Speeded reasoning moderates the inverse relationship between autistic traits and emotion recognition

People with diagnosed autism or being high in autistic traits have been found to have difficulties with recognizing emotions from nonverbal expressions. In this study, we investigated whether speeded reasoning (reasoning performance under time pressure) moderates the inverse relationship between autistic traits and emotion recognition performance. We expected the negative correlation between autistic traits and emotion recognition to be less strong when speeded reasoning was high. The underlying assumption is that people high in autistic traits can compensate for their low intuition in recognizing emotions through quick analytical information processing. A paid online sample ( N = 217) completed the 10-item version of the Autism Spectrum Quotient, two emotion recognition tests using videos with sound (Geneva Emotion Recognition Test) and pictures (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test), and Baddeley’s Grammatical Reasoning Test to measure speeded reasoning. As expected, the inverse relationship between autistic traits and emotion recognition performance was less pronounced for individuals with high compared to low speeded reasoning ability. These results suggest that a high ability in making quick mental inferences may (partly) compensate for difficulties with intuitive emotion recognition related to autistic traits. Lay abstract Autistic people typically have difficulty recognizing other people’s emotions and to process nonverbal cues in an automatic, intuitive fashion. This usually also applies to people who—regardless of an official diagnosis of autism—achieve high values in autism questionnaires. However, some autistic people do not seem to have any problems with emotion recognition. One explanation may be that these individuals are able to compensate for their lack of intuitive or automatic processing through a quick conscious and deliberate analysis of the emotional cues in faces, voices, and body movements. On these grounds, we assumed that the higher autistic people’s ability to reason quickly (i.e. to make quick logical inferences), the fewer problems they should have with determining other people’s emotions. In our study, we asked workers on the crowdsourcing marketplace MTurk to complete a questionnaire about their autistic traits, to perform emotion recognition tests, and to complete a test of the ability to reason under time constraints. In our sample of 217 people, we found the expected pattern. Overall, those who had higher values in the autism questionnaire scored lower in the emotion recognition tests. However, when reasoning ability was taken into account, a more nuanced picture emerged: participants with high values both on the autism questionnaire and on the reasoning test recognized emotions as well as individuals with low autistic traits. Our results suggest that fast analytic information processing may help autistic people to compensate problems in recognizing others’ emotions.

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Short Report: Speeded Reasoning Moderates the Inverse Relationship Between Autistic-Like Traits and Emotion Recognition

10.31234/osf.io/6m8h9 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Alex Bertrams ◽

Katja Schlegel

Keyword(s):

Emotion Recognition ◽

Inverse Relationship ◽

Time Pressure ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Autism Spectrum Quotient ◽

Short Report ◽

Reasoning Ability ◽

Reasoning Test ◽

The Mind

People high in autistic-like traits have been found to have difficulties with recognizing emotions from nonverbal expressions. However, findings on the autism—emotion recognition relationship are inconsistent. In the present study, we investigated whether speeded reasoning ability (reasoning performance under time pressure) moderates the inverse relationship between autistic-like traits and emotion recognition performance. We expected the negative correlation between autistic-like traits and emotion recognition to be less strong when speeded reasoning ability was high. MTurkers (N = 217) completed the ten item version of the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10), two emotion recognition tests using videos with sound (Geneva Emotion Recognition Test, GERT-S) and pictures (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, RMET), and Baddeley's Grammatical Reasoning test to measure speeded reasoning. As expected, the higher the ability in speeded reasoning, the less were higher autistic-like traits related to lower emotion recognition performance. These results suggest that a high ability in making quick mental inferences may (partly) compensate for difficulties with intuitive emotion recognition related to autistic-like traits.

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Emotion Recognition Abilities in Adults with Anorexia Nervosa are Associated with Autistic Traits

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm9041057 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 1057 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jess Kerr-Gaffney ◽

Luke Mason ◽

Emily Jones ◽

Hannah Hayward ◽

Jumana Ahmad ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Anorexia Nervosa ◽

Emotion Recognition ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Treatment Strategies ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Self Report ◽

