School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Victoria 3086, Australia.
Brain Cogn. 2011 Oct;77(1):11-6. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2011.07.005. Epub 2011 Aug 10.
People with autism show attenuated cerebral lateralisation for emotion processing. Given growing appreciation of the notion that autism represents a continuum, the present study aimed to determine whether atypical hemispheric lateralisation is evident in people with normal but above average levels of autism-like traits. One hundred and twenty-seven right-handed participants (M=43, F=84) completed the AQ questionnaire (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001), and then (a) posed for a photo expressing happiness, and (b) viewed pairs of left and right cheek poses, making a forced-choice decision indicating which image appeared happier (half the images were mirror-reversed to control for perceptual biases). Results indicated that irrespective of AQ status, people were intuitively aware that the left cheek is more emotionally expressive: participants offered the left cheek when posing to appear happy, and perceived left poses as happier than right poses. As the left cheek is predominantly controlled by the right hemisphere, these findings strongly support the right hemisphere hypothesis. The fact that people with normal but above average levels of autism-like traits did not show a reduced leftward bias for either task indicates that the attenuated emotion lateralisation pattern noted in the clinical population does not extend into the normal spectrum. Instead, the results suggest that people with normal but above average levels of AQ traits are as sensitive to the silent social/emotional cues signalled by a left cheek pose as those with lower AQ scores.
自闭症患者在情绪处理方面表现出大脑侧化减弱。鉴于人们越来越意识到自闭症是一个连续体，本研究旨在确定在具有正常但高于平均水平自闭症特征的人群中是否存在非典型的半球侧化。127 名右利手参与者（M=43，F=84）完成了 AQ 问卷（Baron-Cohen、Wheelwright、Skinner、Martin 和 Clubley，2001），然后（a）摆出表达快乐的照片，（b）观看左右脸颊姿势的对，做出强制选择决定，表明哪个图像看起来更快乐（一半的图像被镜像反转以控制感知偏差）。结果表明，无论 AQ 状态如何，人们都直觉地意识到左脸颊更具情感表现力：参与者在摆出快乐表情时会选择左脸颊，并且认为左脸比右脸更快乐。由于左脸颊主要由右半球控制，这些发现强烈支持右半球假说。具有正常但高于平均水平自闭症特征的人在这两个任务中都没有表现出减弱的左偏性，这表明在临床人群中观察到的情绪侧化减弱模式并没有扩展到正常范围内。相反，结果表明，具有正常但高于平均水平 AQ 特征的人对左脸颊姿势所发出的无声社交/情感线索的敏感性与 AQ 得分较低的人相同。
