Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
School of Education, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2024 Jun 6;67(6):1785-1802. doi: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00431. Epub 2024 May 3.
This study examined the impact of bilingualism on affective theory of mind (ToM) and social prioritization (SP) among autistic adults compared to neurotypical comparison participants.
Fifty-two (25 autistic, 27 neurotypical) adult participants (ages 21-35 years) with varying second language (L2) experience, ranging from monolingual to bilingual, completed an affective ToM task. A subset of this sample also completed a dynamic eye-tracking task designed to capture differences in time spent looking at social aspects of a scene (SP). Four language groups were compared on task performance (monolingual autism and neurotypical, bilingual autism and neurotypical), followed by analyses examining the contribution of L2 experience, autism characteristics, and social face prioritization on affective ToM, controlling for verbal IQ. Finally, we conducted an analysis to identify the contribution of SP on affective ToM when moderated by autism status and L2 experience, controlling for verbal IQ.
The monolingual autism group performed significantly worse than the other three groups (bilingual autism, monolingual neurotypical, and bilingual neurotypical) on the affective ToM task; however, there were no significant differences between the bilingual autism group compared to the monolingual and bilingual neurotypical groups. For autistic individuals, affective ToM capabilities were positively associated with both verbal IQ and L2 experience but did not relate to autism characteristics or SP during eye tracking. Neurotypical participants showed greater SP during the eye-tracking task, and SP did not relate to L2 or autism characteristics for autistic individuals. SP and verbal IQ predicted affective ToM performance across autism and neurotypical groups, but this relationship was moderated by L2 experience; SP more strongly predicted affective ToM performance among participants with lower L2 experience (e.g., monolingual) and had less of an impact for those with higher L2 experience.
This study provides support for a bilingual advantage in affective ToM for autistic individuals.
本研究比较了自闭症成人和神经典型对照组在双语对情感理论思维（ToM）和社会优先级（SP）的影响。
52 名（25 名自闭症，27 名神经典型）成年参与者（年龄 21-35 岁）具有不同的第二语言（L2）经验，从单语到双语不等，完成了一项情感 ToM 任务。该样本的一部分还完成了一项动态眼动跟踪任务，旨在捕捉对场景中社会方面（SP）的注视时间差异。对任务表现（单语自闭症和神经典型、双语自闭症和神经典型）进行了四组语言比较，然后进行了分析，检查 L2 经验、自闭症特征和社会面孔优先级对情感 ToM 的影响，同时控制了言语智商。最后，我们进行了一项分析，以确定在控制言语智商的情况下，SP 对情感 ToM 的影响，同时考虑到自闭症状态和 L2 经验的调节作用。
单语自闭症组在情感 ToM 任务中的表现明显差于其他三组（双语自闭症、单语神经典型和双语神经典型）；然而，双语自闭症组与单语和双语神经典型组之间没有显著差异。对于自闭症个体，情感 ToM 能力与言语智商和 L2 经验呈正相关，但与自闭症特征或眼动跟踪期间的 SP 无关。神经典型参与者在眼动跟踪任务中表现出更大的 SP，而对于自闭症个体，SP 与 L2 或自闭症特征无关。SP 和言语智商预测了自闭症和神经典型组的情感 ToM 表现，但这种关系受到 L2 经验的调节；在 L2 经验较低的参与者（如单语者）中，SP 对情感 ToM 表现的预测作用更强，而在 L2 经验较高的参与者中，SP 的影响较小。
本研究为自闭症个体在情感 ToM 方面的双语优势提供了支持。
