Autism Spectrum Quotient Questionnaire Research Articles

Measuring the prevalence of autistic traits in a cohort of adults living with HIV or taking HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and mapping safer-sex barriers and facilitators: a study protocol

IntroductionAutistic individuals identify with a wider range of sexual orientations than non-autistic individuals, including higher rates of bisexual orientation in autistic men. Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex...

Differential responses in the mirror neuron system during imitation of individual emotional facial expressions and association with autistic traits

The mirror neuron system (MNS), including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and superior temporal sulcus (STS) plays an important role in action representation and imitation and may be dysfunctional in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it's not clear how these three regions respond and interact during the imitation of different basic facial expressions and whether the pattern of responses is influenced by autistic traits. Thus, we conducted a natural facial expression (happiness, angry, sadness and fear) imitation task in 100 healthy male subjects where expression intensity was measured using facial emotion recognition software (FaceReader) and MNS responses were recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Autistic traits were measured using the Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire. Results showed that imitation of happy expressions produced the highest expression intensity but a small deactivation in MNS responses, suggesting a lower processing requirement compared to other expressions. A cosine similarity analysis indicated a distinct pattern of MNS responses during imitation of each facial expression with functional intra-hemispheric connectivity between the left IPL and left STS being significantly higher during happy compared to other expressions, while inter-hemispheric connectivity between the left and right IPL differed between imitation of fearful and sad expressions. Furthermore, functional connectivity changes during imitation of each different expression could reliably predict autistic trait scores. Overall, the results provide evidence for distinct patterns of functional connectivity changes between MNS regions during imitation of different emotions which are also associated with autistic traits.

Ties between reading faces, bodies, eyes, and autistic traits.

While reading covered with masks faces during the COVID-19 pandemic, for efficient social interaction, we need to combine information from different sources such as the eyes (without faces hidden by masks) and bodies. This may be challenging for individuals with neuropsychiatric conditions, in particular, autism spectrum disorders. Here we examined whether reading of dynamic faces, bodies, and eyes are tied in a gender-specific way, and how these capabilities are related to autistic traits expression. Females and males accomplished a task with point-light faces along with a task with point-light body locomotion portraying different emotional expressions. They had to infer emotional content of displays. In addition, participants were administered the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, modified and Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire. The findings show that only in females, inferring emotions from dynamic bodies and faces are firmly linked, whereas in males, reading in the eyes is knotted with face reading. Strikingly, in neurotypical males only, accuracy of face, body, and eyes reading was negatively tied with autistic traits. The outcome points to gender-specific modes in social cognition: females rely upon merely dynamic cues while reading faces and bodies, whereas males most likely trust configural information. The findings are of value for examination of face and body language reading in neuropsychiatric conditions, in particular, autism, most of which are gender/sex-specific. This work suggests that if male individuals with autistic traits experience difficulties in reading covered with masks faces, these deficits may be unlikely compensated by reading (even dynamic) bodies and faces. By contrast, in females, reading covered faces as well as reading language of dynamic bodies and faces are not compulsorily connected to autistic traits preventing them from paying high costs for maladaptive social interaction.

Molecular genetic associations between a prominent serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (5-HTTLPR/rs25531) and individual differences in tendencies toward autistic traits and generalized internet use disorder in China and Germany.

