Summary: Some autistic teenagers consciously mask or camouflage their autistic traits to be perceived as non-autistic in social settings. A new study from Drexel University uses EEG to reveal how that masking appears in brain activity: teens who “pass” as non-autistic show faster automatic brain responses to faces and reduced emotional reactivity to subtle facial expressions. These neural patterns suggest adaptive processing that may help them navigate social contexts but could also indicate a hidden cognitive and emotional cost.
This research provides the first direct neural evidence connecting masking—often called “passing as non-autistic”—with distinct patterns of face processing and emotion regulation. Understanding these brain signatures can improve how schools, clinicians, and families identify and support autistic adolescents who do not display obvious signs of autism in classroom or social environments.
Key Facts:
- Brain differences detected: Adolescents who pass as non-autistic show faster facial recognition (earlier N170 responses) and smaller emotion-related brain responses (attenuated LPP amplitudes).
- Widespread masking in the sample: About 44% of community-recruited autistic teens in the study were rated by teachers as not showing autism in the classroom setting.
- Support implications: These findings emphasize the need for better detection and tailored supports for autistic teens who mask, so they can access appropriate services even if they appear to function typically at school.
Source: Drexel University
Background: Many autistic teens cultivate behaviors, mannerisms, or social strategies that allow them to blend in or “pass” as non-autistic in certain contexts. This phenomenon—often termed masking or camouflaging—can help young people avoid stigma and navigate social demands, but it may come with unseen cognitive effort and emotional strain.
Researchers at Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure rapid, millisecond-level brain responses while adolescents completed a facial emotion recognition task. They focused on two well-characterized event-related potentials linked to social processing in autism studies: the N170, an early marker associated with face detection, and the Late Positive Potential (LPP), an index of emotional engagement and sustained attention to emotionally relevant stimuli.
Lead author Matthew Lerner, PhD, associate professor and director of the Social Connections and Treatment Lab, explains that teens who successfully pass as non-autistic appear to process faces differently: their brains respond more quickly to the presence of a face and show a muted emotional response to subtle facial expressions. Lerner notes that this pattern could reflect a strategy where rapid recognition of social cues is paired with downregulated emotional reactivity—either as preparation for social interaction or as an adaptive coping mechanism.
The study’s classroom-based ratings were crucial to identifying who was “passing.” The researchers compared gold-standard clinical assessments of autism symptoms with teacher and parent reports from everyday settings. Adolescents who met formal diagnostic criteria in clinic-based measures but showed little or no detectable autism-related behavior in classrooms were classified as passing as non-autistic (PAN).
About 44% of the community-recruited adolescent sample met that PAN definition, highlighting that a substantial number of autistic youth may not be identified in school environments. The EEG data showed that PAN status correlated with faster N170 latency to faces and reduced LPP amplitude to facial emotions, particularly for subtle emotional expressions. In practical terms, this means these teens’ brains may rapidly detect faces but allocate less sustained emotional processing to them.
These neurocognitive differences are important because they offer a measurable mechanism that could underlie the behavioral phenomenon of masking. The findings support models suggesting emotion-regulation processes help drive the ability to pass in social settings. They also emphasize that invisible effort—rapid detection plus dampened emotional reactivity—may be a hallmark of adolescents who successfully camouflage their autism.
The datasets were collected as part of a larger National Institute of Mental Health–funded study examining factors that affect social outcomes for autistic adolescents. One strength of the work is that the research recruited broadly from the community, including teens who had not previously received an autism diagnosis, allowing inclusion of youth who meet diagnostic criteria yet lack formal school-based supports.
Lerner and colleagues hope these results encourage further research into identifying autistic youth who pass as non-autistic, clarifying the cognitive and emotional costs of masking, and developing better supports for those who may be overlooked in typical school-based screening or interventions.
About this ASD and neuroscience research news
Author: Annie Korp
Source: Drexel University
Contact: Annie Korp – Drexel University
Image credit: Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access. Study title: “Automatic and affective processing of faces as mechanisms of passing as non-autistic in adolescence” by Matthew D. Lerner et al., published in Scientific Reports.
Abstract
Automatic and affective processing of faces as mechanisms of passing as non-autistic in adolescence
Passing as non-autistic (PAN) describes situations in which an autistic person does not present as autistic in certain contexts. Despite growing interest in PAN, prior work had not directly examined neurocognitive processes behind it. This study tested two event-related potentials commonly studied in autism research—the N170 and the Late Positive Potential (LPP)—during face processing as candidate mechanisms of PAN.
Participants were 44 community-recruited adolescents (mean age = 13.36; 30 male) who completed a facial emotion recognition task while EEG was recorded. PAN was defined using best-practice moderation methods to quantify the discrepancy between clinician-rated autism features and community informant reports (parents and teachers). Nearly 44% of the sample met criteria for PAN.
PAN status was associated with faster N170 latency to faces and attenuated LPP amplitude to facial emotions, especially to subtle expressions. These results suggest that adolescents who pass as non-autistic may show more efficient automatic processing of social stimuli alongside reduced emotional reactivity. This work represents the first direct test of a potential neurocognitive mechanism of PAN and supports models in which emotion regulation contributes to the ability to pass as non-autistic.