with studies focusing on neurobiological
results, illustrating that affective empathy impairment is due to alexithymia and is associated
with the activation in the anterior insula. (Silani et al., 2009; Allen, et al., 2013). More recent
literature has stated that similar relationships between alexithymia and empathy have been
resulted in ASD individuals and typically developing adults (Bird et al, 2013; Heaton et al,
2012), providing support to the results established in the current study. With this outcome,
the ‘shared-network hypothesis’ (Singer et al, 2009) can be accepted, as there is possibility
that the participants, especially near the higher end of the autistic trait continuum, were prone
to using the same neural pathways, causing difficulties in their emotion understanding. This
outcome suggests that alexithymia is a possible construct that can impact the empathy levels
expressed in the general population. Furthermore, when considering the ASD population, this
could explain that alexithymia is reason for the deficits in empathy recognition and
understanding.
When analysing the subscale correlations between alexithymia traits and empathy, a
strong significant correlation was established between the difficulties in identifying feelings
(alexithymia) and poor social skills (empathy). Previous research has supported this finding
as it has been reported that those with increase levels of alexithymia traits are more like to
express distance in social functioning and become more detached from other people (Vaheule
et al, 2007). This is a crucial result as it implies that alexithymia traits could potentially be a

root cause in the difficulties experienced in social situations for both ASD individuals and
those in the general population.
Overall, the correlational analysis findings between autistic traits, alexithymia traits
and empathy illustrate strong evidence that three variables link one another, and to an extent,
the deficits associated with them overlap. These findings are a significant step to addressing
inconsistent literature on the outcome associated with autistic traits and empathy. When
previous research looked at the findings relating autistic traits to deficits in empathy, varying
results were reported (Deschamps et al, 2014; Sigman et al, 1992). These inconsistencies
could be due to the group sample that was used in the research, with some participants having
higher alexithymia traits in ASD samples compared to non-ASD samples. Due to the high
occurrence of alexithymia in the ASD population compared to the non-ASD population,
samples using ASD would possess more alexithymic traits. Furthermore, the strong
correlation between alexithymia traits and autistic traits is a significant step in providing a
foundation that alexithymia could coincide with autistic traits as a construct that can perhaps
explain the deficits experienced in ASD.
A key-underlying problem with the results presented is the findings are based on
correlations, raising an issue on the cause and effect of the results. Even though the results
showed that there was association between the two variables, be it a positive correlation or a
negative correlation, there is no control over whether the outcome variable could cause the
predictor variable. For example, a negative correlation was established between autistic traits
and empathy. However, it is unknown whether lower levels of empathy from beforehand
resulted into the participant reporting more increase levels of autistic traits.

A final and primary aim of this study was to explore the possibility that a mediator
could explain the relationship between autistic traits relating to lower empathy. The
hypothesis proposed that alexithymia, a sub-clinical independent construct, would act as a
mediator between autistic traits and empathy, providing a reason on why deficits in empathy
are reported. However, following a multiple regression analysis, the findings revealed that
alexithymia did not mediate the relationship between autistic traits and empathy when the
variable was controlled for therefore the hypothesis was not supported. This finding was
unexpected and goes against the previous research regarding this, which established that there
was a possibility alexithymia was a mediator when testing expression-attribution in ASD
individuals (Cook et al, 2013). Due to the lack of previous research analysing alexithymia as
a mediator in this relationship and the inconsistency of results, no concrete conclusion should
be made regarding the role alexithymia plays when regarding deficits in empathy.
Even though the current study was able to establish a correlation between autistic
traits and alexithymia traits in a healthy population sample, the mediation hypothesis had to
be rejected, as the study found that alexithymia did not have a mediating effect. This finding,
to some extent, supports previous literature as the nature of alexithymia as a mediator has
never been fully supported (Aaron et al, 2015; Lockwood et al, 2013). One possible reason
this mediating effect may not have occurred could be due to the population used in the study.
As the sample consisted of individuals of the general population, the severity levels of
autistic traits is much milder compared to individuals with autism, therefore the empathy
difficulties they reported may not be considered as severe deficits. The fact that alexithymia
did not explain the reduced empathy in ASD traits is interesting as previous recent research
has suggested that alexithymia traits does predict the empathy processing deficits in ASD
(Bird & Cook, 2013).