Future Research ◽

Comorbid Psychopathology

Difficulties in socio-emotional functioning are proposed to contribute to the development and maintenance of anorexia nervosa (AN). This study aimed to examine emotion recognition abilities in individuals in the acute and recovered stages of AN compared to healthy controls (HCs). A second aim was to examine whether attention to faces and comorbid psychopathology predicted emotion recognition abilities. The films expressions task was administered to 148 participants (46 AN, 51 recovered AN, 51 HC) to assess emotion recognition, during which attention to faces was recorded using eye-tracking. Comorbid psychopathology was assessed using self-report questionnaires and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule–2nd edition (ADOS-2). No significant differences in emotion recognition abilities or attention to faces were found between groups. However, individuals with a lifetime history of AN who scored above the clinical cut-off on the ADOS-2 displayed poorer emotion recognition performance than those scoring below cut-off and HCs. ADOS-2 scores significantly predicted emotion recognition abilities while controlling for group membership and intelligence. Difficulties in emotion recognition appear to be associated with high autism spectrum disorder (ASD) traits, rather than a feature of AN. Whether individuals with AN and high ASD traits may require different treatment strategies or adaptations is a question for future research.

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Developmental trajectories of autistic social traits in the general population

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291721002166 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Richard Pender ◽

Pasco Fearon ◽

Beate St Pourcain ◽

Jon Heron ◽

Will Mandy

Keyword(s):

General Population ◽

Full Range ◽

Population Sample ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Communication Disorders ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Growth Mixture Modelling ◽

Autistic People ◽

Social Difficulties ◽

Autism Trait

Abstract Background Autistic people show diverse trajectories of autistic traits over time, a phenomenon labelled ‘chronogeneity’. For example, some show a decrease in symptoms, whilst others experience an intensification of difficulties. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a dimensional condition, representing one end of a trait continuum that extends throughout the population. To date, no studies have investigated chronogeneity across the full range of autistic traits. We investigated the nature and clinical significance of autism trait chronogeneity in a large, general population sample. Methods Autistic social/communication traits (ASTs) were measured in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children using the Social and Communication Disorders Checklist (SCDC) at ages 7, 10, 13 and 16 (N = 9744). We used Growth Mixture Modelling (GMM) to identify groups defined by their AST trajectories. Measures of ASD diagnosis, sex, IQ and mental health (internalising and externalising) were used to investigate external validity of the derived trajectory groups. Results The selected GMM model identified four AST trajectory groups: (i) Persistent High (2.3% of sample), (ii) Persistent Low (83.5%), (iii) Increasing (7.3%) and (iv) Decreasing (6.9%) trajectories. The Increasing group, in which females were a slight majority (53.2%), showed dramatic increases in SCDC scores during adolescence, accompanied by escalating internalising and externalising difficulties. Two-thirds (63.6%) of the Decreasing group were male. Conclusions Clinicians should note that for some young people autism-trait-like social difficulties first emerge during adolescence accompanied by problems with mood, anxiety, conduct and attention. A converse, majority-male group shows decreasing social difficulties during adolescence.

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Less Illusion of a Just World in People with Formally Diagnosed Autism and Higher Autistic Traits

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders ◽

10.1007/s10803-020-04831-7 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alex Bertrams

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Locus Of Control ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Well Being ◽

Autism Diagnosis ◽

Just World ◽

External Locus ◽

General Belief ◽

Autistic People

AbstractPeople differ in how strongly they believe that, in general, one gets what (s)he deserves (i.e., individual differences in the general belief in a just world). In this study (N = 588; n = 60 with a formal autism diagnosis), whether or not autistic people and those with high autistic traits have a relatively low general belief in a just world is examined. The results revealed the expected relationship between autism/higher autistic traits and a lower general belief in a just world. In a subsample (n = 388), personal belief in a just world, external locus of control, and self-deception mediated this relationship. These findings are discussed in terms of autistic strengths (less biased information processing) and problems (lowered well-being).

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How Mood States Affect Information Processing During Facial Emotion Recognition: An Eye Tracking Study

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000060 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 70 (4) ◽

pp. 223-231 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Petra C. Schmid ◽

Marianne Schmid Mast ◽

Dario Bombari ◽

Fred W. Mast ◽

Janek S. Lobmaier

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Eye Movements ◽

Emotion Recognition ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Recognition Task ◽

Global Processing ◽

Local Processing ◽

Processing Style ◽

Happy Mood ◽

Sad Mood

Existing research shows that a sad mood hinders emotion recognition. More generally, it has been shown that mood affects information processing. A happy mood facilitates global processing and a sad mood boosts local processing. Global processing has been described as the Gestalt-like integration of details; local processing is understood as the detailed processing of the parts. The present study investigated how mood affects the use of information processing styles in an emotion recognition task. Thirty-three participants were primed with happy or sad moods in a within-subjects design. They performed an emotion recognition task during which eye movements were registered. Eye movements served to provide information about participants’ global or local information processing style. Our results suggest that when participants were in a happy mood, they processed information more globally compared to when they were in a sad mood. However, global processing was only positively and local processing only negatively related to emotion recognition when participants were in a sad mood. When they were in a happy mood, processing style was not related to emotion recognition performance. Our findings clarify the mechanism that underlies accurate emotion recognition, which is important when one is aiming to improve this ability (i.e., via training).

