The Self‐Reference Effect on <i>Perception</i>: Undiminished in Adults with Autism and No Relation to Autism Traits

Williams, David M.; Nicholson, Toby; Grainger, Catherine

doi:10.1002/aur.1891

Cited by 40 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Nevertheless, choice behavior (i.e., avoiding and anticipating regret) was comparable between ASD and TD groups, suggesting that participants with ASD experienced feelings of regret on an internal neurocognitive level, even though they were impaired at labeling and expressing this emotional experience explicitly (i.e., via self-report). This finding is consistent with research that has shown impoverished second-order representations of one's own cognitive activity in adults with ASD, despite intact first-order representations [Williams, Nicholson, & Grainger, 2018]. Moreover, it has been suggested that difficulty identifying emotions in oneself is a characteristic feature of ASD, termed alexithymia [Hill, Berthoz, & Frith, 2004], and that this might explain the impaired ability to reflect and report on one's emotional experience of regret in Zalla et al's self-report study [Nicolle, Ropar, & Beck, 2014].…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Intact counterfactual emotion processing in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from eye‐tracking

et al. 2018

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Counterfactual emotions, such as regret and relief, require an awareness of how things could have been different. We report a preregistered experiment that examines how adults with and without ASD process counterfactual emotions in real‐time, based on research showing that the developmental trajectory of counterfactual thinking may be disrupted in people with ASD. Participants were eye‐tracked as they read narratives in which a character made an explicit decision then subsequently experienced either a mildly negative or positive outcome. The final sentence in each story included an explicit remark about the character's mood that was either consistent or inconsistent with the character's expected feelings of regret or relief (e.g., “… she feels happy/annoyed about her decision.”). Results showed that adults with ASD are unimpaired in processing emotions based on counterfactual reasoning, and in fact showed earlier sensitivity to inconsistencies within relief contexts compared to TD participants. This finding highlights a previously unknown strength in empathy and emotion processing in adults with ASD, which may have been masked in previous research that has typically relied on explicit, response‐based measures to record emotional inferences, which are likely to be susceptible to demand characteristics and response biases. Therefore, this study highlights the value of employing implicit measures that provide insights on peoples' immediate responses to emotional content without disrupting ongoing processing. Autism Res 2019, 12: 422–444 © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary Despite known difficulties with empathy and perspective‐taking, we found that adults with autism are unimpaired at inferring complex emotions (regret and relief) in others. This finding extends existing evidence showing dysfunctional counterfactual thinking in children with autism. We highlight the value of using implicit measures to identify strengths and abilities in ASD that may be masked by explicit tasks that require participants to interact socially or report their own thoughts.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Intact counterfactual emotion processing in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from eye‐tracking

et al. 2018

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“…When the participants were instructed to associate face stimuli (female and male) with words (“self” and “other”) in the training task, both groups responded more quickly to the face stimulus associated with “self” than “other.” Although previous studies have demonstrated that self‐relevant processing was impaired in individuals with ASD [e.g., Toichi et al, ], Williams et al [] recently observed intact self‐relevant processing in this population using a training task similar to that employed in present study. Those authors proposed that the type/level of representation necessary to accomplish this task largely differed from that of previous studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 45%

“…However, Yoshimura & Toichi [] showed that individuals with PDD‐NOS, which is a milder ASD subgroup showing milder autistic features, do not exhibit impaired self‐relevant processing in a self‐relevant memory task compared to participants with Asperger's disorder. Williams et al [] also observed intact self‐relevant processing in individuals with a mild level of ASD symptoms (mean ADOS score = 10.91) using a training task. Because the current study included an ASD group with milder symptoms (mean CARS score = 24.2) consisting of 9 participants with PDD‐NOS and 12 with Asperger's disorder (two of the original participants were excluded from the analysis), it is possible that self‐relevant processing might have been intact in the ASD individuals who participated in the present study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Thus, the present study employed the abovementioned experimental paradigm (Zhao et al, ) to assess the influence of self‐relevant processing on eye gaze. First, the participants were instructed to associate two cues (female and male facial gazes) with the words “self” and “other.” Because Williams et al [] observed intact self‐relevant processing when instructing participants to associate a stimulus with labels representing the self in individuals with ASD, it was predicted that associations between the two cues and the words would be firmly established in both groups. Next, to examine the influence of self‐relevant processing on gaze‐triggered attention, a cueing paradigm (i.e., using self‐ and other‐relevant gaze cues and voice and tone targets) was used to assess differences in cueing pattern between individuals with and without ASD.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, adults with ASD have a poor memory for self-relevance [Toichi et al, 2002], display impaired autonoetic consciousness [Bowler, Gardiner, & Gaigg, 2007;Bowler, Gardiner, & Grice, 2000], and exhibit difficulties identifying their own face, name [Cygan, Tacikowski, Ostaszewski, Chojnicka, & Nowicka, 2014], and emotions [Silani et al, 2008]. However, a recent study observed intact selfrelevant processing in adults with ASD when responding to self-and other-related matches [Williams, Nicholson, & Grainger, 2017]. In that study, the participants were required to associate three different nonsocial shapes (i.e., triangle, circle, and square) with three different labels representing self, a familiar stimulus, or an unfamiliar stimulus (i.e., "you," "mother," and "stranger").…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A functional but atypical self: Influence of self‐relevant processing on the gaze cueing effect in autism spectrum disorder

