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1.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform ; 50(7): 769-784, 2024 Jul.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38722582

RESUMEN

Task-irrelevant stimuli often capture our attention despite our best efforts to ignore them. It has been noted that tasks involving perceptually complex displays can lead to reduced interference from distractors. The mechanism behind this effect is debated, with some accounts emphasizing the "perceptual load" of the stimuli themselves and others emphasizing the role of proactive control. Here, in three experiments, we investigated the roles of perceptual load, proactive control, and reward motivation in determining distractor interference. Participants performed a visual search task of high, low, or intermediate load, with flanking task-irrelevant distractors. Each trial was preceded by a cue indicating the level of perceptual load (Experiments 1-3) as well as the potential reward that could be earned (Experiments 2 and 3). In all three experiments, the attentional set induced by the preceding trial and cued proactive expectation of perceptual load interacted to determine flanker interference, which was significant for all trial types except trials cued as high load which were also preceded by high load. These effects were not modulated by reward motivation, although in the final experiment reward did significantly improve performance overall. Thus, successful distractor exclusion does not depend upon motivation or load per se but does require an expectation of high load. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).


Asunto(s)
Atención , Desempeño Psicomotor , Recompensa , Humanos , Atención/fisiología , Adulto Joven , Adulto , Femenino , Masculino , Desempeño Psicomotor/fisiología , Motivación/fisiología , Adolescente , Señales (Psicología) , Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos/fisiología , Percepción Visual/fisiología
2.
Biol Psychol ; 190: 108820, 2024 Jul.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38815896

RESUMEN

The perception of biological motion is an important social cognitive ability. Models of biological motion perception recognize two processes that contribute to the perception of biological motion: a bottom-up process that binds optic-flow patterns into a coherent percept of biological motion and a top-down process that binds sequences of body-posture 'snapshots' over time into a fluent percept of biological motion. The vast majority of studies on autism and biological motion perception have used point-light figure stimuli, which elicit biological motion perception predominantly via bottom-up processes. Here, we investigated whether autism is associated with deviances in the top-down processing of biological motion. For this, we tested a sample of adults scoring low vs high on autism traits on a recently validated EEG paradigm in which apparent biological motion is combined with frequency tagging (Cracco et al., 2022) to dissociate between two percepts: 1) the representation of individual body postures, and 2) their temporal integration into movements. In contrast to our hypothesis, we found no evidence for a diminished temporal body posture integration in the high-scoring group. We did, however, find a group difference that suggests that adults scoring high on autism traits have a visual processing style that focuses more on a single percept (i.e. either body postures or movements, contingent on saliency) compared to adults scoring low on autism traits who instead seemed to represent the two percepts included in the paradigm in a more balanced manner. Although unexpected, this finding aligns well with the autism literature on perceptual stability.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno Autístico , Electroencefalografía , Percepción de Movimiento , Humanos , Percepción de Movimiento/fisiología , Masculino , Femenino , Adulto , Trastorno Autístico/fisiopatología , Trastorno Autístico/psicología , Adulto Joven , Estimulación Luminosa/métodos , Postura/fisiología
3.
Eur J Neurosci ; 2024 May 06.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38706370

RESUMEN

Extensive research has shown that observers are able to efficiently extract summary information from groups of people. However, little is known about the cues that determine whether multiple people are represented as a social group or as independent individuals. Initial research on this topic has primarily focused on the role of static cues. Here, we instead investigate the role of dynamic cues. In two experiments with male and female human participants, we use EEG frequency tagging to investigate the influence of two fundamental Gestalt principles - synchrony and common fate - on the grouping of biological movements. In Experiment 1, we find that brain responses coupled to four point-light figures walking together are enhanced when they move in sync vs. out of sync, but only when they are presented upright. In contrast, we found no effect of movement direction (i.e., common fate). In Experiment 2, we rule out that synchrony takes precedence over common fate by replicating the null effect of movement direction while keeping synchrony constant. These results suggest that synchrony plays an important role in the processing of biological group movements. In contrast, the role of common fate is less clear and will require further research.

