Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42651184›Full record

ArticleBrain sciences2026

Intact Neural and Behavioral Processing of Vocal Emotional Expressions in Men with Autism.

Silke Vos, Rowena Van den Broeck, Diego Ruiz Callejo, Olivier Collignon, Bart Boets

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Article in Brain sciences, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

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3 · Its place in the literature

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Silke VosCenter for Developmental Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Rowena Van den BroeckCenter for Developmental Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.ORCID 0000-0003-1520-2556
Diego Ruiz CallejoCenter for Developmental Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.ORCID 0000-0003-0996-8475
Olivier CollignonInstitute of Research in Psychology & Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, 1348 Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium.
Bart BoetsCenter for Developmental Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.ORCID 0000-0002-4718-667X

Funding

Research Foundation - Flanders G0E8718N
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

BACKGROUND/

objectivesHuman voices convey critical socio-affective information, including emotional states. Although autism has frequently been associated with difficulties in processing vocal emotional cues, findings remain inconsistent, particularly in adults. This study investigated neural and behavioral sensitivity to vocal emotion expressions in autistic adults using an objective auditory frequency-tagging EEG paradigm.

methodsTwenty-five autistic adult men and 25 age- and IQ-matched non-autistic men completed an auditory frequency-tagging EEG task and an auditory and multimodal emotion-recognition assessment. During EEG recording, neutral vocal utterances were presented at 4 Hz, with emotional utterances (fear, anger, happiness, or sadness) inserted every third stimulus, generating an oddball frequency of 1.333 Hz indexing vocal emotion discrimination.

resultsNo significant group differences were observed in neural or behavioral measures of emotion processing. Robust oddball EEG responses were present in both groups, indicating automatic discrimination of emotional from neutral vocalizations. Fearful and angry vocalizations elicited the strongest neural responses. On the behavioral task, autistic and non-autistic participants showed comparable performance in the auditory modality as well as in the visual and audiovisual modalities, with auditory emotion recognition being the most challenging condition for both groups.

conclusionsThese findings provide converging neural and behavioral evidence for intact vocal emotion processing in autistic adult men and are consistent with the view that socio-affective processing differences may attenuate across development. Auditory frequency-tagging EEG shows promise as a sensitive tool for studying individual differences in socio-affective processing.

Indexed as

autismbehavioralemotionfrequency-tagging EEGvoice processing

Identifiers

PMID42651184
PMCPMC13510860

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.