Patterns of Contagious Yawning and Itching Differ Amongst Adults With Autistic Traits vs. Psychopathic Traits

Both individuals with diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and individuals high in psychopathic traits show reduced susceptibility to contagious yawning; that is, yawning after seeing or hearing another person yawn. Yet it is unclear whether the same underlying processes (e.g., reduced eye gaze) are responsible for the relationship between reduced contagion and these very different types of clinical traits. College Students (n = 97) watched videos of individuals yawning or scratching (a form of contagion not reliant on eye gaze for transmission) while their eye movements were tracked. They completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), the Psychopathy Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R), and the Adolescent and Adult Sensory Processing Disorder Checklist. Both psychopathic traits and autistic traits showed an inverse relationship to contagious yawning, consistent with previous research. However, the relationship between autistic (but not psychopathic) traits and contagious yawning was moderated by eye gaze. Furthermore, participants high in autistic traits showed typical levels of contagious itching whereas adults high in psychopathic traits showed diminished itch contagion. Finally, only psychopathic traits were associated with lower overall levels of empathy. The findings imply that the underlying processes contributing to the disruptions in contagious yawning amongst individuals high in autistic vs. psychopathic traits are distinct. In contrast to adults high in psychopathic traits, diminished contagion may appear amongst people with high levels of autistic traits secondary to diminished attention to the faces of others, and in the absence of a background deficit in emotional empathy

Facial Feedback and Laughter Contagion in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Facial Feedback and Laughter Contagion in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Molly Helt, PhD University of Connecticut, 2014 We tested sensitivity to facial feedback in 44 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), aged 8-14 years, and 44 typically developing children matched for mental age (6-14), in order to examine whether children with ASD use bodily feedback as an implicit source of information. Specifically, children were asked to view cartoons as they normally would (control condition), and to hold a pencil in their mouth forcing their smiling muscles into activation (feedback condition). The authors also explored the social function of laughter in children with ASD by investigating whether the presence of a caregiver or friend (social condition), or the presence of a laugh track superimposed upon the cartoon (laugh track condition) increased the children’s self-rated enjoyment of cartoons or the amount of positive affect they displayed. Results indicate that whereas typically developing children experienced cartoons as more enjoyable under all three experimental conditions (feedback, social, laugh track) compared with the control condition, children with ASD experienced cartoons as more enjoyable only when viewing them with a caregiver or friend. Furthermore, within the ASD group, a strong relationship between blunted affect and insensitivity to facial feedback emerged, shedding light on the implications of restricted affect in ASD