5.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci ; 24(3): 582-598, 2024 Jun.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38316706

RESUMEN

The term "self-bias" refers to the human propensity to prioritize self- over other-related stimuli and is believed to influence various stages of the processing stream. By means of event-related potentials (ERPs), it was recently shown that the self-bias in a shape-label matching task modulates early as well as later phases of information processing in neurotypicals. Recent claims suggest autism-related deficits to specifically impact later stages of self-related processing; however, it is unclear whether these claims hold based on current findings. Using the shape-label matching task while recording ERPs in individuals with autism can clarify which stage of self-related processing is specifically affected in this condition. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the temporal course of self-related processing in adults with and without autism. Thirty-two adults with autism and 27 neurotypicals completed a shape-label matching task while ERPs were concomitantly recorded. At the behavioral level, results furnished evidence for a comparable self-bias across groups, with no differences in task performance between adults with and without autism. At the ERP level, the two groups showed a similar self-bias at early stages of self-related information processing (the N1 component). Conversely, the autism group manifested a lessened differentiation between self- and other-related stimuli at later stages (the parietal P3 component). In line with recent claims of later phases of self-related processing being altered in autism, we found an equivalent self-bias between groups at an early, sensory stage of processing, yet a strongly diminished self-bias at a later, cognitive stage in adults with autism.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno Autístico , Electroencefalografía , Potenciales Evocados , Humanos , Masculino , Femenino , Trastorno Autístico/fisiopatología , Adulto , Potenciales Evocados/fisiología , Adulto Joven , Encéfalo/fisiopatología , Tiempo de Reacción/fisiología , Autoimagen , Estimulación Luminosa/métodos , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas
6.
Cortex ; 171: 308-318, 2024 Feb.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38070386

RESUMEN

Self-related processing is thought to be altered in autism, with several studies reporting that autistic individuals show a diminished neural response relative to neurotypicals for their own name and face. However, evidence remains scarce and is mostly based on event-related potential studies. Here, we used EEG to measure the neural activity of autistic adults (20 for faces, 27 for names) and neurotypical adults (24 for faces, 25 for names) while they were watching rapidly alternating faces and names, through a relatively new technique called Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation. We presented strangers' faces or names at a base frequency of 5.77 Hz, while one's own, a close other's, and a specific stranger's face/name was presented at an oddball frequency of 1.154 Hz. The neurotypical group showed a significantly greater response to their own face than both close other and stranger faces, and a greater response for close other than for stranger faces. In contrast, in the autism group, own and close other faces showed stronger responses than the stranger's face, but the difference between own and close other faces was not significant in a bilateral parieto-occipital cluster. No group differences in the enhanced response to familiar names were found. These results replicate and extend results obtained using traditional electroencephalographic techniques which suggest atypical responses to self-relevant stimuli in autism.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno Autístico , Nombres , Adulto , Humanos , Estimulación Luminosa/métodos , Potenciales Evocados/fisiología , Electroencefalografía
7.
J Autism Dev Disord ; 2023 Dec 23.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38142248

RESUMEN

The correct language to refer to someone with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder has received a lot of attention in recent years. Studies in English-speaking countries found a main identity-first language (IFL) preference (e.g. autistic person) opposed to a person-first language preference (PFL) (e.g. person with autism) among adults with autism. However, a recent study conducted in a Dutch-speaking country (the Netherlands) reported a PFL preference (Buijsman et al., 2023). The goal of the current study was to gain insights into language preferences in two Dutch-speaking countries and, in contrast to previous studies, give participants the option to indicate not having a specific language preference. In the current study, we asked 414 Dutch-speaking adults with autism, living either in Belgium or the Netherlands, to fill in an online questionnaire about their language preference. We found that over half of the participants had a PFL preference (54%), followed by having no preference (27%). Only 14% of them had an IFL preference, and 5% proposed another term. Having more years of education was identified as a predictor for having an IFL preference when compared to a PFL preference, while being older predicted having no preference compared to a PFL preference. The majority of Dutch-speaking adults with autism showed a PFL preference, which is in contrast to findings from English-speaking countries, but in accord with a recent study conducted in the Netherlands (Buijsman et al., 2023). Implications of this finding for language use are discussed.