More general limitations of this study are the use of self-report questionnaires to
measure autistic traits, empathy and alexithymia traits. One issue with using such measures
the lack of control the researcher has on a providing answer that is adherence to the study.
For example when analysing the raw data, several participants’ scores were not true the
statements provided, causing inconsistencies with the rest of data and this therefore could
potentially be the reason in the low significant findings found. Also, some participants may
find it difficult to judge their own empathy, so future research needs to consider using
measures of empathy that allows the participants to express themselves e.g. interviews. This
also goes for alexithymia, as questionnaire measures and interviews are only used to measure
alexithymia, however with the reduced insight into ASD traits across the continuum, these
measures are seem to be problematic. Finally, with the removal of the attention to detail
subscale from the AQ and the removal of factor 3 from the TAS-20, the results from these
scales was not included in the final analysis. This raises questions on the reliability of the
questionnaires and results provided. Also, the participants were not pre-screened for autism
and alexithymia like traits, which needs to be done in the future research.
The current research has addressed several issues that were reported in previous
literature. The inconsistency in results was a concern in previous research however the
current study addressed those inconsistencies and established that empathy deficits are
associated with autistic traits across the continuum. By measuring alexithymia traits, the
current study has taken in consideration that sub-clinical constructs need to be considered
when looking at deficits associated with autism and autistic traits. Results have shown that
higher levels of alexithymia traits are associated with increase autistic traits and lower
empathy. This therefore provides a solid foundation that alexithymia could be the reason for

the social communication and social interaction deficits elevated in autistic traits, providing
implications in the attempt to understand empathetic deficits and strong external validity.
More importantly, the current research has illustrated that traits and deficits that are primarily
associated with ASD’s can be present in the general population, therefore supporting the idea
that autistic traits are presented across the continuum and are distributed. Even though an
ASD sample was not used in this experiment, the findings can to an extent be applied to help
with the diagnosis of the condition and be used to implement interventions. For example,
Ogrodniczuk, Sochting, Piper and Joyce (2012) found that following a 15-week intervention,
outpatient psychiatric patients showed improvement in alexithymia traits such as
interpersonal symptoms, and this maintained for over 3 months in a follow up. Such intensive
interventions could possible help the ASD population.
With the present and previous findings and the increase incidence of alexithymia in
ASD reported in preceding research, consideration needs to be taken in applying alexithymia
in the clinical and theoretical foundation. The results added to the vast amount of literature
may conclude that co-occurring alexithymia is the reason behind the emotion understanding
impairments associated with autism and autistic traits. Further research needs to be conducted
on the role alexithymia has on empathetic deficits, preferable using more suitable
methodology, as this has essential implications of intervention and could possibly result in
revising the diagnostic criteria for ASD. Future research needs to be conducted on this
interesting sub-clinical construct, by opting to use a matching ASD group, control group with
alexithymia and the general population and explore other sub-groups that could impact
deficits associated with ASD. A longitudinal study could also be considered to see how
across time, from early childhood to adulthood, higher levels of alexithymia traits could

affect individual’s empathy in both the typically developing population, and more crucially in
the ASD population.
Conclusion
The current study established significant correlations between autistic traits, empathy
and alexithymia, in a typically developing healthy population. This finding illustrated that
empathy is a deficit associated with increase autistic levels, addressing inconsistent finding in
the previous literature. More importantly, the correlations revealed that alexithymia could be
co-occurring factor in explaining the empathetic deficits. Results found that alexithymia did
not act as mediator between the autistic trait and empathy relationship. As the population was
a general population sample, the continuum approach can be accepted. This result is
consistent with previous findings from the ASD literature and the findings can be applied to
the ASD population, allowing clinical interventions to be placed and providing a foundation
that alexithymia is a contributor to deficits in empathy.

