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Cracco E, Papeo L, Wiersema JR. Evidence for a role of synchrony but not common fate in the perception of biological group movements. Eur J Neurosci 2024. [PMID: 38706370 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.16356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2023] [Revised: 03/16/2024] [Accepted: 04/05/2024] [Indexed: 05/07/2024]
Abstract
Extensive research has shown that observers are able to efficiently extract summary information from groups of people. However, little is known about the cues that determine whether multiple people are represented as a social group or as independent individuals. Initial research on this topic has primarily focused on the role of static cues. Here, we instead investigate the role of dynamic cues. In two experiments with male and female human participants, we use EEG frequency tagging to investigate the influence of two fundamental Gestalt principles - synchrony and common fate - on the grouping of biological movements. In Experiment 1, we find that brain responses coupled to four point-light figures walking together are enhanced when they move in sync vs. out of sync, but only when they are presented upright. In contrast, we found no effect of movement direction (i.e., common fate). In Experiment 2, we rule out that synchrony takes precedence over common fate by replicating the null effect of movement direction while keeping synchrony constant. These results suggest that synchrony plays an important role in the processing of biological group movements. In contrast, the role of common fate is less clear and will require further research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emiel Cracco
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Liuba Papeo
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives-Marc Jeannerod, UMR5229, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) & Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Bron, France
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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2
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Volkaert B, Wante L, Wiersema JR, Braet C. Depressive symptoms in early adolescence: the dynamic interplay between emotion regulation and affective flexibility. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1165995. [PMID: 38586295 PMCID: PMC10996852 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1165995] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2023] [Accepted: 01/29/2024] [Indexed: 04/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Individual differences in affective flexibility may be an important factor in understanding how emotion regulation is associated with adolescents’ depressive symptoms. The current study explored the role of affective flexibility as a moderator in the relationship between the use of both adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms in 65 young adolescents (11–13 years). Affective flexibility was indicated by the reaction time and accuracy index on the Emotional Flexible Items Selection Task. Emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms were assessed by the use of self-report questionnaires. Contrary to the hypotheses, affective flexibility did not moderate the relationship between emotion regulation and adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Instead, only a direct effect of the use of adaptive emotion regulations strategies on adolescents’ depressive symptoms was found. Additionally, post-hoc analyses revealed that there may exist an indirect relationship between affective flexibility and adolescents’ depressive symptoms through the use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies. These findings help to formulate a better understanding of how emotion regulation and affective flexibility in early adolescents are related to depressive symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brenda Volkaert
- Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Laura Wante
- Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R. Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Caroline Braet
- Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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3
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Amodeo L, Goris J, Nijhof AD, Wiersema JR. Electrophysiological correlates of self-related processing in adults with autism. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 2024:10.3758/s13415-024-01157-0. [PMID: 38316706 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-024-01157-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/08/2024] [Indexed: 02/07/2024]
Abstract
The term "self-bias" refers to the human propensity to prioritize self- over other-related stimuli and is believed to influence various stages of the processing stream. By means of event-related potentials (ERPs), it was recently shown that the self-bias in a shape-label matching task modulates early as well as later phases of information processing in neurotypicals. Recent claims suggest autism-related deficits to specifically impact later stages of self-related processing; however, it is unclear whether these claims hold based on current findings. Using the shape-label matching task while recording ERPs in individuals with autism can clarify which stage of self-related processing is specifically affected in this condition. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the temporal course of self-related processing in adults with and without autism. Thirty-two adults with autism and 27 neurotypicals completed a shape-label matching task while ERPs were concomitantly recorded. At the behavioral level, results furnished evidence for a comparable self-bias across groups, with no differences in task performance between adults with and without autism. At the ERP level, the two groups showed a similar self-bias at early stages of self-related information processing (the N1 component). Conversely, the autism group manifested a lessened differentiation between self- and other-related stimuli at later stages (the parietal P3 component). In line with recent claims of later phases of self-related processing being altered in autism, we found an equivalent self-bias between groups at an early, sensory stage of processing, yet a strongly diminished self-bias at a later, cognitive stage in adults with autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Letizia Amodeo
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Judith Goris
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Annabel D Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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4
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Nijhof AD, Catmur C, Brewer R, Coll MP, Wiersema JR, Bird G. Differences in own-face but not own-name discrimination between autistic and neurotypical adults: A fast periodic visual stimulation-EEG study. Cortex 2024; 171:308-318. [PMID: 38070386 PMCID: PMC11068592 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.10.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2023] [Revised: 09/13/2023] [Accepted: 10/16/2023] [Indexed: 02/12/2024]
Abstract
Self-related processing is thought to be altered in autism, with several studies reporting that autistic individuals show a diminished neural response relative to neurotypicals for their own name and face. However, evidence remains scarce and is mostly based on event-related potential studies. Here, we used EEG to measure the neural activity of autistic adults (20 for faces, 27 for names) and neurotypical adults (24 for faces, 25 for names) while they were watching rapidly alternating faces and names, through a relatively new technique called Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation. We presented strangers' faces or names at a base frequency of 5.77 Hz, while one's own, a close other's, and a specific stranger's face/name was presented at an oddball frequency of 1.154 Hz. The neurotypical group showed a significantly greater response to their own face than both close other and stranger faces, and a greater response for close other than for stranger faces. In contrast, in the autism group, own and close other faces showed stronger responses than the stranger's face, but the difference between own and close other faces was not significant in a bilateral parieto-occipital cluster. No group differences in the enhanced response to familiar names were found. These results replicate and extend results obtained using traditional electroencephalographic techniques which suggest atypical responses to self-relevant stimuli in autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annabel D Nijhof
- Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, UK; Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology. Ghent University, Belgium.
| | - Caroline Catmur
- Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, UK
| | - Rebecca Brewer
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK
| | | | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology. Ghent University, Belgium
| | - Geoffrey Bird
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK; School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK
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5
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De Laet H, Nijhof AD, Wiersema JR. Adults with Autism Prefer Person-First Language in Dutch: A Cross-Country Study. J Autism Dev Disord 2023:10.1007/s10803-023-06192-3. [PMID: 38142248 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-023-06192-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/11/2023] [Indexed: 12/25/2023]
Abstract
The correct language to refer to someone with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder has received a lot of attention in recent years. Studies in English-speaking countries found a main identity-first language (IFL) preference (e.g. autistic person) opposed to a person-first language preference (PFL) (e.g. person with autism) among adults with autism. However, a recent study conducted in a Dutch-speaking country (the Netherlands) reported a PFL preference (Buijsman et al., 2023). The goal of the current study was to gain insights into language preferences in two Dutch-speaking countries and, in contrast to previous studies, give participants the option to indicate not having a specific language preference. In the current study, we asked 414 Dutch-speaking adults with autism, living either in Belgium or the Netherlands, to fill in an online questionnaire about their language preference. We found that over half of the participants had a PFL preference (54%), followed by having no preference (27%). Only 14% of them had an IFL preference, and 5% proposed another term. Having more years of education was identified as a predictor for having an IFL preference when compared to a PFL preference, while being older predicted having no preference compared to a PFL preference. The majority of Dutch-speaking adults with autism showed a PFL preference, which is in contrast to findings from English-speaking countries, but in accord with a recent study conducted in the Netherlands (Buijsman et al., 2023). Implications of this finding for language use are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannah De Laet
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Annabel D Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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6
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Amodeo L, Nijhof AD, Brass M, Wiersema JR. The relevance of familiarity in the context of self-related information processing. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2023; 76:2823-2836. [PMID: 36714977 DOI: 10.1177/17470218231154884] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/31/2023]
Abstract
Humans are inclined to preferentially process self-related content, referred to as the "self-bias." Different paradigms have been used to study this effect. However, not all paradigms included a familiar other condition (but rather an unfamiliar other condition), needed to differentiate self-specific effects from the impact of familiarity. The primary goal of our study was to test the suitability for studying the self-bias of two paradigms that provide robust measures of salience effects-that is, the Repetition Blindness (RB) effect and the Emotional Stroop (ES) interference-while addressing the familiarity confound. We further explored whether self-bias effects were related to autism symptomatology, as a reduced self-bias in autism has been reported in previous research. In an online procedure, 82 adults performed an RB task and an ES task in a counterbalanced order, while being presented with both self- and familiar other-related stimuli. Results of both frequentist and Bayesian analyses did not provide evidence in favour of a specific self-bias on either task: we found no significant modulation of the RB effect, nor of the ES interference, for the own versus a close other's name. Moreover, no link with autism symptomatology was found. Tackling a crucial shortcoming from earlier studies, our investigation raises awareness on the importance of accounting for familiarity when investigating self-related processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Letizia Amodeo
