Coutelle Romain, Goltzene Marc-André, Canton Marie, Campiglia-Sabourin Mélodie, Rabot Juliette, Bizet Éric, Schoenberger Marie, Berna Fabrice, Danion Jean-Marie
Department of Psychiatry, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
Service de pathologie professionnelle et environnementale, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
Front Psychiatry. 2021 Feb 1;11:593855. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.593855. eCollection 2020.
The literature has provided contradictory results regarding the status of episodic memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This might be explained by methodological differences across studies. In the present one, the well-recommended Autobiographical Interview was used in which important aspects of episodic memory were assessed, namely, the number and richness of phenomenological memory details, before and after a retrieval support. Twenty-five well-documented adults with ASD without Intellectual Disability (nine women) and 25 control participants were included and asked to recall six specific autobiographical events. The number and richness of details were assessed globally and for five categories of details (perceptual/sensory, temporal, contextual, emotional, and cognitive), firstly before and then after a specific cueing phase consisting in a series of specific questions to elicit more precise memory details. Cumulatively, from the spontaneous recall to the cueing phase, the number of internal details was lower in ASD individuals compared to controls, but this difference was relevant only after the specific cueing procedure and observed only for contextual details. In contrast, no relevant group difference was observed during spontaneous recall. The detail richness was not impaired in ASD throughout the Autobiographical Interview procedure. Our results speak against a clear impairment of episodicity of autobiographical memory in ASD individuals. They thus challenge previous ones showing both a reduced specificity and episodicity of autobiographical memory in this population and call for further studies to get a better understanding on the status of episodic autobiographical memory in ASD.
关于自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中情景记忆的状况，文献给出了相互矛盾的结果。这可能是由各项研究在方法上的差异所导致的。在本研究中，采用了广受推荐的自传式访谈法，其中对情景记忆的重要方面进行了评估，即在检索支持前后，评估现象学记忆细节的数量和丰富程度。研究纳入了25名记录完备、无智力障碍的成年ASD患者（9名女性）和25名对照参与者，并要求他们回忆六件特定的自传式事件。首先在一系列旨在引出更精确记忆细节的特定问题组成的特定提示阶段之前和之后，从整体上以及针对五类细节（感知/感觉、时间、背景、情感和认知）评估细节的数量和丰富程度。累积来看，从自发回忆到提示阶段，ASD个体的内部细节数量比对照组少，但这种差异仅在特定提示程序之后才显著，并且仅在背景细节方面观察到。相比之下，在自发回忆过程中未观察到显著的组间差异。在整个自传式访谈过程中，ASD患者的细节丰富程度并未受损。我们的研究结果表明，ASD个体的自传式记忆情节性并未明显受损。因此，我们的研究结果对之前那些表明该人群自传式记忆的特异性和情节性均降低的研究提出了挑战，并呼吁开展进一步研究，以更好地了解ASD患者自传式情景记忆的状况。