8.
J Neurol ; 270(9): 4326-4341, 2023 Sep.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37209128

RESUMEN

This study aimed to assess if children with a vestibular impairment (VI) are more prone to have neurocognitive deficits compared to typically developing (TD) peers, taking into account important confounding factors with hearing loss being the most important. The neurocognitive performance of fifteen VI children (6-13 years old) was compared to that of an age-, handedness- and sex-weighted group of TD peers (n = 60). Secondly, their performance was also compared to matched groups of TD and hearing impaired (HI) children to evaluate the involvement of HI. The protocol comprises cognitive tests assessing response inhibition, emotion recognition, visuospatial memory, selective and sustained attention, visual memory and visual-motor integration.Based on the results, the VI group had significantly reduced scores on 'social cognition' (p = 0.018), 'executive functions' (p < 0.01), and 'perceptual-motor functioning' (p = 0.020) compared to their TD and HI peers. For the categories 'complex attention' and 'learning and memory' no differences could be observed. Analogous to the findings of previous literature, the symptoms of a VI are often not limited to the primary functions of the system, but also comprise an impact on emotional and cognitive performance. Therefore, more holistic rehabilitation approaches should be encouraged, with a screening and attention for cognitive, emotional and behavioral dysfunctions in the vestibular population. Since this is one of the first studies to investigate the involvement of a VI in a child's cognitive development, these findings support the need for studies further characterizing the impact of a VI, the underlying pathophysiology and the effect of different rehabilitation procedures.


Asunto(s)
Trastornos del Conocimiento , Disfunción Cognitiva , Humanos , Niño , Adolescente , Estudios Transversales , Disfunción Cognitiva/diagnóstico , Disfunción Cognitiva/etiología , Cognición , Función Ejecutiva , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas
9.
Autism Res ; 16(6): 1111-1123, 2023 06.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37040541

RESUMEN

To explain the social difficulties in autism, many studies have been conducted on social stimuli processing. However, this research has mostly used basic social stimuli (e.g., eyes, faces, hands, single agent), not resembling the complexity of what we encounter in our daily social lives and what people with autism experience difficulties with. Third-party social interactions are complex stimuli that we come across often and are also highly relevant for social functioning. Interestingly, the existing behavioral studies point to altered social interaction processing in autism. However, it is not clear whether this is due to altered recognition or altered interpretation of social interactions. Here, we specifically investigated the recognition of social interaction in adults with and without autism. More precisely, we measured neural responses to social scenes depicting either social interaction or not with an electroencephalogram frequency tagging task and compared these responses between adults with and without autism (N = 61). The results revealed an enhanced response to social scenes with interaction, replicating previous findings in a neurotypical sample. Crucially, this effect was found in both groups, with no difference between them. This suggests that social interaction recognition is not atypical in adults with autism. Taken together with the previous behavioral evidence, our study thus suggests that individuals with autism are able to recognize social interactions, but that they might not extract the same information from those interactions or that they might use the extracted information differently.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno del Espectro Autista , Trastorno Autístico , Humanos , Adulto , Interacción Social , Electroencefalografía , Reconocimiento en Psicología
10.
Acta Psychol (Amst) ; 235: 103877, 2023 May.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36924703