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Annabel D Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Department of Psychology, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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7
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Van Hecke R, Danneels M, Deconinck FJA, Dhooge I, Leyssens L, Van Acker E, Van Waelvelde H, Wiersema JR, Maes L. A cross-sectional study on the neurocognitive outcomes in vestibular impaired school-aged children: are they at higher risk for cognitive deficits? J Neurol 2023; 270:4326-4341. [PMID: 37209128 DOI: 10.1007/s00415-023-11774-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2023] [Revised: 05/09/2023] [Accepted: 05/10/2023] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
This study aimed to assess if children with a vestibular impairment (VI) are more prone to have neurocognitive deficits compared to typically developing (TD) peers, taking into account important confounding factors with hearing loss being the most important. The neurocognitive performance of fifteen VI children (6-13 years old) was compared to that of an age-, handedness- and sex-weighted group of TD peers (n = 60). Secondly, their performance was also compared to matched groups of TD and hearing impaired (HI) children to evaluate the involvement of HI. The protocol comprises cognitive tests assessing response inhibition, emotion recognition, visuospatial memory, selective and sustained attention, visual memory and visual-motor integration.Based on the results, the VI group had significantly reduced scores on 'social cognition' (p = 0.018), 'executive functions' (p < 0.01), and 'perceptual-motor functioning' (p = 0.020) compared to their TD and HI peers. For the categories 'complex attention' and 'learning and memory' no differences could be observed. Analogous to the findings of previous literature, the symptoms of a VI are often not limited to the primary functions of the system, but also comprise an impact on emotional and cognitive performance. Therefore, more holistic rehabilitation approaches should be encouraged, with a screening and attention for cognitive, emotional and behavioral dysfunctions in the vestibular population. Since this is one of the first studies to investigate the involvement of a VI in a child's cognitive development, these findings support the need for studies further characterizing the impact of a VI, the underlying pathophysiology and the effect of different rehabilitation procedures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruth Van Hecke
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences-Corneel, Ghent University, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Maya Danneels
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences-Corneel, Ghent University, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Frederik J A Deconinck
- Department of Movement and Sports Sciences, Ghent University, Watersportlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Ingeborg Dhooge
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Corneel, Ghent University Hospital, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Head and Skin-Corneel, Ghent University, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Laura Leyssens
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences-Corneel, Ghent University, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Emmely Van Acker
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences-Corneel, Ghent University, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Hilde Van Waelvelde
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences-Corneel, Ghent University, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology-Henri, Ghent University, Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Leen Maes
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences-Corneel, Ghent University, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Corneel, Ghent University Hospital, Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
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8
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Oomen D, Cracco E, Brass M, Wiersema JR. EEG frequency tagging evidence of intact social interaction recognition in adults with autism. Autism Res 2023. [PMID: 37040541 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2929] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2022] [Accepted: 03/10/2023] [Indexed: 04/13/2023]
Abstract
To explain the social difficulties in autism, many studies have been conducted on social stimuli processing. However, this research has mostly used basic social stimuli (e.g., eyes, faces, hands, single agent), not resembling the complexity of what we encounter in our daily social lives and what people with autism experience difficulties with. Third-party social interactions are complex stimuli that we come across often and are also highly relevant for social functioning. Interestingly, the existing behavioral studies point to altered social interaction processing in autism. However, it is not clear whether this is due to altered recognition or altered interpretation of social interactions. Here, we specifically investigated the recognition of social interaction in adults with and without autism. More precisely, we measured neural responses to social scenes depicting either social interaction or not with an electroencephalogram frequency tagging task and compared these responses between adults with and without autism (N = 61). The results revealed an enhanced response to social scenes with interaction, replicating previous findings in a neurotypical sample. Crucially, this effect was found in both groups, with no difference between them. This suggests that social interaction recognition is not atypical in adults with autism. Taken together with the previous behavioral evidence, our study thus suggests that individuals with autism are able to recognize social interactions, but that they might not extract the same information from those interactions or that they might use the extracted information differently.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danna Oomen
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Emiel Cracco
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- School of Mind and Brain/Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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9
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Drescher LH, Boehler CN, Wiersema JR. A pupillometric investigation of state regulation in adults scoring high versus low on ADHD symptomatology. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2023; 235:103877. [PMID: 36924703 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103877] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2022] [Revised: 01/18/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2023] [Indexed: 03/17/2023] Open
Abstract
According to the state regulation deficit (SRD) account, ADHD is associated with difficulties regulating tonic arousal levels, which may be due to inefficient effort allocation. We aimed to test the SRD account by using a target detection task with three different event rates (ER; 700 ms, 1800 ms, 6000 ms), in order to manipulate the tonic arousal state and its effects on performance and pupil indices in adults with high (n = 40) versus low (n = 36) ADHD symptom levels. In an additional condition, a fast ER (700 ms) was accompanied by auditory white noise (WN), to further increase tonic arousal level. The ER manipulation had a clear effect on RT and variability of RT. These effects were more pronounced for the high-ADHD group, especially for variability of RT with decreasing ER, suggestive of deficient upregulation of a tonic arousal state in that group, in line with their self-reported SRDs in daily life. Adding WN to the fast condition led to more errors, however similarly for both groups. Contrary to our predictions, the ER manipulation had no effect on tonic pupil size (as a measure of tonic arousal). Phasic pupil amplitude (as a measure of cognitive effort) linearly increased with decreasing ER, suggesting more effort allocation during slower ERs. WN decreased phasic pupil amplitude, but had no impact on tonic pupil size. Importantly, however, no ADHD-related differences were present for the pupil indices. In conclusion, adults with elevated levels of ADHD symptoms reported more SRDs in daily life and showed a performance pattern that suggests difficulties in upregulating but not downregulating the tonic arousal state. Surprisingly, these findings were not accompanied by group differences in pupillometric indices. This casts some doubts on the relationship between these measures of autonomic nervous system activity and state regulation, in particular in the context of ADHD symptomatology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonhard H Drescher
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - C Nico Boehler
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
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10
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Cracco E, Oomen D, Papeo L, Wiersema JR. Using EEG movement tagging to isolate brain responses coupled to biological movements. Neuropsychologia 2022; 177:108395. [PMID: 36272677 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2022] [Revised: 09/27/2022] [Accepted: 10/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Detecting biological motion is essential for adaptive social behavior. Previous research has revealed the brain processes underlying this ability. However, brain activity during biological motion perception captures a multitude of processes. As a result, it is often unclear which processes reflect movement processing and which processes reflect secondary processes that build on movement processing. To address this issue, we developed a new approach to measure brain responses directly coupled to observed movements. Specifically, we showed 30 male and female adults a point-light walker moving at a pace of 2.4 Hz and used EEG frequency tagging to measure the brain response coupled to that pace ('movement tagging'). The results revealed a reliable response at the walking frequency that was reduced by two manipulations known to disrupt biological motion perception: phase scrambling and inversion. Interestingly, we also identified a brain response at half the walking frequency (i.e., 1.2 Hz), corresponding to the rate at which the individual dots completed a cycle. In contrast to the 2.4 Hz response, the response at 1.2 Hz was increased for scrambled (vs. unscrambled) walkers. These results show that frequency tagging can be used to capture the visual processing of biological movements and can dissociate between global (2.4 Hz) and local (1.2 Hz) processes involved in biological motion perception, at different frequencies of the brain signal.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emiel Cracco
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
| | - Danna Oomen
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
| | - Liuba Papeo
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives-Marc Jeannerod, UMR5229, Centre National de La Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) & Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69675 Bron, France
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
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11
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Oomen D, Kaddouri RE, Brass M, Wiersema JR. Neural correlates of own name and own face processing in neurotypical adults scoring low versus high on symptomatology of autism spectrum disorder. Biol Psychol 2022; 172:108358. [PMID: 35618161 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108358] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2021] [Revised: 04/02/2022] [Accepted: 05/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Previous event-related potential (ERP) research showed reduced self-referential processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As different self-related stimuli were studied in isolation, it is unclear whether findings can be ascribed to a common underlying mechanism. Further, it is unknown whether altered self-referential processing is also evident in neurotypicals scoring high on ASD symptomatology. We compared ERPs in response to one's own name and face (versus other names/faces) between neurotypical adults scoring high versus low on ASD symptomatology. Conform previous research, the parietal P3 was enhanced, both for own name and face, indicating a self-referential effect. The N250 was only enhanced for one's own face. However, the self-referential parietal P3 effect did not correlate between the names and faces conditions, arguing against a common underlying mechanism. No group effects appeared, neither for names nor faces, suggesting that reduced self-referential processing is not a dimensional ASD feature in the neurotypical population.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danna Oomen
