van 't Wout Félice, Jarrold Christopher
University of Exeter, Perry Road, Prince of Wales Road, EX4 4QG, Exeter, UK.
University of Bristol, 12a Priory Road, BS8 1TU, Bristol, UK.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2025 Jan;55(1):369-376. doi: 10.1007/s10803-022-05843-1. Epub 2023 Jan 10.
Language plays a fundamental role in enabling flexible, goal-directed behaviour. This study investigated whether the contribution of language to instruction encoding is modulated by the expression of autism traits, as measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient (ASQ) questionnaire. Participants (N = 108) completed six choice reaction time tasks, with each task consisting of six stimulus-response mappings. During an instruction phase preceding each task, participants performed either a verbal, non-verbal or no distractor task. Participants made more errors in the verbal distractor task condition, but this detrimental effect did not differ significantly between the high (top 33%) and low (bottom 33%) ASQ groups. Hence, the contribution of language to instruction encoding does not appear to be modulated by the expression of autism traits.
语言在促成灵活的、目标导向行为方面发挥着根本性作用。本研究调查了语言对指令编码的贡献是否会受到自闭症特征表达的调节，自闭症特征通过自闭症谱系商数（ASQ）问卷来衡量。参与者（N = 108）完成了六项选择反应时任务，每项任务包含六个刺激 - 反应映射。在每项任务之前的指令阶段，参与者分别执行言语干扰任务、非言语干扰任务或无干扰任务。在言语干扰任务条件下，参与者犯的错误更多，但这种有害影响在高ASQ组（前33%）和低ASQ组（后33%）之间没有显著差异。因此，语言对指令编码的贡献似乎不受自闭症特征表达的调节。
