Different Levels Of Autistic Traits Research Articles

Perceptual discrimination of action formidableness and friendliness and the impact of autistic traits

The ability to determine whether the actions of other individuals are friendly or formidable are key decisions we need to make to successfully navigate our complex social environment. In this study we measured perceptual performance when discriminating actions that vary in their friendliness or formidableness, and whether performance was related to the autistic traits of individuals. To do this, we developed an action morphing method to generate novel actions that lied along the action quality dimensions of formidableness and friendliness. In Experiment 1 we show that actions that vary along the formidableness or friendliness continua were rated as varying monotonically along the respective quality. In Experiment 2 we measured the ability of individuals with different levels of autistic traits to discriminate action formidableness and friendliness using adaptive 2-AFC procedures. We found considerable variation in perceptual thresholds when discriminating action formidableness (~ 540% interindividual variation) or friendliness (~ 1100% interindividual variation). Importantly, we found no evidence that autistic traits influenced perceptual discrimination of these action qualities. These results confirm that sensory enhancements with autistic traits are limited to lower level stimuli, and suggest that the perceptual processing of these complex social signals are not affected by autistic traits.

Sex differences in neurodevelopmental trajectories in children with different levels of autistic traits.

Little is known about early manifestations of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in females, including those who may be overlooked by the current diagnostic criteria. We longitudinally explored sex differences in the trajectories of cognitive and motor functions and adaptive behaviors in children with different levels of autistic traits. The participants were 824 children from the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort for Mothers and Children (HBC Study), Japan, who were classified into three autistic trait groups-low, moderate, and high-based on the Social Responsiveness Scale-Second Edition. Cognitive and motor functions were measured at seven time-points from 0.5 to 3.5 years of age using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Adaptive behaviors were measured at five time-points from 2.7 to 9 years of age using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-Second Edition. Trajectories were depicted using latent growth curve modeling. Sex-specific trajectories were observed in the high-autistic-trait group, with only males showing a temporary decline in expressive language around the age of 2 years and a slight improvement thereafter. They also showed a slight improvement around 3 years in the adaptive behavior communication domain but a gradual downward trend later. Females in the high-autistic-trait group showed no distinct manifestation before the age of 3 years but showed a downward trend after 3.5 years in the adaptive behavior communication domain. Females and males with higher autistic traits than their same-sex peers, independent of clinical diagnosis, may have different phenotypes in certain neurodevelopmental domains during infancy and early childhood.

Neural correlates of audiovisual speech synchrony perception and its relationship with autistic traits.

The anterior insula (AI) has the central role in coordinating attention and integrating information from multiple sensory modalities. AI dysfunction may contribute to both sensory and social impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Little is known regarding the brain mechanisms that guide multisensory integration, and how such neural activity might be affected by autistic-like symptoms in the general population. In this study, 72 healthy young adults performed an audiovisual speech synchrony judgment (SJ) task during fMRI scanning. We aimed to investigate the SJ-related brain activations and connectivity, with a focus on the AI. Compared with synchronous speech, asynchrony perception triggered stronger activations in the bilateral AI, and other frontal-cingulate-parietal regions. In contrast, synchronous perception resulted in greater involvement of the primary auditory and visual areas, indicating multisensory validation and fusion. Moreover, the AI demonstrated a stronger connection with the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC) in the audiovisual asynchronous (vs. synchronous) condition. To facilitate asynchrony detection, the AI may integrate auditory and visual speech stimuli, and generate a control signal to the ACC that further supports conflict-resolving and response selection. Correlation analysis, however, suggested that audiovisual synchrony perception and its related AI activation and connectivity did not significantly vary with different levels of autistic traits. These findings provide novel evidence for the neural mechanisms underlying multisensory temporal processing in healthy people. Future research should examine whether such findings would be extended to ASD patients.

Atypical Brain Structures as a Function of Gray Matter Volume (GMV) and Gray Matter Density (GMD) in Young Adults Relating to Autism Spectrum Traits.

Individuals with autistic traits are those who present in the normal population with characteristics of social, communication, personality, and cognitive impairments but do not meet the clinical threshold for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Most studies have focused on the abnormalities in ASD patients rather than on individuals with autistic traits. In this study, we focused on the behaviors of a large sample (N = 401) of Chinese individuals with different levels of autistic traits, measured using the Autism Spectrum Quotient, and applied voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to determine their association to differences in brain structure. The results mainly showed that the correlation between gray matter volume (GMV) and gray matter density of the brain and the Autism Spectrum Quotient was significant in these regions: the right middle frontal gyrus, which are involved in social processing and social reasoning; the left parahippocampal gyrus, which is involved in socioemotional behaviors and unconscious relational memory encoding; and the right superior parietal lobule, which are involved in cognitive control and the ability to show attention to detail. These findings reveal that people with autistic traits in the normal population have atypical development in GMV and gray matter density, which may affect their social functioning and communication ability.

