Zalla Tiziana, Sirigu Angela, Robic Suzanne, Chaste Pauline, Leboyer Marion, Coricelli Giorgio
Institut Jean Nicod, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.
Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, UMR 5229, Bron, France.
Cortex. 2014 Sep;58:112-22. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.05.008. Epub 2014 Jun 9.
Impairments in emotional processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) can be characterised by failure to generate and recognize self-reflective, cognitive-based emotions, such as pride, embarrassment and shame. Among this type of emotions, regret and disappointment, as well as their positive counterparts, result from a counterfactual comparison, that is the comparison between an actual value ("what is") and a fictive value ("what might have been"). However, while disappointment is experienced when the obtained outcome is worse than the expected outcome that might have occurred from the same choice, regret occurs when one experiences an outcome that is worse than the outcome of foregone choices. By manipulating a simple gambling task, we examined subjective reports on the intensity of negative and positive emotions in a group of adults with High-Functioning Autism or Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS), and a control group matched for age, gender and educational level. Participants were asked to choose between two lotteries with different levels of risk under two conditions of outcome feedback: (i) Partial, in which only the outcome of the chosen lottery was visible, (ii) Complete, in which the outcomes of the two lotteries were simultaneously visible. By comparing partial and complete conditions, we aimed to investigate the differential effect between disappointment and regret, as well as between their positive counterparts. Relative to the control participants (CP), the group with HFA/AS reported reduced regret and no difference between regret and disappointment, along with a preserved ability to use counterfactual thinking and similar choice behaviour. Difficulties to distinguish the feeling of regret in participants with HFA/AS can be explained by diminished emotional awareness, likely associated with an abnormal fronto-limbic connectivity.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者的情绪处理障碍表现为无法产生和识别基于认知的自我反思情绪，如自豪、尴尬和羞耻感。在这类情绪中，遗憾和失望以及它们的积极对应情绪，是由反事实比较产生的，即实际值（“实际情况”）与虚拟值（“可能发生的情况”）之间的比较。然而，当获得的结果比同一选择可能产生的预期结果更差时，人们会感到失望；而当一个人经历的结果比放弃的选择的结果更差时，就会感到遗憾。通过操纵一个简单的赌博任务，我们研究了一组高功能自闭症或阿斯伯格综合征（HFA/AS）成年人以及年龄、性别和教育水平相匹配的对照组对负面和正面情绪强度的主观报告。参与者被要求在两种结果反馈条件下，从两个具有不同风险水平的彩票中进行选择：（i）部分反馈，即只显示所选彩票的结果；（ii）完整反馈，即同时显示两张彩票的结果。通过比较部分反馈和完整反馈条件，我们旨在研究失望和遗憾之间以及它们的积极对应情绪之间的差异效应。相对于对照组参与者（CP），HFA/AS组报告的遗憾感降低，遗憾和失望之间没有差异，同时使用反事实思维的能力和类似的选择行为得以保留。HFA/AS参与者难以区分遗憾感，这可能是由于情绪意识减弱，可能与额叶-边缘系统连接异常有关。