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Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217-
250.
Lambardo, M.V., Barnes, J.L., Wheelwright, S. J., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2007). Self-
referential cognition and empathy in autism. PLoS One, 2, 883.
Lane, R.D., Sechrest, L., Riedel, R., Weldon, V., Kaszniak, A., & Schwartz, G.E.
(1996). Impaired verbal and non-verbal emotion recognition in alexithymia.
Psychosomatic Medicine, 58, 203-210.
Lockwood, P.L., Bird, G., Bridge, M., & Viding, E. (2013). Dissecting empathy: high
levels of psychotic and autistic traits are characterized by difficulties in different
social information processing domains. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 7.

Loveland, K.A., Tunali-Kotoski, B.E.L.G.I.N., Chen, Y. R., Oretgon, J., Pearson, D.A.,
Brelsford, K.A., & Gibbs, M.C. (1997). Emotion recognition in autism: Verbal
and nonverbal information. Development and psychopathology, 9, 579-593.
Mazefsky, C.A., & Oswald, D.P. (2007). Emotion perception in Asperger’s syndrome
and high-functioning autism: The importance of diagnostic criteria and cue and
intensity. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1086-1095.
Minio-Paluello, I., Baron-Cohen, S., Avenanti, A., Walsh, V., & Aglioti, S.M. (2009).
Absence of embodied empathy during pain observation in Asperger Syndrome.
Biological Psychiatry, 65, 55-62.
Moriguchi, Y., Decety, J., Ohnishi, T., Maeda, M., Mori, T., Nemoto, K., … &
Komaki, G. (2007). Empathy and judging other’s pain: an fMRI study of
alexithymia. Cerebral Cortex, 17, 2223-2234.
Nemiah, J.C., Freyberger, H., & Sifneos, P.E. (1976). Alexithymia: a view of the
psychosomatic process. Modern trends in psychosomatic medicine, 3, 430-439.
Ogrodniczuk, J. S., Sochting, I., Piper, W. E., & Joyce, A. S. (2012). A naturalistic
study of alexithymia among psychiatric outpatients treated in an integrated group
therapy program. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and
Practice, 85, 278-291

Parker, J. D., Taylor, G. J., & Bagby, R. M. (2003). The 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia
Scale III. Reliability and factorial validity in a community population. Journal of
psychosomatic research, 55, 269-275.
Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D., & Childress, D. (1997).
Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence
autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics, 74, 398-411.
Piven, J., Wzorek, M., Landa, R., Lainhart, J., Bolton, P., Chase, G.A., & Folstein, S.
(1994). Personality characteristics of the parents of the autistic individuals.
Psychological Medicine, 24, 783-795.
Preti, A., Vellante, M., Baron-Cohen, S., Zucca, G., Petretto, D. R., & Masala, C.
(2011). The Empathy Quotient: A cross- cultural comparison of the Italian
version. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 16, 50-70.
Robinson, E.B., Koenen, K.C., McCormick, M.C., Munir, K., Hallett, V., Happé, F., …
Ronald, A. (2011). Evidence that autistic traits show the same etiology in the
general population and at the quantitative extremes (5%, 2.5%, and 1%). Archives
of General Psychiatry, 68, 1113-1121.
Rogers, K., Dziobek, I., Hassenstab, J., Wolf, O. T., Convit, A. (2007). Who cares?
Revisiting empathy in Aspergers syndrome. Journal of autism and development
disorders, 37, 709-715.

Salminen, J. K., Saarijärvi, S., Äärelä, E., Toikka, T., & Kauhanen, J. (1999).
Prevalence of alexithymia and its association with sociodemographic variables in
the general population of Finland. Journal of psychosomatic research, 46, 75-82.
Schwenck, C., Mergenthaler, J., Keller, K., Zech, J., Salehi, S., Taurienes, R., … &
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Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, 647-656.
Sigman, M.D., Kasari, C., Kwon, J.H., & Yirmiya, N. (1992). Responses to negative
emotions of others by autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children, Child
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Silani, G., Bird, G., Brindley, R., Singer, T., Frith, C., & Frith, U. (2008). Levels of
emotional awareness and autism: an fMRI study. Social neuroscience, 3, 97-112.
Singer, T., & Lamm, C. (2009). The social neuroscience of empathy. Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences, 1156, 81-96.

