Emotion recognition skills and the ability to understand the mental states of others are crucial for normal social functioning. Conversely, delays and impairments in these processes can have a profound impact on capability to engage in, maintain, and effectively regulate social interactions. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the performance of 42 autistic children, 45 unaffected siblings, and 41 typically developing controls on the Affect Recognition and Theory of Mind subtests of the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment Battery. There were no significant (...) differences between siblings and TD controls. Autistic children showed significantly poorer performance on AR when compared to TD controls and on TOM when compared to both TD controls and unaffected siblings. An additional comparison of ASD, unaffected sibling and TD control subsamples, matched on full-scale IQ, revealed no group differences for either AR or TOM. AR and TOM processes have received less research attention in siblings of autistic children and remain less well characterized. Therefore, despite limitations, findings reported here contribute to our growing understanding of AR and TOM abilities in siblings of autistic children and highlight important future research directions. (shrink)

This article summarizes the main themes in the book What is Emotion? by Jerome Kagan (Yale University Press, 2007). The issues considered include: (1) the advantage of studying each phase of the cascade that begins with a brain reaction to an incentive and ends with an appraisal of a feeling state and/or a behavioral reaction; (2) distinguishing among appraisals with different origins; (3) replacing the current concern with consequences with more attention to the features of the brain and feeling states; (...) (4) a recognition of the weak relation between the language used to describe a feeling and both the underlying brain profile and a response; and (5) the reasons for variation in the feelings evoked by an incentive and for the appraisals of the feelings. (shrink)