Milne Elizabeth, Dickinson Abigail, Smith Richard
Sheffield Autism Research Lab, Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
Sheffield Adult Autism and Neurodevelopmental Service, Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Trust, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2017 May 18;12(5):e0177804. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0177804. eCollection 2017.
Autism spectrum condition (ASC) is characterised by differences in social interaction and behavioural inflexibility. In addition to these core symptoms, atypical sensory responses are prevalent in the ASC phenotype. Here we investigated anomalous perception, i.e. hallucinatory and/or out of body experiences in adults with ASC. Thirty participants with an ASC diagnosis and thirty neurotypical controls completed the Cardiff Anomalous Perception Scale (CAPS) and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2). The CAPS is a 32-item questionnaire that asks participants to indicate whether or not they experience a range of anomalous and out of body experiences, and to rate how intrusive and distressing these experiences are. The SRS-2 asks participants to rate the extent to which they identify with a series of 65 statements that describe behaviours associated with the autism phenotype. We found that total CAPS score was significantly higher in the participants with ASC (mean = 14.8, S.D. = 7.9) than the participants without ASC (mean = 3.6, S.D. = 4.1). In addition, the frequency of anomalous perception, the level of distraction and the level of distress associated with the experience were significantly increased in participants with ASC. Importantly, both the frequency of anomalous perceptual experiences and the level of distress caused by anomalous perception in this sample of adults with ASC were very similar to that reported previously in a sample of non-autistic participants who were being treated in hospital for a current psychotic episode. These data indicate that anomalous perceptual experiences are common in adults with ASC and are associated with a high level of distress. The origins of anomalous perception in ASC and the implication of this phenomenon are considered.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASC）的特征在于社交互动方面的差异和行为缺乏灵活性。除了这些核心症状外，非典型的感觉反应在ASC表型中也很普遍。在此，我们研究了异常感知，即ASC成年患者的幻觉和/或体外体验。30名被诊断为ASC的参与者和30名神经典型对照者完成了加的夫异常感知量表（CAPS）和社会反应量表（SRS - 2）。CAPS是一份包含32个条目的问卷，要求参与者指出他们是否经历过一系列异常和体外体验，并对这些体验的侵扰性和痛苦程度进行评分。SRS - 2要求参与者对他们认同一系列描述与自闭症表型相关行为的65条陈述的程度进行评分。我们发现，ASC参与者的CAPS总分（均值 = 14.8，标准差 = 7.9）显著高于非ASC参与者（均值 = 3.6，标准差 = 4.1）。此外，ASC参与者中异常感知的频率、与该体验相关的分心程度和痛苦程度均显著增加。重要的是，在这个ASC成年样本中，异常感知体验的频率以及由异常感知引起的痛苦程度与先前在因当前精神病发作而住院治疗的非自闭症参与者样本中所报告的非常相似。这些数据表明，异常感知体验在ASC成年患者中很常见，并且与高度痛苦相关。本文还考虑了ASC中异常感知的起源以及这一现象的含义。