Skuse, D. H., Mandy, W. P., & Scourfield, J. (2005). Measuring autistic traits:
heritability, reliability and validity of the Social and Communication Disorders
Checklist. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 187, 568-572.
Smith, A. (2009). Emotional empathy in autism spectrum conditions: weak, intact or
heightened?. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 39, 1747-1748.
Stewart, M. E., & Austin, E. J. (2009). The structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient
(AQ): Evidence from a student sample in Scotland. Personality and Individual
Differences, 47, 224-228.
Swart, M., Kortekaas, R., & Aleman, A. (2009). Dealing with feelings :
characterisation of trait alexithymia on emotion regulation strategies and
cognitive-emotional processing. PLoS One, 4, 5751.
Szatmari, P., Geogiades, S., Duku, E., Zwaigenbaum, L., Goldberg, J., & Bennett, T.
(2008). Alexithymia in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 38, 1859-1865.
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alexithymia and perception of sleep. Neuropsychobiology, 49, 64-70.
Tantam, D. (1992). Characterizing the fundamental social handicap in autism. Acta
Paedopsychiatrica, 55, 88-91.

Taylor, G. J., Bagby, R.M., & Parker, J. D. A. (1997). Disorders of affect regulation:
Alexithymia in medical and psychiatric illness. Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Taylor, G. J., Bagby, R.M., & Parker, J.D. (1999). Disorders of affect regulation:
Alexithymia in medical and psychiatric illness. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Vanheule, S., Desmetm M., Meganck, R., & Bogaerts, S. (2007). Alexithymia and
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Yirmiya, N., Sigman, M. D., Kasari, C., & Mundy, P. (1992). Empathy and cognition
in high-functioning children with autism. Child development, 63, 150-1

APPENDIX
APPENDIX A
APPROVED ETHICS FORM
Psychology Extended Research Project  Research Proposal
and Application for Ethical Approval
  The completion of this form should not be seen as an end in itself but is a vehicle to ensure
that you have gone through a process of considering the ethical implications of your research
in detail and that you are able to communicate this clearly.  
STUDENT/SUPERVISOR DECLARATION FORM
APPLICANT DETAILS     Family Name: Khan First name(s): Mehvish
Noreen    Student number: 12348108    Roehampton
Email: khanm4@roehampton.ac.uk    Supervisor name: Jennifer Mayer    Supervisor
Email Address: Jennifer.mayer@roehampton.ac.uk

If student proposes to work with children or other vulnerable groups then Disclosure
and Barring Service (DBS) clearance must be applied for and granted before the study
starts. To apply for DBS clearance please email Tom Cottington in
Admissions t.cottington@roehampton.ac.uk, and copy in the Chair of Student Ethics,
Dr Catherine Gilvarry c.gilvarry@roehampton.ac.uk.     Supervisor
declaration     DBS Checks are currently being processed by University of
Roehampton Y N N/A   DBS Checks have been carried out by University of
Roehampton Y N N/A     Signature
_________________________________________ Date_______________________
For studies conducted Off Campus    Student declaration    I understand I need to
discuss a risk assessment with my supervisor and familiarise myself with and adhere to
the University of Roehampton Lone Worker Policy.  Furthermore, I understand that if
I will conduct my research abroad, I will need to obtain overseas research and risk
assessment forms from my supervisor and attach the forms to my final ethics
submission.    Signature _________________________________________ Date _____
_____________

