National Heart and Lung Institute, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, United Kingdom; Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Poland; Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, United Kingdom.
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany.
J Psychiatr Res. 2021 Feb;134:89-96. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2020.12.059. Epub 2020 Dec 22.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in adults are often undiagnosed and overlap in psychopathology. Here we investigated the transdiagnostic traits of emotion recognition and mind wandering in a sample of 103 adults (43 with ADHD and 14 with ASD). The ability to correctly identify a facial expression of anger, fear, disgust or surprise was no different between the adults with ADHD or ASD and neurotypical (NT) adults. However, adults with ADHD or ASD were on average almost 200 ms slower in making a correct decision, suggesting a larger speed-accuracy trade-off in facial emotion recognition compared to NT adults. General processing speed was associated with excessive mind wandering in adults with ADHD, but not with ASD. The deficits in emotional processing were independent from mind wandering in both adults with ADHD or ASD. Emotional dysregulation and functional impairment scales separated adults with ADHD and ASD from the NT adults, but not from each other. When controlling for self-reported ADHD and ASD symptom severity, mind wandering in ADHD was independent from both ADHD and ASD symptom severity. In ASD, mind wandering was related to ASD but not ADHD symptom severity. Our results suggest that ASD and ADHD share a slower ability to recognize emotions, which is exacerbated by excessive mind wandering in ADHD, and by decreased processing speed in ASD.
成人注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）和自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）常常未被诊断，且在精神病理学方面存在重叠。在此，我们在 103 名成年人（43 名患有 ADHD，14 名患有 ASD）的样本中研究了情绪识别和思维漫游的跨诊断特征。ADHD 或 ASD 成年人与神经典型（NT）成年人在正确识别愤怒、恐惧、厌恶或惊讶的面部表情方面没有区别。然而，ADHD 或 ASD 成年人做出正确决策的平均速度比 NT 成年人慢近 200 毫秒，这表明与 NT 成年人相比，他们在面部情绪识别方面存在更大的速度准确性权衡。一般处理速度与 ADHD 成年人过度的思维漫游有关，但与 ASD 无关。在 ADHD 或 ASD 成年人中，情绪处理缺陷与思维漫游无关。情绪失调和功能障碍量表将 ADHD 和 ASD 成年人与 NT 成年人区分开来，但彼此之间并未区分。当控制自我报告的 ADHD 和 ASD 症状严重程度时，ADHD 中的思维漫游与 ADHD 和 ASD 症状严重程度均无关。在 ASD 中，思维漫游与 ASD 有关，而与 ADHD 症状严重程度无关。我们的研究结果表明，ASD 和 ADHD 具有较慢的情绪识别能力，而 ADHD 中的过度思维漫游和 ASD 中的处理速度下降会使这种情况恶化。
