Phenomenal, bodily and brain correlates of fictional reappraisal as an implicit emotion regulation strategy.

The ability to modulate our emotional experience, depending on our current goal and context, is of critical importance for adaptive behavior. This ability encompasses various emotion regulation strategies, such as fictional reappraisal, at stake whenever one engages in fictional works (e.g., movies, books, video games, virtual environments). Neuroscientific studies investigating the distinction between the processing of real and fictional entities have reported the involvement of brain structures related to self-relevance and emotion regulation, suggesting a threefold interaction between the appraisal of reality, aspects of the Self, and emotions. The main aim of this study is to investigate the effect of implicit fictional reappraisal on different components of emotion, as well as on the modulatory role of autobiographical and conceptual self-relevance. While recording electrodermal, cardiac, and brain activity (EEG), we presented negative and neutral pictures to 33 participants, describing them as either real or fictional. After each stimulus, the participants reported their subjective emotional experience, self-relevance of the stimuli, as well as their agreement with their description. Using the Bayesian mixed-modeling framework, we showed that stimuli presented as fictional, compared with real, were subjectively appraised as less intense and less negative, and elicited lower skin conductance response, stronger heart-rate deceleration, and lower late positive potential amplitudes. Finally, these phenomenal and physiological changes did, to a moderate extent, rely on variations of specific aspects of self-relevance. Implications for the neuroscientific study of implicit emotion regulation are discussed.

Accelerated time course of saccadic inhibition of return in individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

The inhibition of return (IOR) refers the observer's slower response time when the target stimulus appears on the previously attended location. In the present study, we examined the time course of saccadic IOR by using five stimuli onset asynchronies (SOAs) in a group of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and a comparison group. The results showed that the IOR effect occurred earlier (300 ms SOA) in participants with ASDs, relative to the comparison participants (500 and 700 ms SOAs). The ASD group also committed a greater number of anticipatory saccades, which positively correlated with scores on restricted and repetitive behaviors, as assessed by the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R; Lord et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 24:659-685, 1994). These findings reveal an accelerated time course for saccadic IOR along with diminished volitional oculomotor control in participants with ASDs. We discussed these results with reference to the atypical and the superior visual search abilities often reported in this population.

Metacognition of agency and theory of mind in adults with high functioning autism.

We investigated metacognition of agency in adults with high functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome (HFA/AS) using a computer task in which participants moved the mouse to get the cursor to touch the downward moving X's and avoid the O's. They were then asked to make judgments of performance and judgments of agency. Objective control was either undistorted, or distorted by adding turbulence (i.e., random noise) or a time Lag between the mouse and cursor movements. Participants with HFA/AS used sensorimotor cues available in the turbulence and lag conditions to a lesser extent than control participants in making their judgments of agency. Furthermore, the failure to use these internal diagnostic cues to their own agency was correlated with decrements in a theory of mind task. These findings suggest that a reduced sensitivity to veridical internal cues about the sense of agency is related to mentalizing impairments in autism.

Mind, brain, and teaching: Some directions for future research.

In line with Kline's taxonomy, highlighting teaching as an array of behaviors with different cognitive underpinnings, we advocate the expansion of a specific line of research on mind, brain, and teaching. This research program is devoted to the understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms and the evolutionary determinants of teaching skills, with the ultimate goal of helping teachers improve teaching quality.

Memory for past events: movement and action chains in high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.

In the present study, we assessed whether individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show memory impairments for previously performed actions, as previously suggested for people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (Ecker and Engelkamp in Behav Cogn Psychother 23:349-371, 1995; Merckelbach and Wessel in J Nerv Ment Dis 188(12):846-848, 2000). To test this possibility, we explored verbal memory for actions in individuals with a diagnosis of ASD, with and without co-morbidity for OCD, and in controls matched for age and gender. Participants observed or observed and enacted a number of actions while listening to the corresponding phrases being spoken. After a suitable delay, they were submitted to an old/new recognition task. Results showed that ASD individuals with OCD were less accurate and slower in responding compared to ASD individuals without OCD and controls, particularly when dealing with phrases describing simple movements. In contrast, ASD participants without OCD were more impaired when phrases described complex actions that involved pantomiming object use or coordinating movements of multiple body parts. These findings are discussed in terms of differential organization of the motor trace for simple versus complex actions in ASD individuals according to the concurrent presence of OCD.