  Emotion understanding in Social Recognition
  Empathy is a key and important ability needed to get through your daily life. It is the ability
to understand how other individuals are feeling and to what they might be thinking (Baron-
Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004). Autism has been combined with several other disorders in
the DSM-5, which is now known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the current criteria,
this has been defined and diagnosed as persistent deficits in social communication and social
interactions marked alongside restricted, repetitive behaviours in interests in which the
symptoms would be onset in early childhood and would cause impairment in social and other
important areas of current functioning, (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Several research studies have stated that individuals who are at the high end of the ASD or
have higher levels of social recognition have difficulty when it comes to empathy and appear
as though they are uncaring, (Jones, 2010). From the findings of Baron-Cohen (1995), it is
true that those with Autistic Spectrum condition to have difficulties in understanding emotion
recognition. However research has also have found that individuals with ASD do understand
the concept of empathy. A study carried out by Yirmiya, Sigman, Kasari and Mundy (1994)
found that some degree of empathy was presented. Using high- functioning children with
autism, who were tested against a control group who were unaffected, they were shown
several clips on videotape of children showing various emotions. They were asked after each
clip which emotion was being displayed. The children with ASD did score significantly
lower than the control showing some difficulties with empathy.
Even though Theory of Mind has been used to understand the emotion autistic individuals
face, this research wants to look at an area that has not had much research done. Alexithymia
has been defined as a deficit in understanding and processing emotions (Taylor, Bagby &
Parker, 1997), known as a personality construct. Research carried out on alexithymia has
found that those with high levels of alexithymia have patterns of distant social functioning
and detachment from other. (Vaheule, Desmet, Meganck & Bogaerts, 2007).
The aim of this study is to understand whether alexithymia, a sub-clinical construct, can be
used to explain the difficulty with emotion understanding in high levels of social recognition.

Empathy will also be a factor that will be researched in this study. The present study has a
few hypothesis (1) high levels of social recognition results will correlate to high levels of
alexithymia scores and low levels of empathy scores (2) alexithymia will be a key construct
in explaining why individuals with high level of social recognition have a difficulties in
understanding emotion in others (3) individuals will show some degree of empathy regardless
of their level of social recognition. Questionnaires will be used to measure each of the factors
which will be presented online through Qualtrics.
References
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (Fifth ed.). Arlington, American Psychiatric Publishing.
Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind. Boston:
MIT Press, Bradford Books.
Baron-Cohen, S. & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The Empathy Quotient: An Investigation of
Adults with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism, and Normal Sex
Differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorder, 34, 163-175.
Jones, A. P., Happé, F. G., Gilbert, F., Burnett, S., & Viding, E. (2010). Feeling, caring,
knowing: different types of empathy deficit in boys with psychopathic tendencies and
autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51,1188-1197.
`
Taylor, G. J., Bagby, R. M., & Parker, J. D. A. (1997). Disorders of affect regulation:
Alexithymia in medical and psychiatric illness. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Vanheule, S., Desmet, M., Meganck, R., & Bogaerts, S. (2007). Alexithymia and
interpersonal problems. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 63, 109–117.
Yirmiya, N., Sigman, M. D., Kasari, C., & Mundy, P. (1992). Empathy and cognition in
high-functioning children with autism. Child Development, 63, 150–160. 
  Questionnaires    The Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) - Baron-Cohen (2001)
The AQ is a fifty item questionnaire which covers the five main domains associated with
autism spectrum: social skills, communication skills, imagination, attention to detail and
attention to change.
The Empathy Quotient (EQ) - Baron-Cohen (2004)
The EQ is a self-assessment questionnaire which measures empathy. It consists of forty
items looking at cognitive empathy, emotional reactivity and social skills.
Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) – Bagby (1994).
The TAS-20 is a twenty item scale measuring levels of alexithymia. It measures the three key
areas of alexithymia; difficulty in describing feelings, difficulty in identifying feelings and
externally-orientated thinking.

