Brief report : the level and nature of autistic intelligence revisited

Owing to higher performance on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM) than on the Wechsler Intelligence Scales (WIS), it has recently been argued that intelligence is underestimated in autism. This study examined RPM and WIS IQs in 48 individuals with autism, a mixed clinical (n = 28) and a neurotypical (n = 25) control group. Average RPM IQ was higher than WIS IQ only in the autism group, albeit to a much lesser degree than previously reported and only for individuals with WIS IQs <85. Consequently, and given the importance of reliable multidimensional IQ estimates in autism, the WIS are recommended as first choice IQ measure in high functioning individuals. Additional testing with the RPM might be required in the lower end of the spectrum

Towards successful employment of adults with autism: A first analysis of special interests and factors deemed important for vocational performance

Background: Adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and with intelligence quotients in the normal range are disproportionately affected by unemployment.Objective: We sought to assess special interests that could bear potential for employment as well as factors deemed relevant for work performance in adults with ASD.Method: A newly compiled self-report online questionnaire was administered to high-functioning adults with ASD to assess special interests as well as factors that both interfere with and facilitate work performance.Results: Participants reported that they spent an average of 26 hours per week on their special interests, and their average level of proficiency was rated as very good. Although special interests were reported to be in the social sciences and the creative fields as often as they were in the natural sciences and technology/engineering, the most common approach taken within those fields was systemizing rather than a creative or knowledge-acquiring pursuit. Social interaction problems with coworkers and superiors as well as sensory issues were most often rated as interfering with work performance. In addition, mental underload was rated as an important factor that interfered with work performance, whereas excessive demands were not. Among the factors most often reported to facilitate work performance were employers’ and colleagues’ awareness of the individual’s ASD diagnosis.Conclusion: Our data suggest that special interests among individuals with ASD may bear important potential for employment. Given the focus on systemizing in this population, recent efforts to create job opportunities in the information technology sector specifically for high-functioning individuals with ASD are a promising start. However, these efforts should be expanded into other fields

Toward the Successful Employment of Adults with Autism: A First Analysis of Special Interests and Factors Deemed Important for Vocational Performance

Adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and with intelligence quotients in the normal range are disproportionately affected by unemployment.We sought to assess special interests that could bear potential for employment as well as factors deemed relevant for work performance in adults with ASD.A newly compiled self-report online questionnaire was administered to high-functioning adults with ASD to assess special interests as well as factors that both interfere with and facilitate work performance.Participants reported that they spent an average of 26 hours per week on their special interests, and their average level of proficiency was rated as very good. Although special interests were reported to be in the social sciences and the creative fields as often as they were in the natural sciences and technology/engineering, the most common approach taken within those fields was systemizing rather than a creative or knowledge-acquiring pursuit. Social interaction problems with coworkers and superiors as well as sensory issues were most often rated as interfering with work performance. In addition, mental underload was rated as an important factor that interfered with work performance, whereas excessive demands were not. Among the factors most often reported to facilitate work performance were employers' and colleagues' awareness of the individual's ASD diagnosis.Our data suggest that special interests among individuals with ASD may bear important potential for employment. Given the focus on systemizing in this population, recent efforts to create job opportunities in the information technology sector specifically for high-functioning individuals with ASD are a promising start. However, these efforts should be expanded into other fields

Gender effects on mindreading across the adult life span

Research recurrently shows that females perform better than males on various mindreading tasks. The present study contributes to this growing body of literature by being the first to demonstrate a female own-gender mindreading bias using a naturalistic social cognition paradigm including female and male targets. We found that women performed better at reading others´ minds, and that they were specifically more capable to read female targets, an own-gender target effect absent in men. Furthermore, a non-linear negative effect of perceiver age on mindreading performance was examined within a sample covering the age range of 17-70 years, as indicated by a stronger performance decrease setting on by the age of 30 years and continuing throughout middle and old age. These findings add to a more comprehensive understanding of the contextual factors influencing mindreading performance in typically developing adults

Preschoolers’ Sensitivity to Negative and Positive Emotional Facial Expressions: An ERP Study

The study examined processing differences for facial expressions (happy, angry, or neutral) and their repetition with early (P1, N170) and late (P3) event-related potentials (ERPs) in young children (N = 33). EEG was recorded while children observed sequentially presented pairs of facial expressions, which were either the same (repeated trials) or differed in their emotion (novel trials). We also correlated ERP amplitude differences with parental and child measures of socio-emotional competence (emotion recognition, empathy). P1 amplitudes were increased for angry and happy as compared to neutral expressions. We also detected larger P3 amplitudes for angry expressions as compared to happy or neutral expressions. Repetition effects were evident at early and late processing stages marked by reduced P1 amplitudes for repeated vs. novel happy expressions, but enhanced P3 amplitudes for repeated vs. novel facial expressions. N170 amplitudes were neither modulated by facial expressions nor their repetition. None of the repetition effects were associated with measures of socio-emotional competence. Taken together, negative facial expressions led to increased neural activations in early and later processing stages, indicative of enhanced saliency to potential threating stimuli in young children. Processing of repeated facial expression seem to be differential for early and late neural stages: Reduced activation was detected at early neural processing stages particularly for happy faces, indicative of effective processing for an emotion, which is most familiar within this age range. Contrary to our hypothesis, enhanced activity for repeated vs. novel expression independent of a particular emotion were detected at later processing stages, which may be linked to the creation of new memory traces. Early and late repetition effects are discussed in light of developmental and perceptual differences as well as task-specific load.Peer Reviewe