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
| | - Rachida El Kaddouri
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium; School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
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12
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Goris J, Braem S, Van Herck S, Simoens J, Deschrijver E, Wiersema JR, Paton B, Brass M, Todd J. Reduced Primacy Bias in Autism during Early Sensory Processing. J Neurosci 2022; 42:3989-3999. [PMID: 35361705 PMCID: PMC9097775 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3088-20.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2020] [Revised: 12/02/2021] [Accepted: 01/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent theories of autism propose that a core deficit in autism would be a less context-sensitive weighting of prediction errors. There is also first support for this hypothesis on an early sensory level. However, an open question is whether this decreased context sensitivity is caused by faster updating of one's model of the world (i.e., higher weighting of new information), proposed by predictive coding theories, or slower model updating. Here, we differentiated between these two hypotheses by investigating how first impressions shape the mismatch negativity (MMN), reflecting early sensory prediction error processing. An autism and matched control group of human adults (both n = 27, 8 female) were compared on the multi-timescale MMN paradigm, in which tones were presented that were either standard (frequently occurring) or deviant (rare), and these roles reversed every block. A well-replicated observation is that the initial model (i.e., the standard and deviant sound in the first block) influences MMN amplitudes in later blocks. If autism is characterized by faster model updating, and thus a smaller primacy bias, we hypothesized (and demonstrate using a simple reinforcement learning model) that their MMN amplitudes should be less influenced by the initial context. In line with this hypothesis, we found that MMN responses in the autism group did not differ between the initial deviant and initial standard sounds as they did in the control group. These findings are consistent with the idea that autism is characterized by faster model updating during early sensory processing, as proposed by predictive coding accounts of autism.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Recent theories of autism propose that a core deficit in autism is that they are faster to update their models of the world based on new sensory information. Here, we tested this hypothesis by investigating how first impressions shape brain responses during early sensory processing, and hypothesized that individuals with autism would be less influenced by these first impressions. In line with earlier studies, our results show that early sensory processing was influenced by first impressions in a control group. However, this was not the case in an autism group. This suggests that individuals with autism are faster to abandon their initial model, and is consistent with the proposal that they are faster to update their models of the world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith Goris
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium
| | - Senne Braem
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium
- Department of Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, 1050, Belgium
| | - Shauni Van Herck
- Research Group ExpORL, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, 3000, Belgium
| | - Jonas Simoens
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium
| | - Eliane Deschrijver
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium
- University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, NSW 2033, Australia
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium
| | - Bryan Paton
- Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
| | - Marcel Brass
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, 10117, Germany
| | - Juanita Todd
- Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
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13
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Oomen D, Cracco E, Brass M, Wiersema JR. EEG frequency tagging evidence of social interaction recognition. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2022; 17:1044-1053. [PMID: 35452523 PMCID: PMC9629471 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsac032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2021] [Revised: 03/04/2022] [Accepted: 05/04/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Previous neuroscience studies have provided important insights into the neural processing of third-party social interaction recognition. Unfortunately, however, the methods they used are limited by a high susceptibility to noise. Electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency tagging is a promising technique to overcome this limitation, as it is known for its high signal-to-noise ratio. So far, EEG frequency tagging has mainly been used with simplistic stimuli (e.g. faces), but more complex stimuli are needed to study social interaction recognition. It therefore remains unknown whether this technique could be exploited to study third-party social interaction recognition. To address this question, we first created and validated a wide variety of stimuli that depict social scenes with and without social interaction, after which we used these stimuli in an EEG frequency tagging experiment. As hypothesized, we found enhanced neural responses to social scenes with social interaction compared to social scenes without social interaction. This effect appeared laterally at occipitoparietal electrodes and strongest over the right hemisphere. Hence, we find that EEG frequency tagging can measure the process of inferring social interaction from varying contextual information. EEG frequency tagging is particularly valuable for research into populations that require a high signal-to-noise ratio like infants, young children and clinical populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danna Oomen
- Correspondence should be addressed to Danna Oomen, Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, Ghent B-9000, Belgium. E-mail:
| | - Emiel Cracco
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent B-9000, Belgium,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent B-9000, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent B-9000, Belgium,School of Mind and Brain/Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin 10099, Germany,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent B-9000, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent B-9000, Belgium,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent B-9000, Belgium
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14
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Abstract
BACKGROUND The 'self-bias'-i.e., the human proneness to preferentially process self-relevant stimuli-is thought to be important for both self-related and social processing. Previous research operationalized the self-bias using different paradigms, assessing the size of the self-bias within a single cognitive domain. Recent studies suggested a reduced self-bias in autism, yet findings are inconsistent. The lack of consensus across existing studies may result from variation in paradigms and cognitive domains tested. Therefore, the primary goal of the current study was to investigate whether self-biases found across cognitive domains (i.e., perception, memory, attention) are related or independent. The secondary goal was to explore the relationship between these self-biases and the extent of autistic traits in a neurotypical sample. METHODS In an online procedure, 99 Dutch-speaking adults performed three self-processing tasks in counterbalanced order-i.e., the shape-label matching task (perception), the trait adjectives task (memory) and the visual search task (attention)-and completed two self-report measures of ASD symptomatology, i.e., AQ-10 and SRS-A. To control for level of familiarity, self-, close other- and famous other-relevant stimuli were included in each task. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted for each task, and both frequentist as well as Bayesian analyses were applied to investigate the correlational patterns between self-bias measures. RESULTS We observed significant correlations of the self-bias magnitude between memory and attention, as well as attention and perception. However, Bayesian analysis provided only weak support for the latter association. Further, the size of the self-bias was not significantly related across memory and perception. No significant correlation between autistic traits and the self-bias magnitude was found for any of the three tasks, with Bayesian analyses strongly favoring the null hypothesis. CONCLUSIONS In contrast with the view of a 'unidimensional' self-bias, our findings provide evidence for a heterogeneous and multifaceted self consisting of a variety of related and unrelated aspects. None of the self-bias indices were found to relate to autistic traits in our neurotypical sample.
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Affiliation(s)
- Letizia Amodeo
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. .,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.,Berlin School of Mind and Brain/Department of Psychology, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany.,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Annabel D Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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15
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Drescher LH, Boehler CN, Wiersema JR. State regulation in adults scoring high versus low on ADHD symptomatology: A pupillometry study. Neuropsychology 2021; 35:486-497. [PMID: 34292008 DOI: 10.1037/neu0000738] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE According to the state regulation deficit account, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with difficulties in maintaining an optimal level of cognitive arousal. As the precise locus of this problem is yet unknown, the present study investigated this through behavioral and pupillometry indices. METHOD Adults scoring high versus low on ADHD symptomatology carried out a target detection task at three event rate (ER) levels. Phasic pupil dilation was used as an index of cognitive effort, and tonic pupil size as an index of tonic arousal. RESULTS Performance and self-reports indicated state regulation difficulties in the high-ADHD group. Phasic pupil dilation was increased during slow ER, indicating additional effort allocation. Surprisingly, tonic pupil size was smallest in the fast ER, and group effects were absent for both pupil measures. CONCLUSION The high-ADHD group showed state regulation difficulties despite similar levels of additional effort allocation as reflected by phasic pupil responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology
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16
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Baetens I, Greene D, Van Hove L, Van Leeuwen K, Wiersema JR, Desoete A, Roelants M. Predictors and consequences of non-suicidal self-injury in relation to life, peer, and school factors. J Adolesc 2021; 90:100-108. [PMID: 34182197 DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.06.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2020] [Revised: 06/11/2021] [Accepted: 06/13/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Numerous life, peer, and school-related factors have been found to be associated with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents; however, most studies have not explored the possible reciprocal nature of these associations. The aim of the current study was to examine bidirectional and longitudinal associations between NSSI and several life, peer, and school-related factors (i.e., stressful life events, peer relationships, academic achievement, and attitudes towards school). METHOD Community-based adolescents completed questionnaires assessing the variables of interest at three time points; age 12 (T1; 55.09% girls), age 13 (T2; 56.95% girls), and ages 14-15 (T3; 57.41% girls). In total, 529 adolescents provided complete data across all three-time points. RESULTS Analyses showed a bidirectional association between NSSI and both attitudes towards school and stressful life events. Specifically, stressful life events at T2 predicted engagement in NSSI at T3, and NSSI at T2 predicted increased risk of stressful life events at T3. Similarly, having negative attitudes towards school predicted NSSI at T2, which, in turn, predicted negative attitudes towards school at T3. Further, academic achievement at T1 was negatively associated with NSSI at T2. Peer relationships were neither a predictor nor a consequence of NSSI. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that NSSI can be both a predictor and a consequence of various life, and school factors. Focus on these factors in prevention and intervention efforts for NSSI among adolescents may be warranted.