References
S. Baron-Cohen, S. Wheelwright, R. Skinner, J. Martin and E. Clubley, (2001). The Autism
Spectrum Quotient (AQ) : Evidence from Asperger Syndrome/High Functioning Autism,
Males and Females, Scientists and Mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental
Disorders 31:5-17.
Baron-Cohen, S; Wheelwright, S (2004). "The Empathy Quotient: An Investigation Of
Adults With Asperger Syndrome Or High Functioning Autism, And Normal Sex
Differences". Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 34 (2): 163–175.
Bagby R.M., Parker, J.D.A., & Taylor, G.J. (1994a). The Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia
Scale -- I. Item selection and cross-validation of the factor structure. Journal of
Psychosomatic Research, 38, 23-32.
  Recruitment of Participants     SONA, Online (Facebook, Twitter, email,
etc.)      Written or verbal information for my recruitment 
SONA  This research project will look at the relationship between social recognition and
emotion understanding. You will be required to fill out three questionnaires and
demographics questionnaire. This is an online study and will take no longer than 30 minutes.
For full completion, you will be awarded 0.5 SONA credits. If you are interested, please click
the link below to begin the study. 
Online  For my research project, I will be looking at the relationship between social
recognition and emotion understanding. You will be required to fill out a demographics
questionnaire before being presented with three questionnaires that will measure this. This is
an online study presented via Qualtrics. The study should not take any longer than 30 minutes
to complete. Participants must be over the age of 18 to complete this study. I would really
appreciate if you could take part in this study. If you are interested, please click on the
following link which will direct you straight to the study.
Project supervisor: Dr Jennifer Mayer  Thank you
The study will be conducted    Online 
Participant sample    For this project, the aim is to test 100 participants between the ages
of 18-50. The participants will involve both males and females from various backgrounds.
Participants will be recruited through SONA and social media. This will be a voluntary
sample.
Description of the key information participants will be given about my study in the
informed consent form     This research will be undertaken under the supervision of Dr
Jennifer Mayer in the Department of Psychology in Roehampton University. It has been
approved by the Ethics Committee.

This research aims to investigate the possible relationship between social recognition and
emotion understanding using questionnaires. In this study, you will be given three
questionnaires and demographics questionnaire which will be presented online through
Qualtrics. All the research information will be collected anonymously and used for research
purposes only. The study will take no more than thirty minutes to complete and upon
completion, you will be awarded 0.5 SONA credits (applicable to Roehampton University
undergraduate students). Only members of the research team will have access to the data that
is collected.
All participants will provide 6 digit code (a combination of letters and numbers) which will
only be known by you and can be used to withdraw from the study. The 6 digit code should
also be placed on the debrief form which should retain with you. All participants have the
right to withdraw from the study at any given time without needing to justify their withdrawal
and should be done so by contacting the investigator using the details provided below and
providing them with their 6 digit code. Participants have the right to their data but to their
scores that are collected. Completed questionnaires and consent form will be stored
separately to maintain anonymity.
Protection of the confidentiality of the participants    Participants confidentiality with be
protected as they will be provided with a 6-digit code on the questionnaires and debrief form
which will only be known by them. Collected data and consent forms will be stored
separately on the computer and on a USB to avoid identification of the participants. The data
collected will be kept and protected for 18 months with the researcher for possible
publication of the research. All data collected will be kept on a password secured laptop and a
secured USB which the research team will only have access to, protecting anonymity of the
participants. Researchers part of the will be unable to link any data to the participants. Signed
consent forms will be store separately to any data collected. No identity will be pass onto
other researchers who are not involved with this research and no mention will be made in the
publication.
Vulnerable group of participants    No, I will not recruit participants who fall into any
vulnerable groups
  There might be minimal ethical implications when doing the questionnaires regarding the
empathy and emotion they present. To deal with this, participants will be given a Debrief
form which will state the true nature of the study, contact details of student support if needed
and the researchers and supervisors contact details if they want further information on who to
contact regarding support. It will be noted that the questionnaires are designed to look at the
relationship between social recognition, alexithymia and empathy in a normal variation in the
general population and is will not use for diagnosis.    Deception in the study (Y/N): 
No 
  The project will be using Qualtrics to present the questionnaires online. It will ensure
participants are over the age of 18.

  I am conducting an online study. All data will be password protected and only accessible
by myself, other members of the research team, and my supervisor. The raw data will be
stored on my computer for 18 months (and on my supervisor's computer for a period of 10
years in the case of publication). 
Checklist for Third Year Project Ethics Application
After meeting your supervisor and agreeing the design and measures for your
study, you will need to complete your Ethics application form. The following
checklist must be included with EVERY research proposal/application for ethical
approval and should be jointly completed by student and supervisor. An
application will be deemed incomplete and returned if this form is not attached to
the ethics submission or incomplete. This is a checklist to help you meet
the basic requirements for doing this. You need to be able to say “Yes” or “NA”
(not applicable) to each of the following:
GENERAL
1
I have proof-read all documents to check for errors (and basic English). (Note:
if appropriate, I have also got someone else to check my English)
2
I will include all documents in the following order: application form,
recruitment material/ letter of invitation/consent/debrief, all measures/
questionnaires etc. (Note: My supervisor has seen and agreed all measures)