a meta-analysis of correlations

A number of prominent theories have linked tendencies to mimick others' facial movements to empathy and facial emotion recognition, but evidence for such links is uneven. We conducted a meta-analysis of correlations of facial mimicry with empathy and facial emotion recognition skills. Other factors were also examined for moderating influence, e.g. facets of empathy measured, facial muscles recorded, and facial emotions being mimicked. Summary effects were estimated with a random-effects model and a meta-regression analysis was used to identify factors moderating these effects. 162 effects from 28 studies were submitted. The summary effect size indicated a significant weak positive relationship between facial mimicry and empathy, but not facial emotion recognition. The moderator analysis revealed that stronger correlations between facial mimicry and empathy were observed for static vs. dynamic facial stimuli, and for implicit vs. explicit instances of facial emotion processing. No differences were seen between facial emotions, facial muscles, emotional and cognitive facets of empathy, or state and trait measures of empathy. The results support the claim that stronger facial mimicry responses are positively related to higher dispositions for empathy, but the weakness and variability of this effect suggest that this relationship is conditional on not-fully understood factors

Ethnic discrimination unlearned: experience in the repeated Trust Game reduces trust bias

Introduction Discrimination toward ethnic minorities is a persistent societal problem. One reason behind this is a bias in trust: people tend to trust their ingroup and comparatively distrust outgroups. Methods In this study, we investigated whether and how people change their explicit trust bias with respect to ethnicity based on behavioral interactions with in- and outgroup members in a modified Trust Game. Results Subjects’ initial explicit trust bias disappeared after the game. The change was largest for ingroup members who behaved unfairly, and the reduction of trust bias generalized to a small sample of new in- and outgroup members. Reinforcement learning models showed subjects’ learning was best explained by a model with only one learning rate, indicating that subjects learned from trial outcomes and partner types equally during investment. Discussion We conclude that subjects can reduce bias through simple learning, in particular by learning that ingroup members can behave unfairly.Peer Reviewe

Approximating Implicit and Explicit Mentalizing with Two Naturalistic Video-Based Tasks in Typical Development and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been proposed to show greater impairments in implicit than explicit mentalizing. To test this proposition, we developed two comparable naturalistic tasks for a performance-based approximation of implicit and explicit mentalizing in 28 individuals with ASD and 23 matched typically developed (TD) participants. Although both tasks were sensitive to the social impairments of individuals with ASD, implicit mentalizing was not more dysfunctional than explicit mentalizing. In TD participants, performance on the tasks did not correlate with each other, whereas in individuals with ASD they were highly correlated. These findings suggest that implicit and explicit mentalizing processes are separable in typical development. In contrast, in individuals with ASD implicit and explicit mentalizing processes are similarly impaired and closely linked suggesting a lack of developmental specification of these processes in ASD.German Research Foundation (Grant EXC 302

Doctoral researchers’ mental health and PhD training satisfaction during the German COVID-19 lockdown

Academia has been facing a mental health crisis particularly affecting early career researchers (ECRs). Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic posed an unprecedented burden on the mental health of many individuals. Therefore, we cross-sectionally investigated how doctoral researchers (N = 222) evaluate their mental health status and satisfaction with their PhD training before and during the pandemic. As compared to self-reported, retrospective evaluations about the pre-pandemic state, we found decreased satisfaction with PhD training and overall well-being. The whole sample exhibited high levels of personal and work-related burnout, a fifth indicated clinically meaningful levels of depressive symptoms and almost 25% experienced severe loneliness. When exploring predictors of depression, anxiety, and burnout, we identified low satisfaction with PhD training as the most prominent predictor for poor mental health, suggesting a link between the doctoral work and their mental health status. Females vs. males and doctoral researchers in individual doctorate vs. structured PhD programs reported higher symptoms of burnout. Our study replicates previous findings of poor mental health in doctoral researchers and indicates further decreases of mental wellbeing under the influence of the pandemic. Systematic adjustments in academia are required to improve the mental health of ECRs.Peer Reviewe

Access to awareness of direct gaze is related to autistic traits

Background: The atypical processing of eye contact is a characteristic hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The severity of these symptoms, however, is thought to lie on a continuum that extends into the typical population. While behavioural evidence shows that differences in social cognitive tasks in typically developed (TD) adults are related to the levels of autistic-like traits, it remains unknown whether such a relation exists for the sensitivity to direct gaze.; Methods: In two experiments, we measured reaction times to detect the faces with direct and averted gaze, suppressed from awareness, i.e. the access to awareness. In experiment 1, we tested N = 19 clinically diagnosed adults with ASD and N = 22 TD matched controls, while in experiment 2, we tested an independent sample of N = 20 TD adults.; Results: In line with the literature, experiment 1 showed preferential processing of direct gaze in the TD group but not in the ASD group. Importantly, we found a linear relationship in both experiments between the levels of autistic traits within the groups of TD participants and their sensitivity to direct gaze: with increasing autistic characteristics, there was a decrease in sensitivity to direct gaze.; Conclusion: These results provide the first evidence that differences in gaze processing and the sensitivity to direct gaze are already present in individuals with subclinical levels of autistic traits. Furthermore, they lend support to the continuum view of the disorder and could potentially help in an earlier diagnosis of individuals at high risk for autism.Peer Reviewe