The Conceptualization, Experience, and Recognition of Emotion in Autism: Differences in the Psychological Mechanisms Involved in Autistic and Non‐Autistic Emotion Recognition

Journal article

Summary: This study investigated how autistic and non‐autistic adults experience and understand emotions, and how these abilities relate to recognizing emotions in others. We found that autistic and non‐autistic adults did not differ in (1) how consistently they experienced emotions, (2) their understanding of emotion terms, and (3) their ability to distinguish between different emotional experiences or emotion terms. For non‐autistic individuals, recognizing emotions was linked to how well they could tell apart emotion terms and their own feelings. For autistic individuals, a clear understanding of emotion terms was associated with better emotion recognition. These insights could support the development of tools to enhance emotion recognition for both groups.

Authors: Keating, CT; Kraaijkamp, C; Cook, JL

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Autism Research
• Publication date: 2026-01-25
• Acceptance date: 2025-12-10
• DOI: 10.1002/aur.70162
• EISSN: 1939-3806
• ISSN: 1939-3792
• Language: English
• Keywords: emotion; concepts; facial expressions; autism; social cognition