Promoting social behavior with oxytocin in high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.

Social adaptation requires specific cognitive and emotional competences. Individuals with high-functioning autism or with Asperger syndrome cannot understand or engage in social situations despite preserved intellectual abilities. Recently, it has been suggested that oxytocin, a hormone known to promote mother-infant bonds, may be implicated in the social deficit of autism. We investigated the behavioral effects of oxytocin in 13 subjects with autism. In a simulated ball game where participants interacted with fictitious partners, we found that after oxytocin inhalation, patients exhibited stronger interactions with the most socially cooperative partner and reported enhanced feelings of trust and preference. Also, during free viewing of pictures of faces, oxytocin selectively increased patients' gazing time on the socially informative region of the face, namely the eyes. Thus, under oxytocin, patients respond more strongly to others and exhibit more appropriate social behavior and affect, suggesting a therapeutic potential of oxytocin through its action on a core dimension of autism.

Temporal preparation in adults with autistic spectrum disorder: The variable foreperiod effect.

Research suggested the possibility that temporal cognition may be different in autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). Although there are some empirical studies examining timing ability in these individuals, to our knowledge, no one directly assessed the ability to predict when an event will occur. Here, we report a study on implicit temporal preparation in individuals with ASD as indexed by the variable foreperiod (FP) effect. We compared a group of adult ASD participants to a group of typically-developed (TD) controls, for their respective abilities to utilize implicit temporal information in a simple detection task with three different preparatory intervals (FP, short, middle and long). Participants were given a warning tone to signal an imminent stimulus, and asked to press a key as quickly as they could upon detection of the stimulus. Both groups were able to use implicit temporal information, as revealed by both the variable-FP effect (i.e., faster response for targets appearing after a long FP) and asymmetric sequential effects (i.e., slower response in short-FP trials following a previous long-FP trial). The TD group exhibited a faster response in a long-FP trial that was preceded by short-FP one, whereas the ASD group did not, as reflected in their higher percentage of response omissions for a target that appeared later than in the previous trial. The reduced ability of ASD participants to modulate their responses under these conditions might reflect a difficulty in time-based monitoring of stimulus occurrence. LAY SUMMARY: Time-processing may be different in autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). This study addressed the ability to anticipate a relevant stimulus's onset according to predictable interstimulus intervals comparing adults with ASD and typically developed controls. We found that ASD participants did not benefit from temporal preparation when stimulus appeared later than previously attended. This suggests a reduced ability in detecting implicit temporal regularities between events.

Emotional face recognition in autism and in cerebral visual impairments: In search for specificity.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in the social domain, but also by hyper- and hypo-reactivity. Atypical visual behaviours and processing have often been observed. Nevertheless, several similar signs are also identified in other clinical conditions including cerebral visual impairments (CVI). In the present study, we investigated emotional face categorization in groups of children with ASD and CVI by comparing each group to typically developing individuals (TD) in two tasks. Stimuli were either non-filtered or filtered by low- and high-spatial frequencies (LSF and HSF). All participants completed the autism spectrum quotient score (AQ) and a complete neurovisual evaluation. The results show that while both clinical groups presented difficulties in the emotional face recognition tasks and atypical processing of filtered stimuli, they did not differ from one another. Additionally, autistic traits were observed in the CVI group and symmetrically, some visual disturbances were present in the ASD group as measured via the AQ score and a neurovisual evaluation, respectively. The present study suggests the relevance of comparing ASD to CVI by showing that emotional face categorization difficulties should not be solely considered as autism-specific but merit investigation for potential dysfunction of the visual processing neural network. These results are of interest in both clinical and research perspectives, indicating that systematic visual examination is warranted for individuals with ASD.