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“I hear with my little ear something…": Enhanced performance of absolute pitch musicians in an interleaved melody recognition test

10.1101/469429 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Teresa Wenhart ◽

Ye-Young Hwang ◽

Eckart Altenmüller

Keyword(s):

Recognition Test ◽

Recognition Task ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Absolute Pitch ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Autism Spectrum Quotient ◽

Sensitivity Index ◽

Professional Musicians ◽

Melody Recognition ◽

Autistic People

AbstractAutistic people exhibit enhanced abilities to find and extract visual or auditory figures out of a meaningful whole (disembedding). Studies have shown heightened autistic traits in professional musicians with absolute pitch (AP). This study investigates whether such musicians show an advantage in an interleaved melody recognition task (IMRT).A total of N=59 professional musicians (AP=27) participated in the study. In each trial a probe melody was followed by an interleaved sequence. Subjects had to indicate as to whether the probe melody was present in the interleaved sequence. Sensitivity index d’ and response bias c were calculated according to signal detection theory. Additionally, a pitch adjustment test measuring fine-graded differences in absolute pitch proficiency, the Autism-Spectrum-Quotient and a visual embedded figures test were conducted.AP performance was enhanced overall compared to RP. Absolute pitch proficiency, visual disembedding ability and musicality predicted approximately 39.2% of variance in the interleaved melody recognition test. No correlations were found between IMRT and autistic traits.The stable pitch-label associations of AP might serve as additional sensory cues during pre-attentive processing in recognizing interleaved melodies. Results are in line with a detailed-oriented cognitive style and enhanced perceptional functioning of AP musicians similar to that observed in autism.

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Development and Validation of the Suicide Behaviours Questionnaire – Autism Spectrum Conditions in Autistic, Possibly Autistic and Non-Autistic Adults.

10.21203/rs.3.rs-48455/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah Cassidy ◽

Louise Bradley ◽

Heather Cogger-Ward ◽

Jacqui Rodgers

Keyword(s):

Assessment Tool ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Self Report ◽

Measurement Properties ◽

Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽

Autistic People ◽

Autistic Adults ◽

Development And Validation

Abstract Background: Autistic people and those with high autistic traits are at high risk of experiencing suicidality. Yet, there are no suicidality assessment tools developed or validated for these groups.Methods: A widely used and validated suicidality assessment tool developed for the general population (SBQ-R), was adapted using feedback from autistic adults. The adapted tool was refined through 9 interviews, and an online survey with 251 autistic adults, to establish clarity and relevance of the items. Subsequently, 308 autistic, 113 possibly autistic, and 268 non-autistic adults completed the adapted tool online, alongside self-report measures of autistic traits (AQ), camouflaging autistic traits (CAT-Q), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (ASA-A), thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness (INQ-15), lifetime non-suicidal self-injury, and the original version of the suicidality assessment tool (SBQ-R). Analyses explored the appropriateness and measurement properties of the adapted tool between the groups.Results: There was evidence in support of content validity, structural validity, internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity, test retest validity, sensitivity and specificity (for distinguishing those with or without lifetime experience of suicide attempt), and hypothesis testing of the adapted tool (SBQ-ASC) in each group. The structure of the SBQ-ASC was equivalent between autistic and possibly autistic adults, regardless of gender, or use of visual aids to help quantify abstract rating scales.Limitations: The samples involved in the development and validation of the adapted tool were largely female, and largely diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, which is not representative of the wider autistic population. The SBQ-ASC has been developed for use in research and is not recommended to assess risk of future suicide attempts and/or self-harm.Conclusions: The SBQ-ASC is a brief self-report suicidality assessment tool, developed and validated with and for autistic adults, without co-occurring intellectual disability. The SBQ-ASC is appropriate for use in research to identify suicidal thoughts and behaviours in autistic and possibly autistic people, and model associations with risk and protective factors.

