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Emoji identification and emoji effects on sentence emotionality in ASD-diagnosed adults and neurotypical controls

  • Christopher J. Hand
    ,
  • Ashley Kennedy
    ,
  • Ruth Filik
    ,
  • Melanie Pitchford
    ,
  • Christopher Robus
Research Output:
Contribution to journal
Article
 Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

We investigated ASD-diagnosed adults' and neurotypical (NT) controls' processing of emoji and emoji influence on the emotionality of otherwise-neutral sentences. Study 1 participants categorised emoji representing the six basic emotions using a fixed-set of emotional adjectives. Results showed that ASD-diagnosed participants' classifications of fearful, sad, and surprised emoji were more diverse and less 'typical' than NT controls' responses. Study 2 participants read emotionally-neutral sentences; half paired with sentence-final happy emoji, half with sad emoji. Participants rated sentence + emoji stimuli for emotional valence. ASD-diagnosed and NT participants rated sentences + happy emoji as equally-positive, however, ASD-diagnosed participants rated sentences + sad emoji as more-negative than NT participants. We must acknowledge differential perceptions and effects of emoji, and emoji-text inter-relationships, when working with neurodiverse stakeholders.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output:
Contribution to journal
Article
 Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 2514-2528 (15 pages)

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Volume 53, Issue 6)

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 24/03/2022
  • Published - 12/04/2022

Publication status

Published - 12/04/2022

ISSN

0162-3257

Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/625370
  • Scopus: 85128078881
  • PubMed: 35415776

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