3
I have stated clearly in the research proposal section that if my study
requires lab and/or technician support, the allocation of resources has
been/will have to be agreed by the Subject Head via my supervisor
Yes
APPLICATION FORM
4
I have given a clear and full description of the design and procedure
including what will be done, how it will be done, where it will be
done, and how long the tasks/questionnaires/interview will
realistically take etc.
Yes
5
I have set out clearly (e.g. in subheadings) a clear description, with
reference(s), of each measure/interview protocol.
Yes
6
I created an appendix (labelled clearly) with all actual tasks
/measures/protocols.
Yes
7
I have included any recruitment poster (must include Roehampton
logo in the top left corner, supervisor name, and with Roehampton
email contact only) or letter/email of invitation.
Yes
8
I have included information about the procedure about
anonymity/confidentiality in the consent and debrief form (I.D.
numbers etc.)
Yes
9
I have used the consent template and given a clear and fair
description of what will happen in the study, using appropriate
language (including how long it will take, right to withdraw, and any
SONA credits associated with participation).
Yes
10
I have included information in my application form about Disclosure
and Barring Service clearance (DBS) through Roehampton
University, (to be confirmed by my supervisor).
N/A
11
I have used the debrief template and given a clear and fair
description of what was done and why, using appropriate language.
Yes
12
I have agreed and included appropriate support contact details on my
debrief for both student and non-student participants.
Yes
13
By ticking yes, I confirm this application has met the criteria
required by BPS Ethic’s guidelines for research with human
participants. I understand that both myself and my supervisor will
also have to sign the final ethical submission form.
Yes
Please note: this is just a basic guide. It is likely that you will need to
include other information/ detail relevant to your design - this is to be
agreed with your supervisor.
This form draws on University of Roehampton’s Research Degrees proforma and
a form used by the University of Oregon shown in Heppner, P.P., Callaghan,
D.M. & Walpole, B.E. (1992). Research Design in Counselling.

APPENDIX B
CONSENT FORM
RESEARCH PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM
Emotion understanding in Social Recognition.
This project is researching the relationship between social recognition and emotion
understanding. We invite adult volunteers to take part in the research study which is
part of the Department of Psychology, Roehampton University.
This research will be undertaken under the supervision of Dr Jennifer Mayer in the
Department of Psychology, Roehampton University. It has been approved under the
University of Roehampton’s Ethics Procedures.
Purpose and Procedures
The aim of this study is to see if emotion understanding if affected depending on the
levels of social recognition. In order to do this, you will be asked to complete three
questionnaires online via Qualtrics which will ask you questions about social
recognition and emotion understanding. You will be asked to fill out a 50-item
questionnaire about social recognition and you will be asked to fill out two
questionnaires about emotion understanding, one being 20-item questionnaire and the
second being a 40-item questionnaire. A demographics questionnaire will also be given.
All this research information will be collected anonymously and will be used for
research purposes only. The study will take no more than 30 minutes to complete and
upon completion, you will be awarded 0.5 SONA credits (applicable to Roehampton
University undergraduate students). Only members of the research team will have
access to the data that is collected.
You will be asked to write a 6 digit code (you can create a combination of letters and
numbers of your choice) on the questionnaire which you should note down for your
record. A Debrief sheet will be presented at the end of the study. Please note that the
questionnaires are designed to look at the relationship between social recognition and
emotion understanding in a normal variation in the general population and are not used
as a means for diagnosis.
If you later wish to withdraw from the study you just need to contact the researcher on
the email address below and give us your code so your data can be withdrawn from the
study. You have the right to your data however you will not get access to your scores.
If you are student volunteering for course credits, there will be no adverse
consequences in relation to your degree if you wish to withdraw. The data you
provided may still be used in collated form in our report, but this will not be identifiable