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Testing the Empathizing–Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism in half a million people

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1811032115 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 115 (48) ◽

pp. 12152-12157 ◽

Cited By ~ 49

Author(s):

David M. Greenberg ◽

Varun Warrier ◽

Carrie Allison ◽

Simon Baron-Cohen

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Small Sample ◽

Autism Spectrum Quotient ◽

Short Forms ◽

Extreme Type ◽

Autistic People ◽

Extreme Male Brain ◽

Small Sample Sizes

The Empathizing–Systemizing (E-S) theory of typical sex differences suggests that individuals may be classified based on empathy and systemizing. An extension of the E-S theory, the Extreme Male Brain (EMB) theory suggests that autistic people on average have a shift towards a more masculinized brain along the E-S dimensions. Both theories have been investigated in small sample sizes, limiting their generalizability. Here we leverage two large datasets (discovery n = 671,606, including 36,648 autistic individuals primarily; and validation n = 14,354, including 226 autistic individuals) to investigate 10 predictions of the E-S and the EMB theories. In the discovery dataset, typical females on average showed higher scores on short forms of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Sensory Perception Quotient (SPQ), and typical males on average showed higher scores on short forms of the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ). Typical sex differences in these measures were attenuated in autistic individuals. Analysis of “brain types” revealed that typical females on average were more likely to be Type E (EQ > SQ) or Extreme Type E and that typical males on average were more likely to be Type S (SQ > EQ) or Extreme Type S. In both datasets, autistic individuals, regardless of their reported sex, on average were “masculinized.” Finally, we demonstrate that D-scores (difference between EQ and SQ) account for 19 times more of the variance in autistic traits (43%) than do other demographic variables including sex. Our results provide robust evidence in support of both the E-S and EMB theories.

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Face masks impair basic emotion recognition: Group effects and individual variability (Accepted for Publication in Social Psychology)

10.31234/osf.io/2whmp ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah McCrackin ◽

Jelena Ristic ◽

Florence Mayrand ◽

Francesca Capozzi

Keyword(s):

Social Psychology ◽

Emotion Recognition ◽

Social Communication ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Individual Variability ◽

Basic Emotion ◽

Lower Face ◽

Face Features ◽

Upper Face

With the widespread adoption of masks, there is a need for understanding how facial obstruction affects emotion recognition. We asked 120 participants to identify emotions from faces with and without masks. We also examined if recognition performance was related to autistic traits and personality. Masks impacted recognition of expressions with diagnostic lower face features the most and those with diagnostic upper face features the least. Persons with higher autistic traits were worse at identifying unmasked expressions, while persons with lower extraversion and higher agreeableness were better at recognizing masked expressions. These results show that different features play different roles in emotion recognition and suggest that obscuring features affects social communication differently as a function of autistic traits and personality.

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Examining the bidirectional association between emotion recognition and autistic traits using observational and genetic analyses

10.1101/2020.05.21.20108761 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Zoe E. Reed ◽

Liam Mahedy ◽

Abigail Jackson ◽

George Davey Smith ◽

Ian Penton-Voak ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emotion Recognition ◽

Genetic Correlation ◽

Community Sample ◽

Autistic Traits ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Polygenic Risk Score ◽

Genetic Analyses ◽

Polygenic Risk ◽

Causal Pathway ◽

Bidirectional Association

AbstractBackgroundThere is mixed evidence for an association between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and emotion recognition deficits. We sought to assess the bidirectionality of this association using phenotypic and genetic data in a large community sample.MethodsAnalyses were conducted in three stages. First, we examined the bidirectional association between autistic traits at age 8 years and emotion recognition task (ERT) responses at age 24 years (Study 1; N=3,562); and between Diagnostic Analysis of Non-Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) emotion recognition responses at age 8 years and autistic traits at age 10 years (Study 2; N=9,071). Next, we used genetic analyses (Study 3) to examine the association between polygenic risk scores for ASD and these phenotypes. The genetic correlation between ASD and ERT responses at age 24 was also estimated. Analyses were conducted in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.ResultsAutistic traits at age 8 years were negatively associated with later total correct responses on ERT in Study 1 (b=-0.18; 95% CI: −0.27 to −0.09). We also found evidence of an association in Study 2 (b=-0.04; 95% CI: −0.05 to −0.03). We found the opposite association i.e., positive, between the ASD polygenic risk score and ERT (b=0.40; 95% CI: 0.10 to 0.70); however, this association varied across different p-value thresholds so should be interpreted with caution. We did not find evidence of a genetic correlation between ASD and ERT.ConclusionWe found an observational association between poorer emotion recognition and increased autistic traits. Our genetic analyses revealed an association between ASD polygenic risk and the ERT outcome, which may suggest a shared genetic aetiology between these or a potential causal pathway. Our results may inform interventions targeting emotion recognition.

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