BackgroundThe serotonin transporter polymorphism 5‐HTTLPR is an extensively investigated genetic marker of autistic traits or autism spectrum disorder, and recently has also been studied in the realm of internet use disorder (IUD), yet the findings remain controversial. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore associations between 5‐HTTLPR (also including SNP rs25531) and autistic traits/IUD tendencies and to assess whether the relationship between autistic traits and IUD tendencies varies by this genetic marker in participants from China and Germany.MethodsA total of 540 Chinese and 563 German subjects were genotyped for 5‐HTTLPR/rs25531 and completed the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire and the short version of the Internet Addiction Test.ResultsCarriers of the low expressing S'S’ genotype (S, LG) showed significantly higher levels of autistic traits than the high expressing allele (e.g. LA) carriers in both samples. There was no significant effect of 5‐HTTLPR/rs25531 on IUD either in the Chinese or Germany samples, whereas positive correlations between autistic traits and IUD varied by 5‐HTTLPR/rs25531 genotypes and also differed between Chinese and German samples. In the Chinese sample, positive correlations were mainly driven by S'S’ and S'L' carriers, while they were mainly determined by S'L’ and L'L' carriers in the German sample. Further analyses revealed that the associations between autistic traits and IUD tended in parts to be more strongly pronounced in the complete German sample compared to the complete Chinese sample, and also varied depending on 5‐HTTLPR/rs25531 genotypes (in S'S’ carriers: China > Germany; in S'L’ and L'L’ carriers: China < Germany; both in terms of more positive associations).ConclusionsOur findings suggest carriers of low expressing alleles (S, LG) are more likely to show higher autistic traits in both Chinese and German samples. Furthermore, the present work shows that both 5‐HTTLPR/rs25531 and cultural differences might be of relevance to understand associations between autistic traits and IUD tendencies, but this needs to be further backed up.

Individual differences in simultaneous perceptual compensation for coarticulatory and lexical cues

Abstract Idiosyncratic perceptual compensation behaviors are considered to have a bearing on the perceptual foundation of sound change. We investigate how compensation processes driven by lexical and coarticulatory contexts simultaneously affect listeners’ perception of a single segment and the individual differences in the compensation patterns. Sibilants on an /s-ʃ/ continuum were embedded into four lexical frames that differed in whether the lexical context favored /s/ or /ʃ/ perceptually and whether the vocalic context favored /s/ or not. Forty-two participants took a lexical decision task to decide whether each stimulus was a word or not. They also completed the autism-spectrum quotient questionnaire. The aggregate results of the lexical decision task show coexistence of lexically induced and coarticulatorily induced perceptual shifts in parallel. A negative correlation was found between the two kinds of perceptual shifts for individual listeners in lexical decisions, lending support to a potential trade-off between compensation magnitudes on different levels of cue integration.

Autistic traits, working memory, and L2 prosodic boundary detection

Abstract This study aims to examine the roles of second language (L2) learners’ autistic traits and working memory capacity in detecting prosodic boundaries. Forty-six learners of English with Mandarin as their native language completed questionnaires on personality and cognitive assessment – an Autism-Spectrum Quotient questionnaire (AQ) and a Working Memory questionnaire (WM). They also completed a Rapid Prosody Transcription (RPT) task in which they were asked to mark prosodic boundaries produced by Barack Obama in recordings of his Weekly Address. The results revealed that autistic traits and working memory capacity were positively correlated with each other, and attention to detail was the primary predictor for the detection of boundary tones. These findings provide insight into L2 learners’ detection of prosodic boundaries along the autistic traits and working memory capacity continuum and further indicate that EFL instructions should take individual differences into consideration when assessing L2 learners’ performance in listening or comprehension tasks.

How are attention, learning, and social cognition related on the non-clinical autistic spectrum?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) – and autistic traits more generally – are associated with a heterogeneous pattern of differences in cognitive function. These include differences in associative learning, attention, and processing of social information. All three cognitive functions have importance in clinical, educational, and research contexts. The present study investigates the relationships between these functions in the context of autistic traits in the neurotypical population. In an online study, we asked a group of over 400 people to complete the Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire. We also asked participants to complete one of two standard attentional learning paradigms – either a Kamin blocking or an attentional highlighting task. To investigate the relation of attention and learning to social information processing, we incorporated social cues in one of each kind of paradigm. We found Kamin blocking increased with increasing number of autistic traits, in particular the sub-trait attention switching, but only for non-social cues. We found that highlighting decreased with increasing number of traits, in particular the sub-trait communication, but only for social cues. We interpret these findings as evidence of a crucial role for attention in other characteristics of the broader autistic phenotype, and discuss the relevance of these results for cognitive explanations of autistic traits and symptoms.