to you as an individual. Consent forms and questionnaires will be stored separately and
securely to avoid identification of participants.
Name ………………………………….
Signature ………………………………
Date ……………………………………
If you require further information or have a concern about any other aspect of your
participation, please raise this with the [principal] investigators. Alternatively you may
raise them with my tutors, or the Head of Department of Psychology:
The researchers for this investigation are Mehvish Khan (khanm4@roehampton.ac.uk)
Please note: if you have a concern about any aspect of your participation or any other
queries please raise this with the investigator. However if you would like to contact an
independent party please contact the Project Supervisor or Head of Psychology:
Project Supervisor Contact Details: Head of Psychology:
Dr Jennifer Mayer Dr Diane Bray
Department of Psychology Department of Psychology
University of Roehampton University of Roehampton
Whitelands College Whitelands College
Holybourne Avenue Holybourne Avenue
London SW15 4JD London SW15 4JD
Email: Jennifer.mayer@roehampton.ac.uk Email: d.bray@roehampton.ac.uk.
Tel: 020 8392 3661 Tel: 020 8392 3627

APPENDIX C
DEBRIEF FORM
RESEARCH PARTICIPANT DEBRIEF
Research project: Emotion understanding in Social Recognition.
Thank you for participating in this study. Please read carefully through this debrief form
and save it for your own records. Please retain your 6-digit identification code for future
reference.
The aims of this study: The aim of this study was to see if individuals who score highly
on social recognition show a limited amount of emotion. Three questionnaires were
used to measure each factor; social recognition, emotion understanding.
Your data will be held securely and anonymously. If you wish to withdraw from the
study at any time during or after the study, contact us with your personal identification
code (see above) and your data will be removed from our files. Participants will not be
given their scores that were collected. Although you can withdraw from the study at any
time, it is likely that the data you provided may still be used in collated form for the data
analysis report. If you are student and wish to withdraw we assure you that that this
will not adversely affect your studies in any way.
Please note: If you have a concern about any aspect of your participation, please raise
this with the investigator: Mehvish Khan (khanm4@roehampton.ac.uk), their
supervisor: Dr Jennifer Mayer (Jennifer.mayer@roehampton.ac.uk) or the Head of
Department: Dr. Diane Bray (D.Bray@roehampton.ac.uk). You may contact any of the
above by post at the Department of Psychology, Roehampton University, Whitelands
College, Holybourne Avenue, London, SW15 4JD.
Project Supervisor Contact Details: Head of Psychology:
Dr Jennifer Mayer Dr Diane Bray
Department of Psychology Department of Psychology
University of Roehampton University of Roehampton
Whitelands College Whitelands College
Holybourne Avenue Holybourne Avenue
London SW15 4JD London SW15 4JD
Email: Jennifer.mayer@roehampton.ac.uk Email: d.bray@roehampton.ac.uk.
Tel: 020 8392 3661 Tel: 020 8392 3627
If you are a student at the University of Roehampton and are troubled or worried
about any aspect of the study, or issues it may have raised, you may find it helpful to

contact one of the following who will be able to advise you on agencies that can deal
with your particular concern:
Student Welfare Officer: Whitelands College
Louise Walton (3502) louise.walton@roehampton.ac.uk
If you feel your concerns are more serious or complex you may wish to contact the
Student Medical Centre on Ext 3679.
If you are a non-student you may find it helpful to contact one of the following
agencies who will be able to advise you on agencies that can deal with your
particular concern:
SAMARITANS, Telephone: 01850 60 90 90

APPENDIX D
SUPERVISOR POST RESEARCH APPROVAL FORM
Supervisors Approval post research form
Student Name:
Mehvish Khan
Student number:
12348108
I am satisfied that the above student has carried out the work they were granted ethical
approval for and that all the necessary raw data has been collected and is represented
accurately in the final dissertation project submission.
Supervisor name:
Dr Jennifer Mayer
Supervisor signature:
Date:
20.04.15

APPENDIX E
DEMOGRAPHICS
Please generate your unique 7 digit participant ID code (your 1st initial, your mother's
1st initial, your father's 1st initial, your 2 digit day of birth, your 2 digit month of birth).
Example: HGS1907
________________________
What is your gender?
Male Female
What is your age?
_______________
Is English your first language?
Yes No
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Emotion Recognition and Social Understanding

Emotion Recognition and Social Understanding

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