Visual attention and inhibitory control in children, teenagers and adults with autism without intellectual disability: results of oculomotor tasks from a 2-year longitudinal follow-up study (InFoR).

BACKGROUND: Inhibitory control and attention processing atypicalities are implicated in various diseases, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD). These cognitive functions can be tested by using visually guided saccade-based paradigms in children, adolescents and adults to determine the time course of such disorders. METHODS: In this study, using Gap, Step, Overlap and Antisaccade tasks, we analyzed the oculomotor behavior of 82 children, teenagers and adults with high functioning ASD and their peer typically developing (TD) controls in a two-year follow-up study under the auspices of the InFoR-Autism project. Analysis of correlations between oculomotors task measurements and diagnostic assessment of attentional (ADHD-RS and ADHD comorbidity indices) and executive functioning (BRIEF scales) were conducted in order to evaluate their relationship with the oculomotor performance of participants with ASD. RESULTS: As indicated by the presence of a Gap and Overlap effects in all age groups, the oculomotor performances of ASD participants showed a preserved capability in overt attention switching. In contrast, the difference in performances of ASD participants in the Antisaccade task, compared to their TD peers, indicated an atypical development of inhibition and executive functions. From correlation analysis between our oculomotor data and ADHD comorbidity index, and scores of attention and executive function difficulties, our findings support the hypothesis that a specific dysfunction of inhibition skills occurs in ASD participants that is independent of the presence of ADHD comorbidity. LIMITATIONS: These include the relatively small sample size of the ASD group over the study's two-year period, the absence of an ADHD-only control group and the evaluation of a TD control group solely at the study's inception. CONCLUSIONS: Children and teenagers with ASD have greater difficulty in attention switching and inhibiting prepotent stimuli. Adults with ASD can overcome these difficulties, but, similar to teenagers and children with ASD, they make more erroneous and anticipatory saccades and display a greater trial-to-trial variability in all oculomotor tasks compared to their peers. Our results are indicative of a developmental delay in the maturation of executive and attentional functioning in ASD and of a specific impairment in inhibitory control.

Predicting ensuing actions in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.

This study investigated the ability to predict others' action in a group of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (n = 18). Their performance was compared with a group of children with mental retardation (n = 13) and a group of children with typical development (n = 19). Participants were presented with short incomplete videotaped movies showing an actor executing familiar and non-familiar actions. When asked to predict the outcome, participants with ASD produced fewer correct responses and their performance did not improve for familiar actions, as compared to both comparison groups. In addition, they committed a greater number of errors of temporal inversion. These results provide new evidence that an impaired means-end analysis process, leading to a diminished sensitivity to the sequence structure of goal-directed actions, would disrupt the ability to understand and predict others' actions. The comprehension of abnormalities in event knowledge provides a better insight of some of the problems that individuals with ASD encounter in spontaneously understanding real-life social situations.

Faux pas detection and intentional action in Asperger Syndrome. A replication on a French sample.

In the present study, we investigated mind reading abilities in a group of adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) by using the faux pas task, an advanced test of theory of mind (Baron-Cohen et al. (1999). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29, 407-418). The faux pas is a particular case of a non-intentional action reflecting an involuntary socially inappropriate behavior. Here, individuals with AS over-detected faux pas stories, failed to provide correct justifications of the speaker's behavior and were unaware of the mistaken belief and of the resulting emotional impact, whereas they appeared to be responsive to social rule violations. We hypothesized that because of an impaired theory-of-mind, individuals with AS may develop compensatory cognitive strategies based on overlearned abstract knowledge about normative rules.

