NOVA Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
CADIn-Neurodevelopment & Inclusion, Non-Profit Association, Cascais, Portugal.
Autism Res. 2022 May;15(5):847-860. doi: 10.1002/aur.2702. Epub 2022 Mar 10.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social cognition deficits, including difficulties inferring the intentions of others. Although deficits in attribution of intentions (AI) have been consistently replicated in ASD, their exact nature remains unexplored. Here we registered the electrophysiological correlates of a nonverbal social cognition task to investigate AI in autistic adults. Twenty-one male autistic adults and 30 male neurotypical volunteers performed a comic strips task depicting either intentional action (AI) or physical causality with or without human characters, while their electroencephalographic signal was recorded. Compared to neurotypical volunteers, autistic participants were significantly less accurate in correctly identifying congruence in the AI condition, but not in the physical causality conditions. In the AI condition a bilateral posterior positive event-related potential (ERP) occurred 200-400 ms post-stimulus (the ERP intention effect) in both groups. This waveform comprised a P200 and a P300 component, with the P200 component being larger for the AI condition in neurotypical volunteers but not in autistic individuals, who also showed a longer latency for this waveform. Group differences in amplitude of the ERP intention effect only became evident when we compared autistic participants to a subgroup of similarly performing neurotypical participants, suggesting that the atypical ERP waveform in ASD is an effect of group, rather than a marker of low-task performance. Together, these results suggest that the lower accuracy of the ASD group in the AI task may result from impaired early attentional processing and contextual integration of socially relevant cues. LAY SUMMARY: To understand why autistic people have difficulties in inferring others' intentions, we asked participants to judge the congruence of the endings of comic strips depicting either intentional actions (e.g., fetching a chair to reach for something) or situations solely following physical rules (e.g., an apple falling on someone's head), while their electrical brain activity was recorded. Autistic individuals had more difficulties in inferring intentions than neurotypical controls, which may reflect impaired attention and contextual integration of social cues.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的特征是社会认知缺陷，包括难以推断他人的意图。尽管 ASD 中一致重复了意图归因（AI）的缺陷，但它们的确切性质仍未得到探索。在这里，我们记录了非言语社会认知任务的电生理相关性，以研究自闭症成人的 AI。21 名男性自闭症成年人和 30 名男性神经典型志愿者完成了描绘有意动作（AI）或物理因果关系的漫画条任务，同时记录了他们的脑电图信号。与神经典型志愿者相比，自闭症参与者在正确识别 AI 条件下的一致性方面准确性显著降低，但在物理因果关系条件下则没有。在 AI 条件下，两组在刺激后 200-400 毫秒都会出现双侧后正事件相关电位（ERP）（ERP 意图效应）。该波形由 P200 和 P300 组成，在神经典型志愿者中，AI 条件下的 P200 成分较大，而在自闭症个体中则没有，后者的波形成长也较长。仅当我们将自闭症参与者与表现相似的神经典型参与者的亚组进行比较时，才会发现 ERP 意图效应的组间差异，这表明 ASD 中不典型的 ERP 波形是组间效应，而不是低任务表现的标志物。总之，这些结果表明，ASD 组在 AI 任务中的准确性较低可能是由于对社会相关线索的早期注意力处理和上下文整合受损所致。
摘要：为了了解为什么自闭症患者在推断他人意图方面存在困难，我们要求参与者判断描绘有意动作（例如，取椅子去够东西）或仅遵循物理规则的情况（例如，苹果落在某人头上）的漫画结尾的一致性，同时记录他们的脑电活动。自闭症个体在推断意图方面比神经典型对照组更困难，这可能反映了对社会线索的注意力和上下文整合受损。
