| 1. |
- Galazka, Martyna A, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Pupillary Contagion in Autism.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Psychological science. - : SAGE Publications. - 1467-9280 .- 0956-7976. ; 30:2, s. 309-315
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pupillary contagion is an involuntary change in the observer's pupil size in response to the pupil size of another person. This effect, presumed to be an important adaption for individuals living in groups, has been documented in both typical infants and adults. Here, for the first time, we report pupillary contagion in individuals with autism, a disorder of social communication. We found that, compared with a typical group ( n = 63), individuals with autism ( n = 54) exhibited comparable pupillary contagion when observing pictures of emotional faces, despite less spontaneous attention toward the eye region. Furthermore, the magnitude of the pupillary response in the autism group was negatively correlated with time spent fixating the eye region. The results suggest that even with less looking toward the eyes, individuals with autism respond to the affective and arousal levels transmitted from other individuals. These results are discussed in the context of an overarousal account of socioaffective-processing differences in autism.
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| 2. |
- Lassalle, Amandine, et al.
(författare)
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Hypersensitivity to low intensity fearful faces in autism when fixation is constrained to the eyes.
- 2017
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Ingår i: Human brain mapping. - : Wiley. - 1097-0193 .- 1065-9471. ; 38:2, s. 5943-57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous studies that showed decreased brain activation in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) viewing expressive faces did not control that participants looked in the eyes. This is problematic because ASD is characterized by abnormal attention to the eyes. Here, we collected fMRI data from 48 participants (27 ASD) viewing pictures of neutral faces and faces expressing anger, happiness, and fear at low and high intensity, with a fixation cross between the eyes. Group differences in whole brain activity were examined for expressive faces at high and low intensity versus neutral faces. Group differences in neural activity were also investigated in regions of interest within the social brain, including the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). In response to low intensity fearful faces, ASD participants showed increased activation in the social brain regions, and decreased functional coupling between the amygdala and the vmPFC. This oversensitivity to low intensity fear coupled with a lack of emotional regulation capacity could indicate an excitatory/inhibitory imbalance in their socio-affective processing system. This may result in social disengagement and avoidance of eye-contact to handle feelings of strong emotional reaction. Our results also demonstrate the importance of careful control of gaze when investigating emotional processing in ASD. Hum Brain Mapp, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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| 3. |
- Lassalle, Amandine, et al.
(författare)
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Influence of anxiety and alexithymia on brain activations associated with the perception of others' pain in autism.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Social neuroscience. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1747-0927 .- 1747-0919. ; 14:3, s. 359-377
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The circumstances under which empathy is altered in ASD remain unclear, as previous studies did not systematically find differences in brain activation between ASD and controls in empathy-eliciting paradigms, and did not always monitor whether differences were primarily due to ASD "per se", or to conditions overlapping with ASD, such as alexithymia and anxiety. Here, we collected fMRI data from 47 participants (22 ASD) viewing pictures depicting hands and feet of unknown others in painful, disgusting, or neutral situations. We computed brain activity for painful and disgusting stimuli (vs. neutral) in whole brain and in regions of interest among the brain areas typically activated during the perception of nociceptive stimuli. Group differences in brain activation disappeared when either alexithymia or anxiety - both elevated in the ASD group - were controlled for. Regression analyses indicated that the influence of symptoms was mainly shared between autistic symptomatology, alexithymia and anxiety or driven by unique contributions from alexithymia or anxiety. Our results suggest that affective empathy may be affected in ASD, but that this association is complex. The respective contribution of alexithymia and anxiety to decreased affective empathy of people with ASD may be due to the association of those psychiatric conditions with reduced motor resonance/Theory of Mind.
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| 4. |
- Zürcher, Nicole R, et al.
(författare)
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Perception of social cues of danger in autism spectrum disorders.
- 2013
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Ingår i: PloS one. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 8:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Intuitive grasping of the meaning of subtle social cues is particularly affected in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Despite their relevance in social communication, the effect of averted gaze in fearful faces in conveying a signal of environmental threat has not been investigated using real face stimuli in adults with ASD. Here, using functional MRI, we show that briefly presented fearful faces with averted gaze, previously shown to be a strong communicative signal of environmental danger, produce different patterns of brain activation than fearful faces with direct gaze in a group of 26 normally intelligent adults with ASD compared with 26 matched controls. While implicit cue of threat produces brain activation in attention, emotion processing and mental state attribution networks in controls, this effect is absent in individuals with ASD. Instead, individuals with ASD show activation in the subcortical face-processing system in response to direct eye contact. An effect of differences in looking behavior was excluded in a separate eye tracking experiment. Our data suggest that individuals with ASD are more sensitive to direct eye contact than to social signals of danger conveyed by averted fearful gaze.
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| 5. |
- Åsberg Johnels, Jakob, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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Autism and emotional face-viewing.
- 2017
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Ingår i: Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research. - : Wiley. - 1939-3806. ; 10:5, s. 901-910
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Atypical patterns of face-scanning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may contribute to difficulties in social interactions, but there is little agreement regarding what exactly characterizes face-viewing in ASD. In addition, little research has examined how face-viewing is modulated by the emotional expression of the stimuli, in individuals with or without ASD. We used eye-tracking to explore viewing patterns during perception of dynamic emotional facial expressions in relatively large groups of individuals with (n=57) and without ASD (n=58) and examined diagnostic- and age-related effects, after subgrouping children and adolescents (≤18 years), on the one hand, and adults (>18 years), on the other. Results showed that children/adolescents with ASD fixated the mouth of happy and angry faces less than their typically developing (TD) peers, and conversely looked more to the eyes of happy faces. Moreover, while all groups fixated the mouth in happy faces more than in other expressions, children/adolescents with ASD did relatively less so. Correlation analysis showed a similar lack of relative orientation toward the mouth of smiling faces in TD children/adolescents with high autistic traits, as measured by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Among adults, participants with ASD attended less to the eyes only for neutral faces. Our study shows that the emotional content of a face influences gaze behavior, and that this effect is not fully developed in children/adolescents with ASD. Interestingly, this lack of differentiation observed in the younger ASD group was also seen in younger TD individuals with higher AQ scores. Autism Res 2016. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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