Efficiency in Magnocellular Processing: A Common Deficit in Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Several neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) including Developmental Dyslexia (DD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but not Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), are reported to show deficits in global motion processing. Such behavioral deficits have been linked to a temporal processing deficiency. However, to date, there have been few studies assessing the temporal processing efficiency of the Magnocellular M pathways through temporal modulation. Hence, we measured achromatic flicker fusion thresholds at high and low contrast in nonselective samples of NDDs and neurotypicals (mean age 10, range 7–12 years, n = 71) individually, and group matched, for both chronological age and nonverbal intelligence. Autistic tendencies were also measured using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient questionnaire as high AQ scores have previously been associated with the greater physiological amplitude of M-generated nonlinearities. The NDD participants presented with singular or comorbid combinations of DD, ASD, and ADHD. The results showed that ASD and DD, including those with comorbid ADHD, demonstrated significantly lower flicker fusion thresholds (FFTs) than their matched controls. Participants with a singular diagnosis of ADHD did not differ from controls in the FFTs. Overall, the entire NDD plus control populations showed a significant negative correlation between FFT and AQ scores (r = −0.269, p < 0.02 n = 71). In conclusion, this study presents evidence showing that a temporally inefficient M pathway could be the unifying network at fault across the NDDs and particularly in ASD and DD diagnoses, but not in singular diagnosis of ADHD.

Paternal-but Not Maternal-Autistic Traits Predict Frontal EEG Alpha Asymmetry in Infants with Later Symptoms of Autism.

Previous research found that the parental autism phenotype is associated with child autism spectrum disorder (ASD), even if the pathway between autistic traits in parents and child ASD is still largely unknown. Several studies investigated frontal asymmetry in alpha oscillation (FAA) as an early marker for ASD. However, no study has examined the mediational effect of FAA between parental autistic traits and child ASD symptoms in the general population. We carried out a prospective study of 103 typically developing infants and measured FAA as a mediator between both maternal and paternal autistic traits and child ASD traits. We recorded infant baseline electroencephalogram (EEG) at 6 months of age. Child ASD symptoms were measured at age 24 months by the Child Behavior Checklist 1½–5 Pervasive Developmental Problems Scale, and parental autistic traits were scored by the Autism spectrum Quotient questionnaire. The mediation model showed that paternal vs. maternal autistic traits are associated with greater left FAA which, in turn, is associated with more child ASD traits with a significant indirect effect only in female infants vs. male infants. Our findings show a potential cascade of effects whereby paternal autistic traits drive EEG markers contributing to ASD risk.

A diminished propensity to compute scalar implicatures is linked to autistic traits

We investigated whether there is an association between autistic traits in the broader phenotype and the ability to compute scalar implicatures. Previous studies found that the frequency of autistic traits is higher in students of science than of humanities. Here we recorded the frequency of rejection of underinformative scalar items in students enrolled either in a science or in a humanities curriculum and assessed their autistic traits using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient questionnaire. We found that rejections were less frequent in science curricula students than in humanities curricula students. Moreover, rejections were associated negatively with autistic traits and positively with performance on Theory-of-Mind tasks. These findings suggest that autism cognitive phenotype is negatively associated with a propensity to spontaneously derive scalar implicatures.

