Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China.
Laboratory of Emotion and Mental Health, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Chongqing, China.
PLoS One. 2021 Jul 9;16(7):e0254207. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254207. eCollection 2021.
Individuals with autistic traits display impaired social interaction and communication in everyday life, but the underlying cognitive neural mechanisms remain very unclear and still remain controversial. The mind-blindness hypothesis suggests that social difficulties in individuals with autistic traits are caused by empathy impairment in individuals; however, the intense world theory suggests that these social difficulties are caused by sensory hyper-reactivity and sensory overload, rather than empathy impairment. To further test these two theories, this study investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the cognitive neural processing of repetitive expressions in individuals with autistic traits. This study employed the Mandarin version of the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) to assess autistic traits in 2,502 healthy adults. Two subset groups were used, e.g., the participants of a high-AQ group were randomly selected among the 10% of individuals with the highest AQ scores; similarly, the participants in the low-AQ group were randomly selected from the 10% of participants with the lowest AQ scores. In an experiment, three different facial expressions (positive, neutral, or negative) of the same person were presented successively and pseudo-randomly in each trial. Participants needed to define the expression of the face that was presented last. The results showed that compared with the low-AQ group, the high-AQ group exhibited higher P1 amplitudes induced by the second and third presented expressions, as well as higher P3 amplitudes induced by the third presented negative expressions. This indicates that individuals with autistic traits may experience overly strong perception, attention, and cognitive evaluation to repetitive expressions, particularly negative expressions. This result supports the intense world theory more strongly than the mind-blindness hypothesis.
具有自闭症特质的个体在日常生活中表现出社交互动和沟通障碍,但潜在的认知神经机制仍不清楚,且存在争议。心智盲假说认为,自闭症个体的社交困难是由于同理心受损所致;然而,强烈世界理论则认为,这些社交困难是由于感官超敏反应和感官过载引起的,而不是同理心受损。为了进一步验证这两种理论,本研究通过事件相关电位(ERP)来探究自闭症特质个体对重复表情的认知神经处理。本研究采用了中文版自闭症谱系商数(AQ)来评估 2502 名健康成年人的自闭症特质。本研究使用了两个子集群体,例如,高 AQ 组的参与者是从 AQ 得分最高的 10%个体中随机选择的;同样,低 AQ 组的参与者是从 AQ 得分最低的 10%个体中随机选择的。在实验中,同一个人的三种不同面部表情(正性、中性或负性)依次以伪随机的方式在每个试验中呈现。参与者需要定义最后呈现的面部表情。结果表明,与低 AQ 组相比,高 AQ 组在呈现第二和第三张表情时表现出更高的 P1 振幅,在呈现第三张负性表情时表现出更高的 P3 振幅。这表明,自闭症特质个体可能对重复表情,特别是负性表情,表现出过度强烈的感知、注意和认知评价。这一结果比心智盲假说更支持强烈世界理论。