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Affiliation(s)
- I Baetens
- Brussels University Consultation Center, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology & Educational Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
| | - D Greene
- School of Psychology, Curtin University, Australia
| | - L Van Hove
- Brussels University Consultation Center, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology & Educational Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
| | - K Van Leeuwen
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium
| | - J R Wiersema
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium
| | - A Desoete
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium
| | - M Roelants
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Belgium
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17
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Van Hecke R, Deconinck FJA, Wiersema JR, Clauws C, Danneels M, Dhooge I, Leyssens L, Van Waelvelde H, Maes L. Balanced Growth project: a protocol of a single-centre observational study on the involvement of the vestibular system in a child's motor and cognitive development. BMJ Open 2021; 11:e049165. [PMID: 34117049 PMCID: PMC8202106 DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-049165] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2021] [Accepted: 05/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION The involvement of the vestibular system in the motor and higher (cognitive) performances of typically developing or vestibular-impaired children is currently unknown or has only scarcely been explored. Interestingly, arguments for an interaction between vestibular, motor and cognitive functions in children can also be supported by research on children known for their difficulties in motor and/or cognitive processing (eg, children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD)), as they often present with vestibular-like characteristics. Therefore, in order to elucidate this interaction, and to increase the understanding of the pathophysiology and symptomatology of vestibular disorders and NDD in children, the Balanced Growth project was developed. It includes the following objectives: (1) to understand the association between motor skills, cognitive performances and the vestibular function in typically developing school-aged children, with special focus on the added value of the vestibular system in higher cognitive skills and motor competence; (2) to investigate whether a vestibular dysfunction (with/without an additional auditory disease) has an impact on motor skills, cognitive performances and motor-cognitive interactions in children and (3) to assess if an underlying vestibular dysfunction can be identified in school-aged children with NDD, with documentation of the occurrence and characteristics of vestibular dysfunctions in this group of children using an extensive vestibular test battery. METHODS AND ANALYSIS In order to achieve the objectives of the observational cross-sectional Balanced Growth study, a single-task and dual-task test protocol was created, which will be performed in three groups of school-aged children (6-12 years old): (1) a typically developing group (n=140), (2) (audio) vestibular-impaired children (n=30) and (3) children with an NDD diagnosis (n=55) (ie, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or developmental coordination disorder). The test protocol consists of several custom-made tests and already existing validated test batteries and includes a vestibular assessment, an extensive motor assessment, eight neurocognitive tests, a cognitive-motor interaction assessment and includes also additional screenings to control for potential confounding factors (eg, hearing status, intelligence, physical activity, etc). ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION The current study was approved by the ethics committee of Ghent University Hospital on 4 June 2019 with registration number B670201940165 and is registered at Clinical Trials (clinicaltrials.gov) with identifier NCT04685746. All research findings will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and presented at vestibular as well as multidisciplinary international conferences and meetings. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER NCT04685746.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruth Van Hecke
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Frederik J A Deconinck
- Department of Movement and Sports Sciences, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Chloe Clauws
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Maya Danneels
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Ingeborg Dhooge
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Hospital Ghent, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Head and Skin, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Laura Leyssens
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Hilde Van Waelvelde
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Leen Maes
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ghent University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent, Belgium
- Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Hospital Ghent, Ghent, Belgium
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18
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Oomen D, Nijhof AD, Wiersema JR. The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adults with autism: a survey study across three countries. Mol Autism 2021; 12:21. [PMID: 33658046 PMCID: PMC7927758 DOI: 10.1186/s13229-021-00424-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2020] [Accepted: 02/12/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Previous studies have reported a negative psychological and mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This impact is likely to be stronger for people with autism as they are at heightened risk of mental health problems and because the pandemic directly affects social functioning and everyday routines. We therefore examined COVID-19 pandemic-related changes in mental health, the impact of the pandemic on their social life and routines, satisfaction with pandemic-related information and tips, and participants’ wishes for guidance. Methods We used a mixed-method approach, collecting quantitative and qualitative survey data from adults with and without autism across three European countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK (N = 1044). Results We found an increase in depression and anxiety symptoms in response to the pandemic for both the non-autism and the autism group, which was greater for adults with autism. Furthermore, adults with autism showed a greater increase in worries about their pets, work, getting medication and food, and their own safety/security. They felt more relieved from social stress, yet experienced the loss of social contact as difficult. Adults with autism also felt more stressed about the loss of routines. Pleasant changes noted by adults with autism were the increase in solidarity and reduced sensory and social overload. Adults with autism frequently reported problems with cancellation of guidance due to the pandemic and expressed their wish for (more) autism-specific information and advice. Limitations Our sample is likely to reflect some degree of selection bias, and longitudinal studies are needed to determine long-term effects. Conclusions Results highlight the psychological burden of the pandemic on adults with autism and shed light on how to support them during this COVID-19 pandemic, which is especially important now that the pandemic is likely to have a prolonged course. There is a need for accessible, affordable (continued) support from health services. Guidance may focus on the maintenance of a social network, and adjusting routines to the rapid ongoing changes. Finally, we may learn from the COVID-19 pandemic-related changes experienced as pleasant by adults with autism to build a more autism-friendly society post-pandemic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danna Oomen
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium. .,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Annabel D Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.,EXPLORA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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19
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Goris J, Silvetti M, Verguts T, Wiersema JR, Brass M, Braem S. Autistic traits are related to worse performance in a volatile reward learning task despite adaptive learning rates. Autism 2020; 25:440-451. [PMID: 33030041 DOI: 10.1177/1362361320962237] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
LAY ABSTRACT Recent theories propose that autism is characterized by an impairment in determining when to learn and when not. Here, we investigated this hypothesis by estimating learning rates (i.e. the speed with which one learns) in three different environments that differed in rule stability and uncertainty. We found that neurotypical participants with more autistic traits performed worse in a volatile environment (with unstable rules), as they chose less often for the most rewarding option. Exploratory analyses indicated that performance was specifically worse when reward rules were opposite to those initially learned for participants with more autistic traits. However, there were no differences in the adjustment of learning rates between participants with more versus less autistic traits. Together, these results suggest that performance in volatile environments is lower in participants with more autistic traits, but that this performance difference cannot be unambiguously explained by an impairment in adjusting learning rates.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | - Senne Braem
- Ghent University, Belgium.,Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
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20
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Arslan M, Warreyn P, Dewaele N, Wiersema JR, Demurie E, Roeyers H. Development of neural responses to hearing their own name in infants at low and high risk for autism spectrum disorder. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2020; 41:100739. [PMID: 31826839 PMCID: PMC6994514 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100739] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2018] [Revised: 11/17/2019] [Accepted: 11/23/2019] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
The own name is a salient stimulus, used by others to initiate social interaction. Typically developing infants orient towards the sound of their own name and exhibit enhanced event-related potentials (ERP) at 5 months. The lack of orientation to the own name is considered to be one of the earliest signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, we investigated ERPs to hearing the own name in infants at high and low risk for ASD, at 10 and 14 months. We hypothesized that low-risk infants would exhibit enhanced frontal ERP responses to their own name compared to an unfamiliar name, while high-risk infants were expected to show attenuation or absence of this difference in their ERP responses. In contrast to expectations, we did not find enhanced ERPs to own name in the low-risk group. However, the high-risk group exhibited attenuated frontal positive-going activity to their own name compared to an unfamiliar name and compared to the low-risk group, at the age of 14 months. These results suggest that infants at high risk for ASD start to process their own name differently shortly after one year of age, a period when frontal brain development is happening at a fast rate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melda Arslan
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Petra Warreyn
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Nele Dewaele
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Ellen Demurie
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Herbert Roeyers
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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21
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Sidlauskaite J, Dhar M, Sonuga-Barke E, Wiersema JR. Altered proactive control in adults with ADHD: Evidence from event-related potentials during cued task switching. Neuropsychologia 2019; 138:107330. [PMID: 31887312 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107330] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2018] [Revised: 09/03/2019] [Accepted: 12/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Cognitive control has two distinct modes - proactive and reactive (Braver, T. S. (2012). The variable nature of cognitive control: a dual mechanisms framework. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(2), 105-112). ADHD has been associated with cognitive control impairments. However, studies have mainly focused on reactive control and not proactive control. Here we investigated neural correlates of proactive and reactive cognitive control in a group of adults with ADHD versus healthy controls by employing a cued switching task while cue informativeness was manipulated and EEG recorded. On the performance level, only a trend to generally slower responding was found in the ADHD group. Cue-locked analyses revealed an attenuated informative-positivity - a differential component appearing when contrasting informative with non-informative alerting cues - and potentially altered lateralisation of the switch-positivity - evident in the contrast between switch and repeat trials for informative cues - in ADHD. No difference in target-locked activity was found. Our results indicate altered proactive rather than reactive control in adults with ADHD, evidenced by less use of cued advance information and abnormal preparatory processes for upcoming tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Justina Sidlauskaite
- Motor Control and Neural Plasticity Research Group, Department of Kinesiology, Leuven University, Belgium.