SUBJECTIVE COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT AND THE BROAD AUTISM PHENOTYPE

Roughly 4% of the general population embodies personality, language, and other cognitive traits that characterize a subclinical “broad autism phenotype” (BAP) which qualitatively resembles, but is milder than autism spectrum disorder. Among the normal aging population, individuals with subjective cognitive impairment (SCI) have a high prevalence of psychological distress leading us to predict that BAP would be associated with increasing SCI in the context of otherwise normal aging. The Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire (AQ) is a self-administered 50 item questionnaire whose questions are categorized into five domains comprised of 10 questions each: social skills, attention switching, attention to detail, communication, and ideas. Answers are dichotomized as either agree or disagree. Each item is scored as a “1” if the individual endorses the autistic trait so that scores can range from 0-50. Scores of 23 and above are the threshold for BAP. The AQ was completed by 419 consecutive members of the Arizona APOE Cohort, a longitudinal study of cognitive aging in which participants undergo detailed neuropsychological testing every two years. SCI was assessed with self and informant versions of the Multidimensional Assessment of Neurodegenerative Symptoms questionnaire (MANS). The MANS and auditory verbal learning test (AVLT) scores were standardized in the longitudinal analysis. 45 individuals scored 23 or above and are categorized as AQ+. The remaining 374 are AQ-. The AQ+ group had disproportionately more men (p=.0005) and a higher proportion of multiple divorces (p=.01), but no differences in age, education, parental status, occupational status, or income category. All comparisons were corrected for sex. At entry, both MANS-self (p<.0001) and MANS-informant (p<.0001) scores were higher in the AQ+ group despite normal neuropsychological scores. Longitudinally, after age 60, the AQ+ group had a greater annual rate of increase in MANS-self (but not informant) scores (0.05 vs 0.02; diff = 0.03; 95%CI: 0.004, 0.05; p=0.02) yet both groups showed only similar mild decline on the AVLT after age 60 (annual change -0.02 vs -0.02; diff = 0.01; 95%CI: -0.01, 0.03; p=0.43) (figure).

Yawning Detection Sensitivity and Yawning Contagion.

Contagious yawning—the urge to yawn when thinking about, listening to, or viewing yawning—is a well-documented phenomenon in humans and animals. The reduced yawn contagion observed in the autistic population suggested that it might be empathy related; however, it is unknown whether such a connection applies to nonclinical populations. We examined influences from both empathy (i.e., autistic traits) and nonempathy factors (i.e., individuals’ perceptual detection sensitivity to yawning, happy, and angry faces) on 41 nonclinical adults. We induced contagious yawning with a 5-minute video and 20 yawning photo stimuli. In addition, we measured participants’ autistic traits (with the autism-spectrum quotient questionnaire), eye gaze patterns, and their perceptual thresholds to detect yawning and emotion in human face photos. We found two factors associated with yawning contagion: (a) those more sensitive to detect yawning, but not other emotional expressions, displayed more contagious yawning than those less sensitive to yawning expressions, and (b) female participants exhibited significantly more contagious yawning than male participants. We did not find an association between autistic trait and contagious yawning. Our study offers a working hypothesis for future studies, in that perceptual encoding of yawning interacts with susceptibility to contagious yawning.

Social anxiety and autism spectrum traits among adult FMR1 premutation carriers.

Behavioral symptoms and traits have been proposed as early markers in neurodegenerative diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate social anxiety and autism in FMR1 premutation carriers using the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) questionnaires. Fifty-nine premutation carriers were compared with 50 controls. The SPIN test showed statistically significant differences between female but not male carriers. The AQ questionnaire found statistically significant differences between premutation carriers and controls in the total AQ as well as in the social skills and attention switching subdomains. A gender effect was only observed for the social skills subdomain. Spearman's correlation analysis revealed a moderately positive correlation with the total AQ scores as well as the social skills and communication subdomains. Our results show that fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) patients have higher AQ scores. Moreover, this is the first study to find statistically significant differences between FXTAS and no-FXTAS premutation carriers in the communication and the imagination subdomains, suggesting that FXTAS patients present a broader autistic phenotype than premutation carriers without FXTAS. Based on our results, a wide range of behavioral/psychiatric traits should be included within the broader phenotypic presentation of individuals with the FMR1 premutation.