RESUMEN

According to the state regulation deficit (SRD) account, ADHD is associated with difficulties regulating tonic arousal levels, which may be due to inefficient effort allocation. We aimed to test the SRD account by using a target detection task with three different event rates (ER; 700 ms, 1800 ms, 6000 ms), in order to manipulate the tonic arousal state and its effects on performance and pupil indices in adults with high (n = 40) versus low (n = 36) ADHD symptom levels. In an additional condition, a fast ER (700 ms) was accompanied by auditory white noise (WN), to further increase tonic arousal level. The ER manipulation had a clear effect on RT and variability of RT. These effects were more pronounced for the high-ADHD group, especially for variability of RT with decreasing ER, suggestive of deficient upregulation of a tonic arousal state in that group, in line with their self-reported SRDs in daily life. Adding WN to the fast condition led to more errors, however similarly for both groups. Contrary to our predictions, the ER manipulation had no effect on tonic pupil size (as a measure of tonic arousal). Phasic pupil amplitude (as a measure of cognitive effort) linearly increased with decreasing ER, suggesting more effort allocation during slower ERs. WN decreased phasic pupil amplitude, but had no impact on tonic pupil size. Importantly, however, no ADHD-related differences were present for the pupil indices. In conclusion, adults with elevated levels of ADHD symptoms reported more SRDs in daily life and showed a performance pattern that suggests difficulties in upregulating but not downregulating the tonic arousal state. Surprisingly, these findings were not accompanied by group differences in pupillometric indices. This casts some doubts on the relationship between these measures of autonomic nervous system activity and state regulation, in particular in the context of ADHD symptomatology.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad , Pupila Tónica , Humanos , Adulto , Desempeño Psicomotor/fisiología , Nivel de Alerta/fisiología , Pupila/fisiología , Sistema Nervioso Autónomo , Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad/diagnóstico , Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad/psicología
11.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) ; 76(12): 2823-2836, 2023 Dec.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36714977

RESUMEN

Humans are inclined to preferentially process self-related content, referred to as the "self-bias." Different paradigms have been used to study this effect. However, not all paradigms included a familiar other condition (but rather an unfamiliar other condition), needed to differentiate self-specific effects from the impact of familiarity. The primary goal of our study was to test the suitability for studying the self-bias of two paradigms that provide robust measures of salience effects-that is, the Repetition Blindness (RB) effect and the Emotional Stroop (ES) interference-while addressing the familiarity confound. We further explored whether self-bias effects were related to autism symptomatology, as a reduced self-bias in autism has been reported in previous research. In an online procedure, 82 adults performed an RB task and an ES task in a counterbalanced order, while being presented with both self- and familiar other-related stimuli. Results of both frequentist and Bayesian analyses did not provide evidence in favour of a specific self-bias on either task: we found no significant modulation of the RB effect, nor of the ES interference, for the own versus a close other's name. Moreover, no link with autism symptomatology was found. Tackling a crucial shortcoming from earlier studies, our investigation raises awareness on the importance of accounting for familiarity when investigating self-related processing.


Asunto(s)
Cognición , Reconocimiento en Psicología , Adulto , Humanos , Teorema de Bayes , Motivación
12.
Neuropsychologia ; 177: 108395, 2022 12 15.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36272677

RESUMEN

Detecting biological motion is essential for adaptive social behavior. Previous research has revealed the brain processes underlying this ability. However, brain activity during biological motion perception captures a multitude of processes. As a result, it is often unclear which processes reflect movement processing and which processes reflect secondary processes that build on movement processing. To address this issue, we developed a new approach to measure brain responses directly coupled to observed movements. Specifically, we showed 30 male and female adults a point-light walker moving at a pace of 2.4 Hz and used EEG frequency tagging to measure the brain response coupled to that pace ('movement tagging'). The results revealed a reliable response at the walking frequency that was reduced by two manipulations known to disrupt biological motion perception: phase scrambling and inversion. Interestingly, we also identified a brain response at half the walking frequency (i.e., 1.2 Hz), corresponding to the rate at which the individual dots completed a cycle. In contrast to the 2.4 Hz response, the response at 1.2 Hz was increased for scrambled (vs. unscrambled) walkers. These results show that frequency tagging can be used to capture the visual processing of biological movements and can dissociate between global (2.4 Hz) and local (1.2 Hz) processes involved in biological motion perception, at different frequencies of the brain signal.


Asunto(s)
Percepción de Movimiento , Movimiento , Adulto , Masculino , Humanos , Femenino , Movimiento/fisiología , Encéfalo/fisiología , Percepción de Movimiento/fisiología , Cognición/fisiología , Electroencefalografía
13.
Biol Psychol ; 172: 108358, 2022 07.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35618161