| | - Monica Dhar
- Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Research Institute (CAPRI), University of Antwerp, Belgium; Clinical and Lifespan Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium
| | - Edmund Sonuga-Barke
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, UK; Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Ghent University, Belgium
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22
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Goris J, Brass M, Cambier C, Delplanque J, Wiersema JR, Braem S. The Relation Between Preference for Predictability and Autistic Traits. Autism Res 2019; 13:1144-1154. [PMID: 31799769 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2019] [Revised: 10/02/2019] [Accepted: 11/16/2019] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
A common idea about individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is that they have an above-average preference for predictability and sameness. However, surprisingly little research has gone toward this core symptom, and some studies suggest the preference for predictability in ASD might be less general than commonly assumed. Here, we investigated this important symptom of ASD using three different paradigms, which allowed us to measure preference for predictability under well-controlled experimental conditions. Specifically, we used a dimensional approach by investigating correlations between autistic traits (as measured with the Autism-Spectrum Quotient and Social Responsiveness Scale in a neurotypical population) and the scores on three different tasks. The "music preference" task assessed preferences for tone sequences that varied in predictability. The "perceptual fluency" task required participants to evaluate stimuli that were preceded by a similar versus dissimilar subliminally presented prime. The "gambling" task presented four decks of cards that had equal outcome probabilities but varied in predictability. We observed positive correlations between autistic traits and a preference for predictability in both the music preference and perceptual fluency task. We did not find our hypothesized correlation with gambling behavior but did observe a post hoc correlation showing that participants with more autistic traits were faster to choose the predictable deck. Together, these findings show that a relation between autistic traits and preference for predictability can be observed in a standardized lab environment, and should be considered an important first step toward a better, more mechanistic understanding of insistence on sameness in ASD. Autism Res 2020, 13: 1144-1154. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: A core symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a strong preference for predictability, but little research has gone toward it. We show that neurotypical adults with more autistic traits have stronger preferences for predictable tunes, evaluate images that can be predicted as more beautiful, and are faster in choosing a gambling option resulting in predictable reward. These results offer the first important evidence that insistence on sameness in ASD can be studied in controlled lab settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith Goris
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Charlotte Cambier
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jeroen Delplanque
- Department of Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Senne Braem
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.,Department of Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium
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Boccadoro S, Cracco E, Hudson AR, Bardi L, Nijhof AD, Wiersema JR, Brass M, Mueller SC. Defining the neural correlates of spontaneous theory of mind (ToM): An fMRI multi-study investigation. Neuroimage 2019; 203:116193. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116193] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2019] [Revised: 08/12/2019] [Accepted: 09/13/2019] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
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Cassels M, Baetens I, Wilkinson P, Hoppenbrouwers K, Wiersema JR, Van Leeuwen K, Kiekens G. Attachment and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury among Young Adolescents: The Indirect Role of Behavioral Problems. Arch Suicide Res 2019; 23:688-696. [PMID: 30118634 DOI: 10.1080/13811118.2018.1494651] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) often occurs before age 15, yet the majority of research on risk factors for this dangerous behavior has focused on samples of older participants. Insecure attachment has been previously identified as a risk factor for both NSSI and behavioral problems, and behavioral problems appear to be particularly associated with NSSI among young populations. Redressing the lack of young adolescent NSSI research, the present study uses longitudinal data from a sample of young adolescents to test a model in which insecure attachment acts as a prospective risk factor for NSSI via emotional and behavioral problems. Data on NSSI, child-mother attachment, and emotional and behavioral problems were collected from 559 (41.1% male) Flemish adolescents when they were 13 years old (M = 12.71, SD =0.32), and again 1 year later. Insecure attachment was measured using maternal items on the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised Child scale. Psychological adjustment was assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. We found that anxious and avoidant attachment were indirectly associated with NSSI through behavioral problems but not through emotional problems. Findings highlight the role of behavioral problems as a risk factor for NSSI in early adolescence, a rarely studied developmental period during which NSSI often first starts. Findings suggest that one possible pathway for the attachment-NSSI association among young adolescents is through behavioral problems. Therapies that improve child-parent attachment may reduce NSSI among young adolescents both directly, and indirectly by improving behavioral problems.
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Van Hecke R, Danneels M, Dhooge I, Van Waelvelde H, Wiersema JR, Deconinck FJA, Maes L. Vestibular Function in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Systematic Review. J Autism Dev Disord 2019; 49:3328-3350. [DOI: 10.1007/s10803-019-04059-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
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26
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El Kaddouri R, Bardi L, De Bremaeker D, Brass M, Wiersema JR. Measuring spontaneous mentalizing with a ball detection task: putting the attention-check hypothesis by Phillips and colleagues (2015) to the test. Psychological Research 2019; 84:1749-1757. [DOI: 10.1007/s00426-019-01181-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2018] [Accepted: 03/29/2019] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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27
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Mies GW, Moors P, Sonuga-Barke EJ, van der Oord S, Wiersema JR, Scheres A, Lemiere J, Danckaerts M. A Pilot Study of Behavioral, Physiological, and Subjective Responses to Varying Mental Effort Requirements in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Front Psychol 2019; 9:2769. [PMID: 30687201 PMCID: PMC6336710 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02769] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2018] [Accepted: 12/24/2018] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Background: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is presumed to involve mental effort application difficulties. To test this assumption, we manipulated task difficulty and measured behavioral, as well as subjective and psychophysiological indices of effort. Methods: Fifteen adolescent ADHD boys and 16 controls performed two tasks. First, subjective estimates and behavioral and pupillary measures of effort were recorded across five levels of N-back task difficulties. Second, effort discounting was assessed. In the latter, participants made repeated choices between performing a difficult N-back task for a high reward versus an easier N-back task for a smaller reward. Results: Increasing task difficulty led to similar deteriorations in performance for both groups – although ADHD participants performed more poorly at all difficulty levels than controls. While ADHD and control participants rated the tasks equally difficult and discounted effort similarly, those with ADHD displayed slightly different pupil dilation patterns with increasing task difficulty. Conclusion: The behavioral results did not provide evidence for mental effort problems in adolescent boys with ADHD. The subtle physiological effects, however, suggest that adolescents with ADHD may allocate effort in a different way than controls.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabry W Mies
- Center for Developmental Psychiatry, UPC-KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.,Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Pieter Moors
- Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Department of Brain and Cognition, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Edmund J Sonuga-Barke
- Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.,Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Saskia van der Oord
- Department of Clinical Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.,Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Anouk Scheres
- Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Jurgen Lemiere
- Center for Developmental Psychiatry, UPC-KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
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Abstract
ADHD is considered a disorder of self-regulation. Recent research has shown that awareness of bodily states, referred to as interoceptive awareness, crucially contributes to self-regulatory processes. Impaired self-regulation in ADHD has been explained in terms of arousal regulation deficits in ADHD (the state regulation deficit (SRD) account). There is now ample support for the SRD account, however the exact reason for arousal regulation difficulties is not yet known. The SRD account explicitly refers to the ability to monitor one's momentary bodily state as a prerequisite for effective state regulation. However, surprisingly, no study to date has tested the ability to become aware of bodily signals, i.e. interoceptive awareness, in ADHD. In the current study, we therefore compared interoceptive awareness between 24 adults with ADHD and 23 controls by means of both an objective (heartbeat perception task) and subjective measure (questionnaire) of interoceptive awareness. Results revealed a strikingly similar performance for both groups on both measures, suggesting preserved interoceptive awareness in adult ADHD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan R. Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health psychology, Faculty of Psychology and educational sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- * E-mail:
| | - Elke Godefroid
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health psychology, Faculty of Psychology and educational sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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29
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Mies GW, de Water E, Wiersema JR, Scheres A. Delay discounting of monetary gains and losses in adolescents with ADHD: Contribution of delay aversion to choice. Child Neuropsychol 2018; 25:528-547. [PMID: 30111229 DOI: 10.1080/09297049.2018.1508563] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/31/2023]