Individual differences in spatial frequency processing in scene perception: the influence of autism-related traits

ABSTRACTPrevious research suggested that coarse (High Spatial Frequency or HSF) and fine (Low Spatial Frequency or LSF) spatial information are flexibly used at different stages of processing during scene recognition in daily life. We tried to replicate and extend these findings by presenting non-social real-life scenes either as a normal picture, solely defined by LSF or HSF information, or using hybrid images consisting of overlaid LSF and HSF scene information. These were used as (in)congruent prime stimuli, modulating the rapid detection of a normal target picture in a 2-Alternative Forced Choice (2-AFC) categorization task (manmade versus natural). Our results indicated that coarse spatial information was more effective with shorter prime presentation times and fine spatial information required a longer prime presentation to influence participant performance. Interestingly, higher scores on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient questionnaire modified the impact of HSF prime information on target identification and influenced performance when ambiguous hybrid prime information preceded the categorization task.

Are Autistic Traits in the General Population Related to Global and Regional Brain Differences?

There is accumulating evidence that autistic-related traits in the general population lie on a continuum, with autism spectrum disorders representing the extreme end of this distribution. Here, we tested the hypothesis of a possible relationship between autistic traits and brain morphometry in the general population. Participants completed the short autism-spectrum quotient-questionnaire (AQ); T1-anatomical and DWI-scans were acquired. Associations between autistic traits and gray matter, and white matter microstructural-integrity were performed on the exploration-group (N = 204; 105 males, M-age = 22.85), and validated in the validation-group (N = 304; 155 males, M-age = 22.82). No significant associations were found between AQ-scores and brain morphometry in the exploration-group, or after pooling the data. This questions the assumption that autistic traits and their morphological associations do lie on a continuum in the general population.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10803-015-2441-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Unpredictable and unintelligible: Individual differences in predictability-based reduction affect speech intelligibility

Words spoken in high predictability (HP) contexts tend to be phonetically reduced and less intelligible than words spoken in lower predictability (LP) contexts. However, individual differences in degree and strategies of reduction, and their effects on intelligibility, are largely unexplored. This study examined the role of autistic traits in speech intelligibility. Sixteen participants completed a speech in noise word identification task at 2dB SNR. Stimuli were recordings of words spoken in HP and LP contexts, extracted from sentences produced by talkers ranging in autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) scores. After the identification task, listeners also completed the AQ questionnaire. A higher AQ score indicates a greater prevalence of autistic traits in one's cognitive style. Logistic mixed effect regression modeling revealed an expected effect of duration, such that longer words were more likely to be correctly identified. Further, talkers with higher AQ scores were less intelligible than talkers with lower AQ scores. Unexpectedly, no effect of predictability condition was observed: LP words were not consistently more intelligible than HP words. No effect of individual differences in listener AQ scores was observed. These results suggest that predictability-based enhancement and reduction strategies vary between individuals and are not necessarily for the benefit of the listener.

Using Time Perception to Explore Sensitivity to Emotional Stimuli in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by difficulties in social communication, including challenges in the understanding of emotion. In the temporal bisection task the duration of an emotionally expressive face is overestimated compared to a neutral facial expression (e.g., Droit-Volet et al., 2004). It is hypothesized that this effect is driven by stimulus-induced increases in arousal, which speed the rate of an ‘internal clock’ that meters time. To date, it is not known whether this implicit response to emotional stimuli is present in ASD. We tested 20 adults with an ASD and 26 matched controls. Participants were presented with the classic time bisection task in which they learnt two reference durations, one ‘short’ (400 ms) and one ‘long’ (1600 ms), and had to classify subsequent durations as either more similar to the short or long references. In two conditions, temporal judgements were assessed for face stimuli (angry, happy, fearful, and neutral faces) and a selection of natural images (snarling dog, puppy, spider, and flower) that varied in emotional salience. Like the control group, we found that the group with ASD overestimated the duration of both the emotional faces and the arousing natural images compared to the neutral face and flower. Similar results were found in a parallel study that assessed 85 undergraduate students whose degree of self-reported autistic traits were measured using the Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Overestimation of the emotional stimuli did not correlate with self-reported autistic traits in this student population. Taken together, the data do not suggest a fundamental insensitivity to the arousing content of either facial or natural images in ASD, or in individuals with a high degree of autistic traits. These findings have implications for understanding how emotional stimuli are processed in ASD and illustrate how timing paradigms can be used to better understand the perceptual experience of clinical populations.

