Forbes Paul A G, Pan Xueni, de C Hamilton Antonia F
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
Department of Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2016 Dec;46(12):3788-3797. doi: 10.1007/s10803-016-2930-2.
Mimicry involves unconsciously copying the actions of others. Increasing evidence suggests that autistic people can copy the goal of an observed action but show differences in their mimicry. We investigated mimicry in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) within a two-dimensional virtual reality environment. Participants played an imitation game with a socially engaged avatar and socially disengaged avatar. Despite being told only to copy the goal of the observed action, autistic participants and matched neurotypical participants mimicked the kinematics of the avatars' movements. However, autistic participants mimicked less. Social engagement did not modulate mimicry in either group. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using virtual reality to induce mimicry and suggest mimicry differences in ASD may also occur when interacting with avatars.
模仿涉及无意识地复制他人的行为。越来越多的证据表明，自闭症患者能够复制观察到的动作的目标，但在模仿方面存在差异。我们在二维虚拟现实环境中研究了自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中的模仿行为。参与者与一个具有社交参与度的虚拟角色和一个社交脱离度的虚拟角色玩模仿游戏。尽管只被告知要复制观察到的动作的目标，但自闭症参与者和匹配的神经典型参与者都模仿了虚拟角色动作的运动学特征。然而，自闭症参与者的模仿较少。社交参与度在两组中均未调节模仿行为。结果证明了使用虚拟现实诱导模仿的可行性，并表明在与虚拟角色互动时，ASD中的模仿差异也可能出现。