RESUMEN

Previous event-related potential (ERP) research showed reduced self-referential processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As different self-related stimuli were studied in isolation, it is unclear whether findings can be ascribed to a common underlying mechanism. Further, it is unknown whether altered self-referential processing is also evident in neurotypicals scoring high on ASD symptomatology. We compared ERPs in response to one's own name and face (versus other names/faces) between neurotypical adults scoring high versus low on ASD symptomatology. Conform previous research, the parietal P3 was enhanced, both for own name and face, indicating a self-referential effect. The N250 was only enhanced for one's own face. However, the self-referential parietal P3 effect did not correlate between the names and faces conditions, arguing against a common underlying mechanism. No group effects appeared, neither for names nor faces, suggesting that reduced self-referential processing is not a dimensional ASD feature in the neurotypical population.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno del Espectro Autista , Reconocimiento Facial , Nombres , Adulto , Potenciales Evocados/fisiología , Humanos
14.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci ; 17(11): 1044-1053, 2022 11 02.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35452523

RESUMEN

Previous neuroscience studies have provided important insights into the neural processing of third-party social interaction recognition. Unfortunately, however, the methods they used are limited by a high susceptibility to noise. Electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency tagging is a promising technique to overcome this limitation, as it is known for its high signal-to-noise ratio. So far, EEG frequency tagging has mainly been used with simplistic stimuli (e.g. faces), but more complex stimuli are needed to study social interaction recognition. It therefore remains unknown whether this technique could be exploited to study third-party social interaction recognition. To address this question, we first created and validated a wide variety of stimuli that depict social scenes with and without social interaction, after which we used these stimuli in an EEG frequency tagging experiment. As hypothesized, we found enhanced neural responses to social scenes with social interaction compared to social scenes without social interaction. This effect appeared laterally at occipitoparietal electrodes and strongest over the right hemisphere. Hence, we find that EEG frequency tagging can measure the process of inferring social interaction from varying contextual information. EEG frequency tagging is particularly valuable for research into populations that require a high signal-to-noise ratio like infants, young children and clinical populations.


Asunto(s)
Electroencefalografía , Interacción Social , Niño , Humanos , Preescolar , Electroencefalografía/métodos , Reconocimiento en Psicología
15.
J Neurosci ; 42(19): 3989-3999, 2022 05 11.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35361705

RESUMEN

Recent theories of autism propose that a core deficit in autism would be a less context-sensitive weighting of prediction errors. There is also first support for this hypothesis on an early sensory level. However, an open question is whether this decreased context sensitivity is caused by faster updating of one's model of the world (i.e., higher weighting of new information), proposed by predictive coding theories, or slower model updating. Here, we differentiated between these two hypotheses by investigating how first impressions shape the mismatch negativity (MMN), reflecting early sensory prediction error processing. An autism and matched control group of human adults (both n = 27, 8 female) were compared on the multi-timescale MMN paradigm, in which tones were presented that were either standard (frequently occurring) or deviant (rare), and these roles reversed every block. A well-replicated observation is that the initial model (i.e., the standard and deviant sound in the first block) influences MMN amplitudes in later blocks. If autism is characterized by faster model updating, and thus a smaller primacy bias, we hypothesized (and demonstrate using a simple reinforcement learning model) that their MMN amplitudes should be less influenced by the initial context. In line with this hypothesis, we found that MMN responses in the autism group did not differ between the initial deviant and initial standard sounds as they did in the control group. These findings are consistent with the idea that autism is characterized by faster model updating during early sensory processing, as proposed by predictive coding accounts of autism.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Recent theories of autism propose that a core deficit in autism is that they are faster to update their models of the world based on new sensory information. Here, we tested this hypothesis by investigating how first impressions shape brain responses during early sensory processing, and hypothesized that individuals with autism would be less influenced by these first impressions. In line with earlier studies, our results show that early sensory processing was influenced by first impressions in a control group. However, this was not the case in an autism group. This suggests that individuals with autism are faster to abandon their initial model, and is consistent with the proposal that they are faster to update their models of the world.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno Autístico , Potenciales Evocados Auditivos , Estimulación Acústica/métodos , Adulto , Percepción Auditiva/fisiología , Electroencefalografía , Potenciales Evocados Auditivos/fisiología , Femenino , Humanos
16.
BMC Psychol ; 9(1): 132, 2021 Sep 03.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34479639