Links between multisensory processing and autism

Autism spectrum disorder is typically associated with social deficits and is often specifically linked to difficulty with processing faces and other socially relevant stimuli. Emerging research has suggested that children with autism might also have deficits in basic perceptual abilities including multisensory processing (e.g., simultaneously processing visual and auditory inputs). The current study examined the relationship between multisensory temporal processing (assessed via a simultaneity judgment task wherein participants were to report whether a visual stimulus and an auditory stimulus occurred at the same time or at different times) and self-reported symptoms of autism (assessed via the Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire). Data from over 100 healthy adults revealed a relationship between these two factors as multisensory timing perception correlated with symptoms of autism. Specifically, a stronger bias to perceive auditory stimuli occurring before visual stimuli as simultaneous was associated with greater levels of autistic symptoms. Additional data and analyses confirm that this relationship is specific to multisensory processing and symptoms of autism. These results provide insight into the nature of multisensory processing while also revealing a continuum over which perceptual abilities correlate with symptoms of autism and that this continuum is not just specific to clinical populations but is present within the general population.

Support Groups for Adults With Asperger Syndrome

A total of 35 adults (24—77 years; 24 males and 11 females) with Asperger syndrome (AS) who were in, were waiting to get in, or had been in support groups participated in the study. In general, the adults were highly educated but unemployed or underemployed and living alone with family members as friends. The participants were interviewed, completed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient questionnaire and the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and rated group experiences. The results of qualitative and quantitative analyses can be interpreted to conclude that participants were lonely and perceived support groups as beneficial for providing (a) social skills and interaction, (b) information and advice, and (c) structure. Participants also reported that someone had encouraged them to attend a support group. This information can help practitioners gain insight into the content and structure of support groups for individuals with AS and may aid in the design of future research on services for adults with AS.

Version française des questionnaires de dépistage de l’autisme de haut niveau ou du syndrome d’Asperger chez l’adolescent : Quotient du spectre de l’autisme, Quotient d’empathie, et Quotient de systématisation. Protocole et traduction des questionnaires

No tools are currently available in France, for the detection of autism without mental retardation (high functioning autism and Asperger syndrome here referred as TED SDI). Use of screening tests by first-line clinicians would allow better detection of children who are likely to display such difficulties and to improve patients' care. In England, 3 questionnaires have been evaluated: Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), Empathy Quotient (EQ), and Systemizing Quotient (SQ). This is the translation and evaluation of 3 questionnaires in France for TED SDI and control adolescents. The translation of the questionnaires into French required two simultaneous translations, two back-translations and two consensus meetings. This is a cross-sectional study comparing scores obtained with the three AQ, EQ and SQ questionnaires. These questionnaires were completed by the parents of four groups of adolescents 11-18 years: 100 TED SDI adolescents (50 with IQ ≥ 85 and 50 with 70≤IQ<85), 50 adolescents with another psychiatric disorder (TP) and 200 control adolescents (T). 580 questionnaires have been sent to 40 recruiting centres. By the 28th of February, 2010, 277 completed questionnaires were received completed (TED SDI: 70 (70%); TP: 25 (50%) et T: 182 (91%)). In the control group, 92 girls (mean 14.4±1.7 years) and 66 boys (14.5±1.7 years) were recruited. In the TED SDI group, 4 girls (14.3±2.4 years) and 42 boys (14.5±1.7 years) were recruited. One girl (81) and 6 boys (72.2±7.7) have an IQ between 70 and 85, and 3 girls (95.3±4.2) and 36 boys (102.9±12) have an IQ higher than 85. In the TP group, 9 girls (15.9±1.7 years) and 4 boys (15.8±1.9 years) were recruited. The aim of this study is to make the AQ, EQ and SQ questionnaires available in French for French speaking clinicians. This study will allow a rigorous evaluation of the usefulness of the AQ questionnaire in the screening of TED SDI in adolescents.