Trustworthiness and Dominance Personality Traits' Judgments in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social functioning, communication, and by the presence of repetitive behaviours and restricted interests. Abnormal processing of faces has also been described as a neuropsychological feature of ASD. We investigated the ability to judge two personality traits in adults with ASD in comparison to typically developed adults (TD). We used an eye tracking device to investigate the exploration of faces when participants judged the degree of trustworthiness and dominance of synthetic faces. In sum, we found that adults with ASD were as capable as TD adults to judge personality traits of face trustworthiness and dominance, which relied on similar exploration of the synthetic faces in the two populations.

Prior Knowledge, Episodic Control and Theory of Mind in Autism: Toward an Integrative Account of Social Cognition.

Over the last 30 years, research has explored theory of mind (ToM), the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others. Work on ToM in typical and atypical populations has shed light on the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying social understanding and interaction. The ToM hypothesis has long been regarded as one comprehensive explanation of the severe cognitive and behavioral impairments encountered by individuals with autism. However, high-functioning individuals can often pass both first-order and second-order false belief tasks using cognitive compensation strategies. To provide more sensitive measures of mental state attribution abilities, researchers have introduced more difficult, "advanced" theory of mind tasks. In this article, we argue that in attempting to bypass compensation strategies, these new advanced ToM tasks, such as the Faux Pas and the Strange Stories tasks, impose cognitive demands beyond those specific to the domain of ToM. We then provide an integrative account of social deficits in autism that takes into account several distinct components of mental state understanding, including both general cognitive capacities and processes specific to ToM. We argue that a number of related cognitive abilities, including episodic cognitive control and inferencing from prior knowledge, are necessary to understand how both people with autism and typical development navigate challenging, real-life social situations.

Saccadic eye movements in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder.

In this study, we examined the accuracy and dynamics of visually guided saccades in 20 adults with autism spectrum disorder, as compared to 20 typically developed adults using the Step/Overlap/Gap paradigms. Performances in participants with autistic spectrum disorder were characterized by preserved Gap/Overlap effect, but reduced gain and peak velocity, as well as a greater trial-to-trial variability in task performance, as compared to the control group. While visual orienting and attentional engagement were relatively preserved in individuals with autistic spectrum disorder, overall these findings provide evidence that abnormal oculomotor behavior in autistic spectrum disorder reflects an altered sensorimotor control due to cerebellar abnormalities, rather than a deficit in the volitional control of eye movements. This study contributes to a growing body of evidence implicating this structure in the physiopathology of autism.

The influence of prior reputation and reciprocity on dynamic trust-building in adults with and without autism spectrum disorder.

The present study was designed to investigate the effects of reputational priors and direct reciprocity on the dynamics of trust building in adults with (N = 17) and without (N = 25) autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using a multi-round Trust Game (MTG). On each round, participants, who played as investors, were required to maximize their benefits by updating their prior expectations (the partner's positive or negative reputation), based on the partner's directed reciprocity, and adjusting their own investment decisions accordingly. Results showed that reputational priors strongly oriented the initial decision to trust, operationalized as the amount of investment the investor shares with the counterpart. However, while typically developed participants were mainly affected by the direct reciprocity, and rapidly adopted the optimal Tit-for-Tat strategy, participants with ASD continued to rely on reputational priors throughout the game, even when experience of the counterpart's actual behavior contradicted their prior-based expectations. In participants with ASD, the effect of the reputational prior never disappeared, and affected judgments of trustworthiness and reciprocity of the partner even after completion of the game. Moreover, the weight of prior reputation positively correlated with the severity of the ASD participant's social impairments while the reciprocity score negatively correlated with the severity of repetitive and stereotyped behaviors, as measured by the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). In line with Bayesian theoretical accounts, the present findings indicate that individuals with ASD have difficulties encoding incoming social information and using it to revise and flexibly update prior social expectations, and that this deficit might severely hinder social learning and everyday life interactions.

Inhibition of wrong responses and conflict resolution: an electroencephalogram study.

