Banker Sarah M, Harrington Miles, Schafer Matthew, Na Soojung, Heflin Matthew, Barkley Sarah, Trayvick Jadyn, Peters Arabella W, Thinakaran Abigaël A, Schiller Daniela, Foss-Feig Jennifer H, Gu Xiaosi
Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY USA.
Center for Computational Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY USA.
Nat Ment Health. 2025;3(3):286-297. doi: 10.1038/s44220-025-00385-8. Epub 2025 Feb 6.
While allowing for rapid recruitment of large samples, online research relies heavily on participants' self-reports of neuropsychiatric traits, foregoing the clinical characterizations available in laboratory settings. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) research is one example for which the clinical validity of such an approach remains elusive. Here we compared 56 adults with ASD recruited in person and evaluated by clinicians to matched samples of adults recruited through an online platform (Prolific; 56 with high autistic traits and 56 with low autistic traits) and evaluated via self-reported surveys. Despite having comparable self-reported autistic traits, the online high-trait group reported significantly more social anxiety and avoidant symptoms than in-person ASD participants. Within the in-person sample, there was no relationship between self-rated and clinician-rated autistic traits, suggesting they may capture different aspects of ASD. The groups also differed in their social tendencies during two decision-making tasks; the in-person ASD group was less perceptive of opportunities for social influence and acted less affiliative toward virtual characters. These findings highlight the need for a differentiation between clinically ascertained and trait-defined samples in autism research.
在线研究虽然能够快速招募大量样本，但严重依赖参与者对神经精神特质的自我报告，而放弃了实验室环境中可用的临床特征描述。自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）研究就是一个例子，这种方法的临床有效性仍然难以捉摸。在这里，我们将56名亲自招募并由临床医生评估的成年自闭症患者与通过在线平台（Prolific）招募的匹配成年样本（56名具有高自闭症特质和56名具有低自闭症特质）进行了比较，并通过自我报告调查进行了评估。尽管自我报告的自闭症特质相当，但在线高特质组报告的社交焦虑和回避症状明显多于亲自评估的自闭症患者。在亲自评估的样本中，自我评分和临床医生评分的自闭症特质之间没有关系，这表明它们可能反映了自闭症的不同方面。在两项决策任务中，两组的社交倾向也有所不同；亲自评估的自闭症组对社会影响机会的感知较差，对虚拟角色的行为也缺乏亲和力。这些发现凸显了在自闭症研究中区分临床确诊样本和特质定义样本的必要性。
