Theoretical and Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, Child Psychopathology Area, Scientific Institute, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, 23842 Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy.
IMT School of Advanced Studies Lucca, 55100 Lucca, Italy.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Nov 3;117(44):27712-27718. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2011311117. Epub 2020 Oct 21.
Any defects of sociality in individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are standardly explained in terms of those individuals' putative impairments in a variety of cognitive functions. Recently, however, the need for a bidirectional approach to social interaction has been emphasized. Such an approach highlights differences in basic ways of acting between ASD and neurotypical individuals which would prevent them from understanding each other. Here we pursue this approach by focusing on basic action features reflecting the agent's mood and affective states. These are action features Stern named "vitality forms," and which are widely assumed to substantiate core social interactions [D. N. Stern, (1985); D. N. Stern, (2010)]. Previously we demonstrated that, although ASD and typically developing (TD) children alike differentiate vitality forms when performing actions, ASD children express them in a way that is motorically dissimilar to TD children. To assess whether this motor dissimilarity may have consequences for vitality form recognition, we asked neurotypical participants to identify the vitality form of different types of action performed by ASD or TD children. We found that participants exhibited remarkable inaccuracy in identifying ASD children's vitality forms. Interestingly, their performance did not benefit from information feedback. This indicates that how people act matters for understanding others and for being understood by them. Because vitality forms pervade every aspect of daily life, our findings promise to open the way to a deeper comprehension of the bidirectional difficulties for both ASD and neurotypical individuals in interacting with one another.
个体被诊断为自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）时所表现出的社交缺陷，通常被解释为他们在各种认知功能上的潜在损伤。然而，最近人们强调需要采用一种双向的社交互动方法。这种方法突出了 ASD 和神经典型个体在基本行为方式上的差异，这些差异会妨碍他们相互理解。在这里，我们通过关注反映主体情绪和情感状态的基本动作特征来采用这种方法。这些动作特征是斯特恩（Stern）命名的“生命力形式”，人们普遍认为这些特征构成了核心的社交互动[D. N. Stern, 1985; D. N. Stern, 2010]。之前我们已经证明，尽管 ASD 和典型发育（TD）儿童在执行动作时都能区分生命力形式，但 ASD 儿童的表达方式与 TD 儿童不同，具有不同的运动特征。为了评估这种运动差异是否会对生命力形式的识别产生影响，我们要求神经典型的参与者识别 ASD 或 TD 儿童执行的不同类型动作的生命力形式。我们发现，参与者在识别 ASD 儿童的生命力形式时表现出显著的不准确性。有趣的是，他们的表现并没有从信息反馈中受益。这表明，人们的行为方式对于理解他人和被他人理解都很重要。由于生命力形式贯穿日常生活的方方面面，我们的发现有望为深入理解 ASD 和神经典型个体在相互互动时所面临的双向困难开辟道路。
