Zalla Tiziana, Amsellem Frederique, Chaste Pauline, Ervas Francesca, Leboyer Marion, Champagne-Lavau Maud
Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, UMR 8129, Institut d'Etude de la Cognition, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.
INSERM U 955, IMRB & University Paris Est Creteil, AP-HP, Henri Mondor-Albert Chenevier Hospitals, Department of Psychiatry, Fondation FondaMental, French National Science Foundation, Creteil, France.
PLoS One. 2014 Apr 18;9(4):e95568. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095568. eCollection 2014.
Social and communication impairments are part of the essential diagnostic criteria used to define Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Difficulties in appreciating non-literal speech, such as irony in ASDs have been explained as due to impairments in social understanding and in recognizing the speaker's communicative intention. It has been shown that social-interactional factors, such as a listener's beliefs about the speaker's attitudinal propensities (e.g., a tendency to use sarcasm, to be mocking, less sincere and more prone to criticism), as conveyed by an occupational stereotype, do influence a listener's interpretation of potentially ironic remarks. We investigate the effect of occupational stereotype on irony detection in adults with High Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome (HFA/AS) and a comparison group of typically developed adults. We used a series of verbally presented stories containing ironic or literal utterances produced by a speaker having either a "sarcastic" or a "non-sarcastic" occupation. Although individuals with HFA/AS were able to recognize ironic intent and occupational stereotypes when the latter are made salient, stereotype information enhanced irony detection and modulated its social meaning (i.e., mockery and politeness) only in comparison participants. We concluded that when stereotype knowledge is not made salient, it does not automatically affect pragmatic communicative processes in individuals with HFA/AS.
社交和沟通障碍是用于定义自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的基本诊断标准的一部分。自闭症患者理解非字面言语存在困难，比如理解反讽，这被解释为是由于社交理解和识别说话者交际意图方面的障碍所致。研究表明，职业刻板印象所传达的社交互动因素，比如听众对说话者态度倾向（例如使用讽刺、嘲笑、不那么真诚且更倾向于批评的倾向）的看法，确实会影响听众对潜在反讽言论的解读。我们调查了职业刻板印象对高功能自闭症或阿斯伯格综合征（HFA/AS）成人患者以及一组发育正常的成人对照组的反讽识别的影响。我们使用了一系列口头讲述的故事，其中包含由具有“讽刺性”或“非讽刺性”职业的说话者说出的反讽或字面话语。尽管HFA/AS患者在职业刻板印象凸显时能够识别反讽意图和职业刻板印象，但只有对照组参与者中，刻板印象信息增强了反讽识别并调节了其社会意义（即嘲笑和礼貌）。我们得出结论，当刻板印象知识不凸显时，它不会自动影响HFA/AS患者的语用交际过程。