Zhao¹,

Uono²,

Yoshimura³

et al. 2018

Autism Research

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The present study aimed to determine whether the impairments in joint attention observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in clinical studies were influenced by self‐relevant processing. To investigate this possibility, participants were trained to associate two cues (a female face and male face) with distinct words (“self” and “other”). The ASD and typically developing (TD) groups both demonstrated a significant self‐relevant effect, responding more quickly to self‐pairs than to other pairs. Then, two types of sound (voice and tone) used as targets were manipulated to determine whether the influence of self‐relevance on the cueing effect would be similar between individuals with ASD and TD individuals. Individuals with ASD exhibited reduced cueing effect to voice vs. tone targets, whereas TD individuals showed an enhanced cueing effect to voice vs. tone targets when using self‐relevant, but not other‐relevant, gaze cues. The present results suggest that individuals with ASD exhibit intact self‐relevant processing but that the self‐relevant processing affects the attentional system of individuals with ASD in a manner different from that of TD individuals and that this difference depends on the self‐relevance of the specific target stimuli. Autism Research 2018, 11: 1522–1531. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary Observing another person's eye gaze induces attentional shift in the onlooker. Clinical studies have reported that social interaction, including gaze‐triggered attention, is impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while psychological studies have generally reported intact gaze‐triggered attention in ASD. This study provided new evidence indicating that gaze‐triggered attention is influenced by self‐relevant processing in a different manner in ASD individuals than it is in TD individuals. The magnitude of attentional shift triggered by the self‐relevant gaze cue was associated with symptom severity in ASD. The functional but atypical self‐relevant processing might be able to explain discrepancies in social attention between experimental and real situations.

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Patterns of Nonsocial and Social Cognitive Functioning in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder

2019

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IMPORTANCE Many studies have investigated impairments in cognitive domains in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Yet, to date, a comprehensive overview on the patterns of cognitive functioning is lacking.OBJECTIVE To provide an overview of nonsocial and social cognitive functioning in various domains in adults with ASD, allowing for comparison of the severity of deficits between different domains. DATA SOURCES A literature search performed in an academic medical setting was conducted using PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, and Medline databases with the combination of the following free-text and Medical Subject Headings where applicable: [cogniti* OR neurocogniti* OR neuropsycholog* OR executive function* OR IQ OR intelligence quotient OR social cognition OR emotion perception OR affect perception OR emotion recognition OR attribution OR ToM OR mentalising OR mentalizing OR prosody OR social knowledge OR mind reading OR social cue OR social judgment] AND [autis* OR ASD OR Asperger OR Asperger's OR PDD OR pervasive developmental disorder]. The search was further limited to studies published between 1980 (first inclusion of autism diagnosis in the DSM-III) and July 2018.STUDY SELECTION Studies included were published as a primary peer-reviewed research article in English, included individuals with ASD 16 years or older, and assessed at least 1 domain of neurocognitive functioning or social cognition using standard measures.DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS Of 9892 articles identified and screened, 75 met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review and meta-analysis.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Hedges g effect sizes were computed, and random-effects models were used for all analyses. Moderators of between-study variability in effect sizes were assessed using meta-regressions. RESULTSThe systematic review and meta-analysis included 75 studies, with a combined sample of 3361 individuals with ASD (mean [SD] age, 32.0 [9.3] years; 75.9% male) and 5344 neurotypical adults (mean [SD] age, 32.3 [9.1] years; 70.1% male). Adults with ASD showed large impairments in theory of mind (g = −1.09; 95% CI, −1.25 to −0.92; number of studies = 39) and emotion perception and processing (g = −0.80; 95% CI, −1.04 to −0.55; n = 18), followed by medium impairments in processing speed (g = −0.61; 95% CI, −0.83 to −0.38; n = 21) and verbal learning and memory (g = −0.55; 95% CI, −0.86 to −0.25; n = 12). The least altered cognitive domains were attention and vigilance (g = −0.30; 95% CI, −0.81 to 0.21; n = 5) and working memory (g = −0.23; 95% CI, −0.47 to 0.01; n = 19). Meta-regressions confirmed robustness of the results. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEResults of this systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that adults with ASD show impairments in social cognitive domains and in specific nonsocial cognitive domains. These findings contribute to the understanding of the patterns of cognitive functioning in adults with ASD and may assist in the identification of targets for cognitive interventions.

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The Self‐Reference Effect on Perception: Undiminished in Adults with Autism and No Relation to Autism Traits

Cited by 40 publications

References 44 publications

Intact counterfactual emotion processing in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from eye‐tracking

Intact counterfactual emotion processing in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from eye‐tracking

A functional but atypical self: Influence of self‐relevant processing on the gaze cueing effect in autism spectrum disorder

Patterns of Nonsocial and Social Cognitive Functioning in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder

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