Autistic traits influence the strategic diversity of information sampling: Insights from two-stage decision models.

Information sampling can reduce uncertainty in future decisions but is often costly. To maximize reward, people need to balance sampling cost and information gain. Here we aimed to understand how autistic traits influence the optimality of information sampling and to identify the particularly affected cognitive processes. Healthy human adults with different levels of autistic traits performed a probabilistic inference task, where they could sequentially sample information to increase their likelihood of correct inference and may choose to stop at any moment. We manipulated the cost and evidence associated with each sample and compared participants’ performance to strategies that maximize expected gain. We found that participants were overall close to optimal but also showed autistic-trait-related differences. Participants with higher autistic traits had a higher efficiency of winning rewards when the sampling cost was zero but a lower efficiency when the cost was high and the evidence was more ambiguous. Computational modeling of participants’ sampling choices and decision times revealed a two-stage decision process, with the second stage being an optional second thought. Participants may consider cost in the first stage and evidence in the second stage, or in the reverse order. The probability of choosing to stop sampling at a specific stage increases with increasing cost or increasing evidence. Surprisingly, autistic traits did not influence the decision in either stage. However, participants with higher autistic traits inclined to consider cost first, while those with lower autistic traits considered cost or evidence first in a more balanced way. This would lead to the observed autistic-trait-related advantages or disadvantages in sampling optimality, depending on whether the optimal sampling strategy is determined only by cost or jointly by cost and evidence.

Impact of temperament and autistic traits on psychopathology in Japanese children: A nationwide cross-sectional study

Although temperament has been linked to psychopathological outcomes in non-clinical children, little is known about the association between temperament and psychopathological outcomes in children on the autism spectrum whose psychopathological outcomes are highly variable. The current study examined the impact of temperament and autistic traits on emotional and conduct problems during school age in a large-scale sample of non-clinical children with the use of quantitative scales. Cross-sectional data comprising parent reports of recalled temperament, current emotional and conduct problems, and current autistic traits for Japanese children aged 6–15years (N=24,232) that were collected with a postal questionnaire were analyzed. The results showed that emotional and conduct problems in school age were associated with both autistic traits and toddlerhood temperament. Specific temperament-psychopathology associations between higher negative affectivity and more emotional problems, higher effortful control and fewer conduct problems, and higher surgency and more conduct problems were shared among children with different levels of autistic traits. This study showed that although temperament in toddlerhood differed by the degree of autistic traits, both temperament and autistic traits could predict emotional and conduct problems in school-age children, and that the temperament-psychopathology associations are in most respects universal regardless of the degree of autistic traits.

Autistic Traits Affect P300 Response to Unexpected Events, regardless of Mental State Inferences.

Limited use of contextual information has been suggested as a way of understanding cognition in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it has also been argued that individuals with ASD may have difficulties inferring others' mental states. Here, we examined how individuals with different levels of autistic traits respond to contextual deviations by measuring event-related potentials that reflect context usage. The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) was used to quantify autistic-like traits in 28 university students, and 19 participants were defined as Low or High AQ groups. To additionally examine inferences about mental state, two belief conditions (with or without false belief) were included. Participants read short stories in which the final sentence included either an expected or an unexpected word and rated the word's degree of deviation from expectation. P300 waveform analysis revealed that unexpected words were associated with larger P300 waveforms for the Low AQ group, but smaller P300 responses in the High AQ group. Additionally, AQ social skill subscores were positively correlated with evaluation times in the Unexpected condition, whether a character's belief was false or not. This suggests that autistic traits can affect responses to unexpected events, possibly because of decreased availability of context information.

The Relationship Between Self-Reported Sensory Experiences and Autistic Traits in the General Population: A Mixed Methods Analysis

There have been few examples of inductive research in sensory reactivity, particularly in relation to autistic traits among the general population. This study used a mixed methods approach to explore the nature of sensory experiences among people with different levels of autistic traits. Participants completed the Glasgow Sensory Questionnaire and the Autism Spectrum Quotient. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed on the data. Responses to the open questions were analyzed as part of this study, and the closed questionnaire data have been reported elsewhere. Data were coded and responses quantitatively compared by group. In addition, data were qualitatively analyzed using a general inductive approach, which resulted in two themes: “problematic sensory experiences” and “calming sensory experiences.” Results show that coping mechanisms and certain aspects of the sensory experience vary according to autistic trait level, and provide insight into the nature of sensory reactivity across the general population.