Abstract
Adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are known to have stronger preferences for smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards in delay discounting tasks than their peers, which has been argued to reflect delay aversion. Here, participants performed a delay discounting task with gains and losses. In this latter condition, participants were asked whether they were willing to wait in order to lose less money. Following the core assumption of the delay aversion model that individuals with ADHD have a general aversion to delay, one would predict adolescents with ADHD to avoid waiting in both conditions. Adolescents (12-17 years) with ADHD (n = 29) and controls (n = 28) made choices between smaller immediate and larger delayed gains, and between larger immediate and smaller delayed losses. All delays (5-25 s) and gains/losses (2-10 cents) were experienced. In addition to an area under the curve approach, a mixed-model analysis was conducted to disentangle the contributions of delay duration and immediate gain/delayed loss amount to choice. The ADHD group chose the immediate option more often than controls in the gain condition, but not in the loss condition. The contribution of delay duration to immediate choices was stronger for the ADHD group than the control group in the gain condition only. In addition, the ADHD group scored higher on self-reported delay aversion, and delay aversion was associated with delay sensitivity in the gain condition, but not in the loss condition. In sum, we found no clear evidence for a general aversion to delay in adolescents with ADHD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabry W Mies
- a Behavioural Science Institute , Radboud University , Nijmegen , The Netherlands
| | - Erik de Water
- a Behavioural Science Institute , Radboud University , Nijmegen , The Netherlands
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- b Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium
| | - Anouk Scheres
- a Behavioural Science Institute , Radboud University , Nijmegen , The Netherlands
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Goris J, Braem S, Nijhof AD, Rigoni D, Deschrijver E, Van de Cruys S, Wiersema JR, Brass M. Sensory Prediction Errors Are Less Modulated by Global Context in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging 2018; 3:667-674. [PMID: 29628433 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2018.02.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2018] [Accepted: 02/21/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Recent predictive coding accounts of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggest that a key deficit in ASD concerns the inflexibility in modulating local prediction errors as a function of global top-down expectations. As a direct test of this central hypothesis, we used electroencephalography to investigate whether local prediction error processing was less modulated by global context (i.e., global stimulus frequency) in ASD. METHODS A group of 18 adults with ASD was compared with a group of 24 typically developed adults on a well-validated hierarchical auditory oddball task in which participants listened to short sequences of either five identical sounds (local standard) or four identical sounds and a fifth deviant sound (local deviant). The latter condition is known to generate the mismatch negativity (MMN) component, believed to reflect early sensory prediction error processing. Crucially, previous studies have shown that in blocks with a higher frequency of local deviant sequences, top-down expectations seem to attenuate the MMN. We predicted that this modulation by global context would be less pronounced in the ASD group. RESULTS Both groups showed an MMN that was modulated by global context. However, this effect was smaller in the ASD group as compared with the typically developed group. In contrast, the P3b, as an electroencephalographic marker of conscious expectation processes, did not differ across groups. CONCLUSIONS Our results demonstrate that people with ASD are less flexible in modulating their local predictions (reflected in MMN), thereby confirming the central hypothesis of contemporary predictive coding accounts of ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith Goris
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Senne Braem
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Annabel D Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Davide Rigoni
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | | | - Sander Van de Cruys
- Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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31
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Nijhof AD, Bardi L, Brass M, Wiersema JR. Brain activity for spontaneous and explicit mentalizing in adults with autism spectrum disorder: An fMRI study. Neuroimage Clin 2018; 18:475-484. [PMID: 29876255 PMCID: PMC5987841 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.02.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2017] [Revised: 01/15/2018] [Accepted: 02/16/2018] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The socio-communicative difficulties of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are hypothesized to be caused by a specific deficit in the ability to represent one's own and others' mental states, referred to as Theory of Mind or mentalizing. However, many individuals with ASD show successful performance on explicit measures of mentalizing, and for this reason, the deficit is thought to be better captured by measures of spontaneous mentalizing. While there is initial behavioral support for this hypothesis, spontaneous mentalizing in ASD has not yet been studied at the neural level. Recent findings indicate involvement of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in both explicit and spontaneous mentalizing (Bardi et al., 2016). In the current study, we investigated brain activation during explicit and spontaneous mentalizing in adults with ASD by means of fMRI. Based on our hypothesis of a core mentalizing deficit in ASD, decreased rTPJ activity was expected for both forms of mentalizing. A group of 24 adults with ASD and 21 neurotypical controls carried out a spontaneous and an explicit version of the same mentalizing task. They watched videos in which both they themselves and another agent formed a belief about the location of an object (belief formation phase). Only in the explicit task version participants were instructed to report the agent's belief on some trials. At the behavioral level, no group differences were revealed in either of the task versions. A planned region-of-interest analysis of the rTPJ showed that this region was more active for false- than for true-belief formation, independent of task version, especially when the agent's belief had a positive content (when the agent was expecting the object). This effect of belief was absent in adults with ASD. A whole-brain analysis revealed reduced activation in the anterior middle temporal pole in ASD for false - versus true-belief trials, independent of task version. Our findings suggest neural differences between adults with ASD and neurotypical controls both during spontaneous and explicit mentalizing, and indicate the rTPJ to be crucially involved in ASD. Moreover, the possible role of the anterior middle temporal pole in disturbed mentalizing in ASD deserves further attention. The finding that these neural differences do not necessarily lead to differential performance warrants further research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annabel D Nijhof
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Lara Bardi
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
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Nijhof AD, Dhar M, Goris J, Brass M, Wiersema JR. Atypical neural responding to hearing one's own name in adults with ASD. J Abnorm Psychol 2018; 127:129-138. [PMID: 29369670 DOI: 10.1037/abn0000329] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Diminished responding to hearing one's own name is one of the earliest and strongest predictors of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we studied, for the first time, the neural correlates of hearing one's own name in ASD. Based on existing research, we hypothesized enhancement of late parietal positive activity specifically for the own name in neurotypicals, and for this effect to be reduced in adults with ASD. Source localization analyses were conducted to estimate group differences in brain regions underlying this effect. Twenty-one adults with ASD, and 21 age- and gender-matched neurotypicals were presented with 3 categories of names (own name, close other, unknown other) as task-irrelevant deviant stimuli in an auditory oddball paradigm while electroencephalogram was recorded. As expected, late parietal positivity was observed specifically for own names in neurotypicals, indicating enhanced attention to the own name. This preferential effect was absent in the ASD group. This group difference was associated with diminished activation in the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in adults with ASD. Further, a familiarity effect was found for N1 amplitude, with larger amplitudes for familiar names (own name and close other). However, groups did not differ for this effect. These findings provide evidence of atypical neural responding to hearing one's own name in adults with ASD, suggesting a deficit in self-other distinction associated with rTPJ dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Affiliation(s)
- Annabel D Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University
| | - Monica Dhar
- Department of Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Research Institute, University of Antwerp
| | - Judith Goris
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University
| | - Marcel Brass
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University
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Nijhof AD, Brass M, Wiersema JR. Spontaneous mentalizing in neurotypicals scoring high versus low on symptomatology of autism spectrum disorder. Psychiatry Res 2017; 258:15-20. [PMID: 28972889 DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.09.060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2017] [Revised: 08/22/2017] [Accepted: 09/23/2017] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Spontaneous mentalizing ability has been linked to symptoms severity in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we investigated whether in neurotypicals, higher levels of ASD symptomatology could also be linked to lower levels of spontaneous mentalizing, by comparing neurotypicals scoring high with those scoring low on the short Autism Spectrum Quotient. Participants watched movies during which they, and another agent, formed beliefs about the location of an object. These beliefs could influence reaction times (RT) to that object in the outcome phase. We expected participants with more ASD symptoms to show less spontaneous mentalizing, as reflected by a smaller effect of the other agent's beliefs on RT patterns (the ToM index). In contrast, the effect of own beliefs on RTs, reflecting an egocentric bias, was expected to be larger in the high-scoring group. Results showed that groups differed in the effect of the agent's beliefs; the ToM index was highly significant in the low-scoring group, while being absent in the high-scoring group. No difference in egocentric bias was observed. These findings suggest that the relationship between levels of ASD symptomatology and spontaneous mentalizing is not only present in individuals with ASD, but also in the neurotypical population.