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: The 'self-bias'-i.e., the human proneness to preferentially process self-relevant stimuli-is thought to be important for both self-related and social processing. Previous research operationalized the self-bias using different paradigms, assessing the size of the self-bias within a single cognitive domain. Recent studies suggested a reduced self-bias in autism, yet findings are inconsistent. The lack of consensus across existing studies may result from variation in paradigms and cognitive domains tested. Therefore, the primary goal of the current study was to investigate whether self-biases found across cognitive domains (i.e., perception, memory, attention) are related or independent. The secondary goal was to explore the relationship between these self-biases and the extent of autistic traits in a neurotypical sample. METHODS: In an online procedure, 99 Dutch-speaking adults performed three self-processing tasks in counterbalanced order-i.e., the shape-label matching task (perception), the trait adjectives task (memory) and the visual search task (attention)-and completed two self-report measures of ASD symptomatology, i.e., AQ-10 and SRS-A. To control for level of familiarity, self-, close other- and famous other-relevant stimuli were included in each task. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted for each task, and both frequentist as well as Bayesian analyses were applied to investigate the correlational patterns between self-bias measures. RESULTS: We observed significant correlations of the self-bias magnitude between memory and attention, as well as attention and perception. However, Bayesian analysis provided only weak support for the latter association. Further, the size of the self-bias was not significantly related across memory and perception. No significant correlation between autistic traits and the self-bias magnitude was found for any of the three tasks, with Bayesian analyses strongly favoring the null hypothesis. CONCLUSIONS: In contrast with the view of a 'unidimensional' self-bias, our findings provide evidence for a heterogeneous and multifaceted self consisting of a variety of related and unrelated aspects. None of the self-bias indices were found to relate to autistic traits in our neurotypical sample.


Asunto(s)
Atención , Trastorno Autístico , Adulto , Teorema de Bayes , Sesgo , Cognición , Humanos
17.
Neuropsychology ; 35(5): 486-497, 2021 Jul.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34292008

RESUMEN

OBJECTIVE: According to the state regulation deficit account, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with difficulties in maintaining an optimal level of cognitive arousal. As the precise locus of this problem is yet unknown, the present study investigated this through behavioral and pupillometry indices. METHOD: Adults scoring high versus low on ADHD symptomatology carried out a target detection task at three event rate (ER) levels. Phasic pupil dilation was used as an index of cognitive effort, and tonic pupil size as an index of tonic arousal. RESULTS: Performance and self-reports indicated state regulation difficulties in the high-ADHD group. Phasic pupil dilation was increased during slow ER, indicating additional effort allocation. Surprisingly, tonic pupil size was smallest in the fast ER, and group effects were absent for both pupil measures. CONCLUSION: The high-ADHD group showed state regulation difficulties despite similar levels of additional effort allocation as reflected by phasic pupil responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).


Asunto(s)
Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad , Adulto , Nivel de Alerta , Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad/diagnóstico , Humanos , Pupila
18.
BMJ Open ; 11(6): e049165, 2021 06 11.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34117049

RESUMEN

INTRODUCTION: The involvement of the vestibular system in the motor and higher (cognitive) performances of typically developing or vestibular-impaired children is currently unknown or has only scarcely been explored. Interestingly, arguments for an interaction between vestibular, motor and cognitive functions in children can also be supported by research on children known for their difficulties in motor and/or cognitive processing (eg, children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD)), as they often present with vestibular-like characteristics. Therefore, in order to elucidate this interaction, and to increase the understanding of the pathophysiology and symptomatology of vestibular disorders and NDD in children, the Balanced Growth project was developed. It includes the following objectives: (1) to understand the association between motor skills, cognitive performances and the vestibular function in typically developing school-aged children, with special focus on the added value of the vestibular system in higher cognitive skills and motor competence; (2) to investigate whether a vestibular dysfunction (with/without an additional auditory disease) has an impact on motor skills, cognitive performances and motor-cognitive interactions in children and (3) to assess if an underlying vestibular dysfunction can be identified in school-aged children with NDD, with documentation of the occurrence and characteristics of vestibular dysfunctions in this group of children using an extensive vestibular test battery. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: In order to achieve the objectives of the observational cross-sectional Balanced Growth study, a single-task and dual-task test protocol was created, which will be performed in three groups of school-aged children (6-12 years old): (1) a typically developing group (n=140), (2) (audio) vestibular-impaired children (n=30) and (3) children with an NDD diagnosis (n=55) (ie, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or developmental coordination disorder). The test protocol consists of several custom-made tests and already existing validated test batteries and includes a vestibular assessment, an extensive motor assessment, eight neurocognitive tests, a cognitive-motor interaction assessment and includes also additional screenings to control for potential confounding factors (eg, hearing status, intelligence, physical activity, etc). ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The current study was approved by the ethics committee of Ghent University Hospital on 4 June 2019 with registration number B670201940165 and is registered at Clinical Trials (clinicaltrials.gov) with identifier NCT04685746. All research findings will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and presented at vestibular as well as multidisciplinary international conferences and meetings. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04685746.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad , Trastorno del Espectro Autista , Enfermedades Vestibulares , Niño , Cognición , Estudios Transversales , Humanos , Estudios Observacionales como Asunto , Enfermedades Vestibulares/diagnóstico
19.
Mol Autism ; 12(1): 21, 2021 03 03.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33658046

