Groups of verbal MA‐matched autistic and non‐autistic retarded adolescents and young adults were tested for their ability to recognize emotion and personal identity in photographed faces and parts of faces. The tasks were to match expressions of emotion across different individuals, and to identify unfamiliar individuals despite changes in emotional expression. Faces were also presented upside‐down. The results indicated a specific abnormality in the way autistic individuals perceive emotion, and possibly sex, in people's faces. In addition, however, autistic subjects’ superior ability in matching upside‐down faces suggested a more far‐reaching abnormality in their perception of faces.