Journal of Intelligence Article Facial Imitation Improves Emotion Recognition in Adults with Different Levels of Sub-Clinical Autistic Traits Andrea E. Kowallik 1,2,3,*, Maike Pohl 3 and Stefan R. Schweinberger 1,2,3,4,5,* 1 Early Support and Counselling Center Jena, Herbert Feuchte Stiftungsverbund, 07743 Jena, Germany 2 Social Potential in Autism Research Unit, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany 3 Department of General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Am Steiger 3/Haus 1, 07743 Jena, Germany 4 Michael Stifel Center Jena for Data-Driven and Simulation Science, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany 5 Swiss Center for Affective Science, University of Geneva, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland * Correspondence:
[email protected] (A.E.K.);
[email protected] (S.R.S.); Tel.: +49-(0)-3641-945181 (S.R.S.); Fax: +49-(0)-3641-945182 (S.R.S.) Abstract: We used computer-based automatic expression analysis to investigate the impact of im- itation on facial emotion recognition with a baseline-intervention-retest design. The participants: 55 young adults with varying degrees of autistic traits, completed an emotion recognition task with images of faces displaying one of six basic emotional expressions. This task was then repeated with instructions to imitate the expressions. During the experiment, a camera captured the participants’ faces for an automatic evaluation of their imitation performance. The instruction to imitate enhanced imitation performance as well as emotion recognition. Of relevance, emotion recognition improve- ments in the imitation block were larger in people with higher levels of autistic traits, whereas imitation enhancements were independent of autistic traits.