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have reported a negative psychological and mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This impact is likely to be stronger for people with autism as they are at heightened risk of mental health problems and because the pandemic directly affects social functioning and everyday routines. We therefore examined COVID-19 pandemic-related changes in mental health, the impact of the pandemic on their social life and routines, satisfaction with pandemic-related information and tips, and participants' wishes for guidance. METHODS: We used a mixed-method approach, collecting quantitative and qualitative survey data from adults with and without autism across three European countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK (N = 1044). RESULTS: We found an increase in depression and anxiety symptoms in response to the pandemic for both the non-autism and the autism group, which was greater for adults with autism. Furthermore, adults with autism showed a greater increase in worries about their pets, work, getting medication and food, and their own safety/security. They felt more relieved from social stress, yet experienced the loss of social contact as difficult. Adults with autism also felt more stressed about the loss of routines. Pleasant changes noted by adults with autism were the increase in solidarity and reduced sensory and social overload. Adults with autism frequently reported problems with cancellation of guidance due to the pandemic and expressed their wish for (more) autism-specific information and advice. LIMITATIONS: Our sample is likely to reflect some degree of selection bias, and longitudinal studies are needed to determine long-term effects. CONCLUSIONS: Results highlight the psychological burden of the pandemic on adults with autism and shed light on how to support them during this COVID-19 pandemic, which is especially important now that the pandemic is likely to have a prolonged course. There is a need for accessible, affordable (continued) support from health services. Guidance may focus on the maintenance of a social network, and adjusting routines to the rapid ongoing changes. Finally, we may learn from the COVID-19 pandemic-related changes experienced as pleasant by adults with autism to build a more autism-friendly society post-pandemic.


Asunto(s)
Ansiedad/epidemiología , Trastorno Autístico/psicología , COVID-19/psicología , Depresión/epidemiología , Estrés Psicológico/epidemiología , Adolescente , Adulto , Anciano , Bélgica/epidemiología , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Países Bajos/epidemiología , SARS-CoV-2 , Interacción Social , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , Reino Unido/epidemiología , Adulto Joven
20.
Autism ; 25(2): 440-451, 2021 02.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33030041

RESUMEN

LAY ABSTRACT: Recent theories propose that autism is characterized by an impairment in determining when to learn and when not. Here, we investigated this hypothesis by estimating learning rates (i.e. the speed with which one learns) in three different environments that differed in rule stability and uncertainty. We found that neurotypical participants with more autistic traits performed worse in a volatile environment (with unstable rules), as they chose less often for the most rewarding option. Exploratory analyses indicated that performance was specifically worse when reward rules were opposite to those initially learned for participants with more autistic traits. However, there were no differences in the adjustment of learning rates between participants with more versus less autistic traits. Together, these results suggest that performance in volatile environments is lower in participants with more autistic traits, but that this performance difference cannot be unambiguously explained by an impairment in adjusting learning rates.


Asunto(s)
Trastorno del Espectro Autista , Trastorno Autístico , Humanos , Aprendizaje , Recompensa
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