Stephen Benning's research uses the postauricular reflex as a psychophysiological measure of appetitive emotional processing in autism. One of his studies is focused on the degree to which individuals with autism appetitively process pictures of objects (e.g., trains, mechanical gadgets) with stereotypically high interest value to those with autistic features but that controls rate as emotionally neutral. Another study will examine the putative lack of enjoyment of social stimuli in individuals with autism compared to controls. In both studies, Dr. Benning and his colleagues will investigate the degree to which normative stimuli (that are the same across all participants) vs. idiographically chosen stimuli (whose basic content is chosen by each participant individually) demonstrate appetitive emotional processing; they hypothesize that individuals with autism will show stronger appetitive responses to the idiographic stimuli than the normative stimuli, whereas controls will show equal appetitive processing to both categories of stimuli. Dr. Benning's team also plans to investigate the ability of anticipatory cues to generate appetitive modulation of the postauricular reflex in both individuals with autism and controls. This research may provide a novel way of identifying individuals with autism and differentiating them from others with autism spectrum disorders.

Dr. Benning is moving his psychopathy work in a developmental direction to investigate the degree to which the factors of psychopathy he has studied in adults (fearless dominance and impulsive antisociality) can be validly assessed in adolescents. Because psychopathy represents a lack of fear processing across interpersonal, intrapersonal, and environmental domains (fearless dominance) in conjunction with an aggressive and impulsive disposition (impulsive antisociality), this work follows the developmental trajectories of different brain functions and their influence on developing cognitive and motor skills.