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Biomedical subjects

Bruno Gepner

Publications and source records attributed to Bruno Gepner.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Slowing down presentation of facial movements and vocal sounds enhances facial expression recognition and induces facial-vocal imitation in children with autism.

This study examined the effects of slowing down presentation of facial expressions and their corresponding vocal sounds on facial expression recognition and facial and/or vocal imitation in children with autism. Twelve autistic children and twenty-four normal control children were presented with emotional and non-emotional facial expressions on CD-Rom, under audio or silent conditions, and under dynamic visual conditions (slowly, very slowly, at normal speed) plus a static control. Overall, children with autism showed lower performance in expression recognition and more induced facial-vocal imitation than controls. In the autistic group, facial expression recognition and induced facial-vocal imitation were significantly enhanced in slow conditions. Findings may give new perspectives for understanding and intervention for verbal and emotional perceptive and communicative impairments in autistic populations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Spatial frequency and face processing in children with autism and Asperger syndrome.

Two experiments were designed to investigate possible abnormal face processing strategies in children with autistic spectrum disorders. A group of 11 children with autism was compared to two groups of normally developing children matched on verbal mental age and on chronological age. In the first experiment, participants had to recognize faces on the basis of identity, emotion, gaze direction, gender, and lip reading. All aspects of face processing, except for identity matching, were deficient in the autistic population compared with controls. In the second study, children had to match faces on either high-(i.e., local facial features) or low-spatial frequency information (i.e., global configuration of faces). Contrary to the control subjects, children with autism showed better performance when using high rather than low spatial frequency, confirming face-processing peculiarities in this population.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Inner and outer face perception in children with autism.

Possible peculiarities in face perception in the autistic population were explored through two experiments. Fourteen autistic children (mean age=10 years 1 month) were individually matched to verbal mental age (VMA) and chronological age (CA) subjects. In a first experiment, subjects were to match faces on the basis of either their outer (hair, chin, ears) or their inner (eyes, nose, mouth) aspects. Autistic children performed equally well in both conditions, while VMA-matched children performed better in the outer than the inner part condition. In a second experiment, chimeric faces consisting of the outer part of an individual's face and the inner part of another individual's face were presented to the subjects. None of the groups showed a preference for neither the outer nor the inner part of the face in this condition. Results were discussed in terms of the existence of a local visual processing strategy in this population.

Asperger Syndrome↗
PubMed2002

Brief report: postural reactivity to fast visual motion differentiates autistic from children with Asperger syndrome.

The aim of the present study was to search for a sensorimotor marker (i.e., visuopostural tuning) that could be correlated with the severity of motor impairments in children with autistic spectrum disorders. Given that autistic children were previously reported to be posturally hyporeactive to visually perceived environmental motion in comparison with normal control children (Gepner et al., 1995), we sought to determine whether children with Asperger syndrome (AS) would share the same postural hyporeactivity to visual motion. Three autistic children with mild to severe motor impairments, three AS children with soft motor signs, and nine normal control children were tested for overall postural instability and postural reactivity to environmental motion. Results indicate, first, that overall postural instability is significantly reduced in autistic children compared with both AS and normal children. Second, although postural oscillations in the fore-aft axis become more attuned to the oscillation frequency of an immersive dynamic visual display as visual speed is increased, in both control and AS subjects, this is not the case in autistic children. Despite the small number of subjects tested in this study, our data confirm the existence of a visuopostural detuning in autistic children. Third, they argue for a correlation between visuopostural tuning and severity of motor signs in children with autistic spectrum disorders. Finally, they suggest a differentiation between children with autism and children with AS with regard to postural reactivity to fast visual motion. Neurophysiological implications of these results are discussed. In particular, a visuocerebellar pathway deficit hypothesis in autism is proposed.

Asperger Syndrome↗