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Deschrijver E, Wiersema JR, Brass M. Action-based touch observation in adults with high functioning autism: Can compromised self-other distinction abilities link social and sensory everyday problems? Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2017; 12:273-282. [PMID: 27613781 PMCID: PMC5390705 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsw126] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2015] [Accepted: 08/24/2016] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Next to social problems, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often report severe sensory difficulties. Altered processing of touch is however a stronger mediator of social symptoms' severity than altered processing of for instance vision or audition. Why is this the case? We reasoned that sensory difficulties may be linked to social problems in ASD through insufficient self-other distinction centred on touch. We investigated by means of EEG whether the brain of adults with ASD adequately signals when a tactile consequence of an observed action does not match own touch, as compared to the brain of matched controls. We employed the action-based somatosensory congruency paradigm. Participants observed a human or wooden hand touching a surface, combined with a tap-like tactile sensation that either matched or mismatched the tactile consequence of the observed movement. The ASD group showed a diminished congruency effect for human hands only in the P3-complex, suggesting difficulties with signalling observed action-based touch of others that does not match own touch experiences. Crucially, this effect reliably correlated with self-reported social and sensory everyday difficulties in ASD. The findings might denote a novel theoretical link between sensory and social impairments in the autism spectrum.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
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Bardi L, Desmet C, Nijhof A, Wiersema JR, Brass M. Brain activation for spontaneous and explicit false belief tasks overlaps: new fMRI evidence on belief processing and violation of expectation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2017; 12:391-400. [PMID: 27683425 PMCID: PMC5499811 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsw143] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2016] [Accepted: 09/21/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
There is extensive discussion on whether spontaneous and explicit forms of ToM are based on the same cognitive/neural mechanisms or rather reflect qualitatively different processes. For the first time, we analyzed the BOLD signal for false belief processing by directly comparing spontaneous and explicit ToM task versions. In both versions, participants watched videos of a scene including an agent who acquires a true or false belief about the location of an object (belief formation phase). At the end of the movies (outcome phase), participants had to react to the presence of the object. During the belief formation phase, greater activity was found for false vs true belief trials in the right posterior parietal cortex. The ROI analysis of the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), confirmed this observation. Moreover, the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC) was active during the outcome phase, being sensitive to violation of both the participant’s and agent’s expectations about the location of the object. Activity in the TPJ and aMPFC was not modulated by the spontaneous/explicit task. Overall, these data show that neural mechanisms for spontaneous and explicit ToM overlap. Interestingly, a dissociation between TPJ and aMPFC for belief tracking and outcome evaluation, respectively, was also found.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Annabel Nijhof
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
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De Coster L, Wiersema JR, Deschrijver E, Brass M. The effect of being imitated on empathy for pain in adults with high-functioning autism: Disturbed self-other distinction leads to altered empathic responding. Autism 2017; 22:712-727. [PMID: 28683568 DOI: 10.1177/1362361317701268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with problems in empathy. Recent research suggests that impaired control over self-other overlap based on motor representations in individuals with autism spectrum disorder might underlie these difficulties. In order to investigate the relationship of self-other distinction and empathy for pain in high-functioning autism and matched controls, we manipulated self-other distinction by using a paradigm in which participants are either imitated or not by a hand on a computer screen. A strong pain stimulus is then inflicted on the observed hand. Behavioral and physiological results in this study showed that overall affective responses while watching pain movies were the same in adults with high-functioning autism as in controls. Furthermore, controls showed higher affective responding after being imitated during the whole experiment, replicating previous studies. Adults with high-functioning autism, however, showed increased empathic responses over time after being imitated. Further exploratory analyses suggested that while affective responding was initially lower after being imitated compared to not being imitated, affective responding in the latter part of the experiment was higher after being imitated. These results shed new light on empathic abilities in high-functioning autism and on the role of control over self-other representational sharing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lize De Coster
- 1 University of California-San Francisco, USA.,2 San Francisco VA Medical Center, USA.,3 Ghent University, Belgium
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Samyn V, Roeyers H, Bijttebier P, Wiersema JR. Attentional Networks in Boys With ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Relationship With Effortful Control. J Atten Disord 2017; 21:228-239. [PMID: 23382577 DOI: 10.1177/1087054712473183] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The present study investigated differences in attentional networks in typically developing (TD) boys and boys with ADHD or autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In addition, we investigated the relationship between networks and the relationship with effortful control (EC). METHOD An Attention Network Test was used to assess alerting, orienting, and executive attention in 25 TD boys, 25 boys with ADHD, and 25 boys with ASD. RESULTS In the absence of warning signals, boys with ADHD performed poorer than other children. In all groups, the orienting and executive control networks and the alerting and orienting networks interacted. Executive attention and EC were unrelated. CONCLUSION Results provided evidence of impaired tonic alertness in ADHD and support the idea of functional integration of attentional networks. Finally, findings suggest that the link between EC reports and indices of neural systems involved in the effortful regulation of behavior may not be as unambiguous as previously thought.
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Godefroid E, Wiersema JR. Impaired processing of task-irrelevant salient information in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Evidence from event-related potentials. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 2017; 126:52-62. [DOI: 10.1037/abn0000221] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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Van Cauwenberge V, Sonuga-Barke EJS, Hoppenbrouwers K, Van Leeuwen K, Wiersema JR. Regulation of emotion in ADHD: can children with ADHD override the natural tendency to approach positive and avoid negative pictures? J Neural Transm (Vienna) 2016; 124:397-406. [PMID: 27744615 DOI: 10.1007/s00702-016-1631-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2016] [Accepted: 10/06/2016] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Valerie Van Cauwenberge
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Edmund J S Sonuga-Barke
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
- School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Shackleton Building (B44), Highfield Campus, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
| | - Karel Hoppenbrouwers
- Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 35 Blok d-Bus 7001, 3000, Louvain, Belgium
| | - Karla Van Leeuwen
- Department of Parenting and Special Education, KU Leuven, Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 32-Bus 3765, 3000, Louvain, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
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Nijhof AD, Brass M, Bardi L, Wiersema JR. Measuring Mentalizing Ability: A Within-Subject Comparison between an Explicit and Implicit Version of a Ball Detection Task. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0164373. [PMID: 27723814 PMCID: PMC5056736 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164373] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2016] [Accepted: 09/23/2016] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
The concept of mentalizing has been widely studied, but almost exclusively through tasks with explicit instructions. Recent studies suggest that people also mentalize on a more implicit level. However, to our knowledge, no study to date has directly contrasted the effects of implicit and explicit mentalizing processes on an implicit dependent measure within-subjects. We implemented this by using two versions of an object detection task, differing only on secondary catch questions. We hypothesized that if explicit mentalizing relies on complementary processes beyond those underlying implicit mentalizing, this would be reflected in enhanced belief effects in the explicit version. Twenty-eight healthy adults watched movies in which, during the first phase, both they themselves and another agent formed a belief about the location of a ball, and although irrelevant, these beliefs could influence their ball detection reaction times in the second phase. After this response phase, there were occasional catch questions that were different for the explicit and implicit task version. Finally, self-report measures of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptomatology were included, as the literature suggests that ASD is related to a specific deficit in implicit mentalizing. Both in the explicit and implicit version, belief conditions had a significant effect on reaction times, with responses being slower when neither the participant nor the other agent expected the ball to be present compared to all other conditions. Importantly, after the implicit version, participants reported no explicit mentalizing awareness. In our neurotypical sample, ASD symptoms were not found to correlate with either explicit or implicit mentalizing. In conclusion, the reaction time patterns in the explicit and implicit version of the task show strikingly similar effects of mentalizing, indicating that participants processed beliefs to the same extent regardless of whether they mentalized explicitly or implicitly, with no additional effects for explicit processing.
