Retrodictive mentalising abilities of individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the retrodictive mentalising abilities (a kind of backwards inference from a mental state to its causal antecedent in order to make sense of others’ behaviours) of people with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A new experimental paradigm was developed in order to examine people’s ability to make sense of others’ behaviours in a way that closely resembles the intricacies of real-world settings. The stimuli utilised in this thesis portrayed people’s spontaneous and genuine responses during four specific events (scenarios). People were told a joke in the Joke scenario whereas in the Story scenario the researcher related a series of unfortunate mishaps that she experienced earlier in the day. In the Compliments scenario, people were told a series of compliments while in the Waiting scenario the researcher performed irrelevant tasks during an experiment whilst the person was kept waiting. Participants viewed brief videoclips of these behavioural responses and were asked to determine which event had previously occurred to the people in the videoclips. Participants eye movements were recorded to ascertain the visual strategies used. Typically developing individuals successfully inferred the events that occurred by viewing brief samples of behavioural reactions of typically developing individuals (Experiment 1). It was found that scenario experienced did not impact how targets self-reported their level of empathic ability (Experiment 2). While people with ASD were able to infer people’s behavioural responses, their performance on the task was inferior as compared to typically developing individuals (Experiment 3). Participants varied their gaze strategies depending on the event experienced by the people in the videoclips and they had a tendency to focus more on the mouth compared to the eye region of the face (Experiment 1 and 3). When participants viewed videoclips of behavioural responses of people with and without ASD to the same events, they were more successful at inferring the reactions to the events which occurred when viewing videoclips of neurotypical individuals as opposed to individuals with ASD (Experiment 4). Furthermore, participants were unable to identify the reactions to two of the four events when viewing videoclips of people with ASD

Retrodictive mentalising abilities of individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the retrodictive mentalising abilities (a kind of backwards inference from a mental state to its causal antecedent in order to make sense of others’ behaviours) of people with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A new experimental paradigm was developed in order to examine people’s ability to make sense of others’ behaviours in a way that closely resembles the intricacies of real-world settings. The stimuli utilised in this thesis portrayed people’s spontaneous and genuine responses during four specific events (scenarios). People were told a joke in the Joke scenario whereas in the Story scenario the researcher related a series of unfortunate mishaps that she experienced earlier in the day. In the Compliments scenario, people were told a series of compliments while in the Waiting scenario the researcher performed irrelevant tasks during an experiment whilst the person was kept waiting. Participants viewed brief videoclips of these behavioural responses and were asked to determine which event had previously occurred to the people in the videoclips. Participants eye movements were recorded to ascertain the visual strategies used. Typically developing individuals successfully inferred the events that occurred by viewing brief samples of behavioural reactions of typically developing individuals (Experiment 1). It was found that scenario experienced did not impact how targets self-reported their level of empathic ability (Experiment 2). While people with ASD were able to infer people’s behavioural responses, their performance on the task was inferior as compared to typically developing individuals (Experiment 3). Participants varied their gaze strategies depending on the event experienced by the people in the videoclips and they had a tendency to focus more on the mouth compared to the eye region of the face (Experiment 1 and 3). When participants viewed videoclips of behavioural responses of people with and without ASD to the same events, they were more successful at inferring the reactions to the events which occurred when viewing videoclips of neurotypical individuals as opposed to individuals with ASD (Experiment 4). Furthermore, participants were unable to identify the reactions to two of the four events when viewing videoclips of people with ASD

Can people guess what happened to others from their reactions?

Are we able to infer what happened to a person from a brief sample of his/her behaviour? It has been proposed that mentalising skills can be used to retrodict as well as predict behaviour, that is, to determine what mental states of a target have already occurred. The current study aimed to develop a paradigm to explore these processes, which takes into account the intricacies of real-life situations in which reasoning about mental states, as embodied in behaviour, may be utilised. A novel task was devised which involved observing subtle and naturalistic reactions of others in order to determine the event that had previously taken place. Thirty-five participants viewed videos of real individuals reacting to the researcher behaving in one of four possible ways, and were asked to judge which of the four ‘scenarios’ they thought the individual was responding to. Their eye movements were recorded to establish the visual strategies used. Participants were able to deduce successfully from a small sample of behaviour which scenario had previously occurred. Surprisingly, looking at the eye region was associated with poorer identification of the scenarios, and eye movement strategy varied depending on the event experienced by the person in the video. This suggests people flexibly deploy their attention using a retrodictive mindreading process to infer events

Editorial: Addressing community priorities in autism research

Autism is a form of neurodiversity, currently characterized by differences compared to the neurotypical population across multiple domains including sensory processing (Proff et al., 2021), social communication style (Crompton et al., 2021), attentional processing (Murray et al., 2005), and movement and motor processing (Miller et al., 2021). Historically, autism (and thus autistic people) has been studied through a medical lens (Chapman and Carel, 2022), owing primarily to the characterization of autism as a disorder of childhood development. These conceptualizations led to dehumanizing narratives about autistic people (Botha) and have impacted on who we consider to be knowledgeable about what it is like to be autistic (Kourti). In recent years, there has been a shift toward recognition of autism as a form of neurodivergence; a naturally occurring variation in the human population that may lead to a differential profile of strengths and challenges in comparison to the non-autistic population (Den Houting, 2019). This shift has been primarily driven by the autistic self-advocacy and neurodiversity movements (Kapp et al., 2013; Walker, 2021), which have campaigned for better understanding of autistic people

An Ayurvedic View on Food (Ahara)—A Review

Food plays a crucial role in both health and disease. A healthy life starts with healthy food. One should consume food only depending on one’s digestive fire. In Ayurveda, six ritus (seasons) have been detailed, and specific dietary and lifestyle regimens are also well explained. There is a great interconnection between ahara, the gut microbiome and seasons. In Ayurveda, food supports and brings out the three qualities of mind, namely satvika (quality of purity and harmony), rajasika (quality of passion and manipulation) and thamasika (darkness, destruction). The satvik diet appears to be similar to a modern but prudent dietary pattern

"What I thought was so important isn't really that important": international perspectives on making meaning during the first wave of the COVID 19

Background: The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the physical and mental health of people everywhere. The aim of the study is to understand how people living in 15 countries around the globe experience an unexpected crisis which threatens their health and that of loved ones, and how they make meaning of this disruption in their narratives.Methods: Data were collected through an anonymous online survey during May-September 2020, which was during or just after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, depending on the country. The questionnaire included demographic and three open-ended questions as prompts for stories about experiences during the initial months of the pandemic. The text was analyzed through inductive thematic content analysis and quantified for full sample description, demographic and subsequently international comparisons.Results: The final qualitative dataset included stories from n = 1685 respondents. The sample was 73.6% women and 26.4% men. The mean age of participants was 39.55 years (SD = 14.71). The identified four groups of overarching themes were: The presence and absence of others; Rediscovering oneself; The meaning of daily life; Rethinking societal and environmental values. We discuss the prevalence of each theme for the sample as a whole and differences by demographic groups. The most prevalent theme referred to disruptions in interpersonal contacts, made meaningful by the increased appreciation of the value of relationships, present in (45.6%) of stories. It was more prevalent in the stories of women compared to men (χ² = 24.88, p = .001).Conclusions: The paper provides a detailed overview of the methodology, the main themes identified inductively in the stories and differences according to select demographic variables. We identify several major ways of making meaning of the pandemic. The pandemic has impacted many aspects of people's lives which give it meaning, no matter where they live.</div