To investigate the neural activity elicited by conflict processes, we recorded event-related potentials during a spatial version of the Simon task. In this task, participants have to release a key according to the direction of an arrow while ignoring the side on which this stimulus is presented. Responses are, nevertheless, faster when stimulus and response side match (spatial compatibility) than when they do not match (spatial incompatibility). Results showed that, in incompatible trials, a negative potential arising before response execution and corresponding to the N2 event-related potential component was elicited. The dipole analysis localized this potential to the anterior cingulate cortex. We suggest that this brain region is involved in the inhibition of incorrect responses in incompatible trials.

The distinctive role of executive functions in implicit emotion regulation.

Several theoretical models stress the role of executive functions in emotion regulation (ER). However, most of the previous studies on ER employed explicit regulatory strategies that could have engaged executive functions, beyond regulatory processes per se. Recently, there has been renewed interest in implicit forms of ER, believed to be closer to daily-life requirements. While various studies have shown that implicit and explicit ER engage partially overlapping neurocognitive processes, the contribution of different executive functions in implicit ER has not been investigated. In the present study, we presented participants with negatively valenced pictures of varying emotional intensity preceded by short texts describing them as either fictional or real. This manipulation was meant to induce a spontaneous emotional down-regulation. We recorded electrodermal activity (EDA) and subjective reports of emotion arousal. Executive functions (updating, switching, and inhibition) were also assessed. No difference was found between the fictional and real condition on EDA. A diminished self-reported arousal was observed, however, when pictures were described as fictional for high- and mild-intensity material, but not for neutral material. The amount of down-regulation in the fictional condition was found to be predicted by interindividual variability in updating performances, but not by the other measures of executive functions, suggesting its implication even in implicit forms of ER. The relationship between down-regulation and updating was significant only for high-intensity material. We discuss the role of updating in relation to the consciousness of one's emotional state.

Reduced sensitivity to social priors during action prediction in adults with autism spectrum disorders.

An extensive amount of evidence has documented a diminished ability to predict and understand other people's action in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Recently, two theoretical accounts, the "Hypo-priors" and the "Aberrant precision" hypotheses, have suggested that attenuated Bayesian priors or an imbalance of the precision ascribed to sensory evidence relative to prior expectations may be responsible for the atypical perceptual experience and difficulties with action understanding in ASD. In the present study, we aimed to directly investigate whether difficulties in the appreciation of others' intentions can be accounted for by abnormal interaction between these two types of information: (i) the sensory evidence conveyed by movement kinematics, and (ii) the observer's expectations, acquired from past experience or derived from prior knowledge. To test this hypothesis, we contrasted the ability to infer Non-Social and Social intentions in adults with and without ASD, using a series of tasks in which both sensory evidence and prior expectations were manipulated. The results showed that attenuated effect of prior expectations in ASD individuals does not result from a generalized impairment in mentalizing, but one confined to social intentions. Attenuated priors in the social domain predicted the severity of clinical symptoms in the area of social interaction. Importantly, however, we found that reduced priors in the social domain could be compensated by ASD through observational learning, i.e. through deriving statistical regularities from observed behaviours. This capacity to balance reduced social expectations by learning inversely correlated with the severity of repetitive and stereotyped behaviours. Collectively, these findings suggest that adults with ASD exhibit a disturbance in the inferential mechanism that integrates sensory evidence into prior beliefs to produce accurate inferences about other people's intentions.

Gaze direction detection in autism spectrum disorder.

Detecting where our partners direct their gaze is an important aspect of social interaction. An atypical gaze processing has been reported in autism. However, it remains controversial whether children and adults with autism spectrum disorder interpret indirect gaze direction with typical accuracy. This study investigated whether the detection of gaze direction toward an object is less accurate in autism spectrum disorder. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (n = 33) and intelligence quotients-matched and age-matched controls (n = 38) were asked to watch a series of synthetic faces looking at objects, and decide which of two objects was looked at. The angle formed by the two possible targets and the face varied following an adaptive procedure, in order to determine individual thresholds. We found that gaze direction detection was less accurate in autism spectrum disorder than in control participants. Our results suggest that the precision of gaze following may be one of the altered processes underlying social interaction difficulties in autism spectrum disorder.