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Wiersema JR, Godefroid E. Impaired processing of task-irrelevant salient information in adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence from event-related potentials. Int J Psychophysiol 2016. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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Demurie E, Roeyers H, Wiersema JR, Sonuga-Barke E. No Evidence for Inhibitory Deficits or Altered Reward Processing in ADHD: Data From a New Integrated Monetary Incentive Delay Go/No-Go Task. J Atten Disord 2016; 20:353-67. [PMID: 23382578 DOI: 10.1177/1087054712473179] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Cognitive and motivational factors differentially affect individuals with mental health problems such as ADHD. Here we introduce a new task to disentangle the relative contribution of inhibitory control and reward anticipation on task performance in children with ADHD and/or autism spectrum disorders (ASD). METHOD Typically developing children, children with ADHD, ASD, or both disorders worked during separate sessions for monetary or social rewards in go/no-go tasks with varying inhibitory load levels. Participants also completed a monetary temporal discounting (TD) task. RESULTS As predicted, task performance was sensitive to both the effects of anticipated reward amount and inhibitory load. Reward amount had different effects depending on inhibitory load level. TD correlated with inhibitory control in the ADHD group. CONCLUSION The integration of the monetary incentive delay and go/no-go paradigms was successful. Surprisingly, there was no evidence of inhibitory control deficits or altered reward anticipation in the clinical groups.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND Individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) display excess levels of default mode network (DMN) activity during goal-directed tasks, which are associated with attentional disturbances and performance decrements. One hypothesis is that this is due to attenuated down-regulation of this network during rest-to-task switching. A second related hypothesis is that it may be associated with right anterior insula (rAI) dysfunction - a region thought to control the actual state-switching process. METHOD These hypotheses were tested in the current fMRI study in which 19 adults with ADHD and 21 typically developing controls undertook a novel state-to-state switching paradigm. Advance cues signalled upcoming switches between rest and task periods and switch-related anticipatory modulation of DMN and rAI was measured. To examine whether rest-to-task switching impairments may be a specific example of a more general state regulation deficit, activity upon task-to-rest cues was also analysed. RESULTS Against our hypotheses, we found that the process of down-regulating the DMN when preparing to switch from rest to task was unimpaired in ADHD and that there was no switch-specific deficit in rAI modulation. However, individuals with ADHD showed difficulties up-regulating the DMN when switching from task to rest. CONCLUSIONS Rest-to-task DMN attenuation seems to be intact in adults with ADHD and thus appears unrelated to excess DMN activity observed during tasks. Instead, individuals with ADHD exhibit attenuated up-regulation of the DMN, hence suggesting disturbed re-initiation of a rest state.
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Affiliation(s)
- J Sidlauskaite
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology,Ghent University,Ghent,Belgium
| | - E Sonuga-Barke
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology,Ghent University,Ghent,Belgium
| | - H Roeyers
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology,Ghent University,Ghent,Belgium
| | - J R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology,Ghent University,Ghent,Belgium
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Metin B, Wiersema JR, Verguts T, Gasthuys R, van Der Meere JJ, Roeyers H, Sonuga-Barke E. Event rate and reaction time performance in ADHD: Testing predictions from the state regulation deficit hypothesis using an ex-Gaussian model. Child Neuropsychol 2016; 22:99-109. [PMID: 26835532] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
According to the state regulation deficit (SRD) account, ADHD is associated with a problem using effort to maintain an optimal activation state under demanding task settings such as very fast or very slow event rates. This leads to a prediction of disrupted performance at event rate extremes reflected in higher Gaussian response variability that is a putative marker of activation during motor preparation. In the current study, we tested this hypothesis using ex-Gaussian modeling, which distinguishes Gaussian from non-Gaussian variability. Twenty-five children with ADHD and 29 typically developing controls performed a simple Go/No-Go task under four different event-rate conditions. There was an accentuated quadratic relationship between event rate and Gaussian variability in the ADHD group compared to the controls. The children with ADHD had greater Gaussian variability at very fast and very slow event rates but not at moderate event rates. The results provide evidence for the SRD account of ADHD. However, given that this effect did not explain all group differences (some of which were independent of event rate) other cognitive and/or motivational processes are also likely implicated in ADHD performance deficits.
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Metin B, Roeyers H, Wiersema JR, van der Meere JJ, Gasthuys R, Sonuga-Barke E. Environmental Stimulation Does Not Reduce Impulsive Choice in ADHD: A "Pink Noise" Study. J Atten Disord 2016; 20:63-70. [PMID: 23511552 DOI: 10.1177/1087054713479667] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The preference for sooner smaller over larger later rewards is a prominent manifestation of impulsivity in ADHD. According to the State Regulation Deficit (SRD) model, this impulsive choice is the result of impaired regulation of arousal level and can be alleviated by adding environmental stimulation to increase levels of arousal. METHOD To test this prediction, we studied the effects of adding background "pink noise" on impulsive choice using a classical and new adjusting choice delay task in a sample of 25 children with ADHD and 28 controls. RESULTS Children with ADHD made more impulsive choices than controls. Adding noise did not reduce impulsive choice in ADHD. CONCLUSION The findings add to the existing evidence on impulsive choice in ADHD, but no evidence is found for the SRD model's explanation of this behavioral style. Alternative explanations for impulsive choice in ADHD are discussed.
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Van Cauwenberge V, Sonuga-Barke EJS, Hoppenbrouwers K, Van Leeuwen K, Wiersema JR. "Turning down the heat": Is poor performance of children with ADHD on tasks tapping "hot" emotional regulation caused by deficits in "cool" executive functions? Res Dev Disabil 2015; 47:199-207. [PMID: 26444927 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2015.09.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2015] [Revised: 08/28/2015] [Accepted: 09/14/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Emotional dysregulation in daily life is very common in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is however not clear whether this reflects a specific deficit or that it may be the result of generic executive function (EF) deficits. The current study addresses this question by means of an emotional working memory (WM) task with 2 memory load conditions and four possible backgrounds (blank screen, neutral, positive or negative picture), which was administered to 38 typically developing children and 29 children with ADHD. Children responded slower on trials when negative pictures were presented at the background versus when neutral pictures were presented, indicating an emotional interference effect; however crucially, groups did not differ in this respect. Reaction times were also slower on trials with a neutral picture as background versus trials without a picture, with children with ADHD showing an enhanced interference effect. There was a main effect of WM load on performance, but it did not interact with interference or group effects. To summarize, the findings indicate a generic interference control deficit in the children with ADHD in the current sample, while they could not provide support for an emotional interference deficit.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valerie Van Cauwenberge
- Ghent University, Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
| | - Edmund J S Sonuga-Barke
- Ghent University, Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; University of Southampton, School of Psychology, Shackleton Building (B44), Highfield Campus, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
| | - Karel Hoppenbrouwers
- KU Leuven, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Kapucijnenvoer 35 blok d - bus 7001, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
| | - Karla Van Leeuwen
- KU Leuven, Department of Parenting and Special Education, Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 32 - bus 3765, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Ghent University, Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
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Verhoeven T, Buteneers P, Wiersema JR, Dambre J, Kindermans PJ. Towards a symbiotic brain–computer interface: exploring the application–decoder interaction. J Neural Eng 2015; 12:066027. [DOI: 10.1088/1741-2560/12/6/066027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
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Abstract
Theory of mind (ToM) research has shown that adults with high functioning autism (HFA) demonstrate typical performance on tasks that require explicit belief reasoning, despite clear social difficulties in everyday life situations. In the current study, we used implicit belief manipulations that are task-irrelevant and therefore less susceptible to strategies. In a ball-detection task, it was shown that neurotypical individuals detect a ball faster if an agent believed the ball was present. We predicted that adults with high functioning autism (HFA) would not show this effect. While we found a numerical difference in the hypothesized direction, we did not find a reliable group effect. Interestingly, the implicit ToM-index showed a strong negative correlation with both self-reported and observational measures of social difficulties in the HFA group. This suggests that the relationship between implicit ToM reasoning and the symptomatology of HFA might be subtler than assumed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eliane Deschrijver
- a Department of Experimental Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium
| | - Lara Bardi
- a Department of Experimental Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- b Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium
| | - Marcel Brass
- a Department of Experimental Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium
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Sidlauskaite J, Caeyenberghs K, Sonuga-Barke E, Roeyers H, Wiersema JR. Whole-brain structural topology in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Preserved global - disturbed local network organization. Neuroimage Clin 2015; 9:506-12. [PMID: 26640763 PMCID: PMC4630025 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2015.10.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2015] [Revised: 09/29/2015] [Accepted: 10/01/2015] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Prior studies demonstrate altered organization of functional brain networks in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the structural underpinnings of these functional disturbances are poorly understood. In the current study, we applied a graph-theoretic approach to whole-brain diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data to investigate the organization of structural brain networks in adults with ADHD and unaffected controls using deterministic fiber tractography. Groups did not differ in terms of global network metrics - small-worldness, global efficiency and clustering coefficient. However, there were widespread ADHD-related effects at the nodal level in relation to local efficiency and clustering. The affected nodes included superior occipital, supramarginal, superior temporal, inferior parietal, angular and inferior frontal gyri, as well as putamen, thalamus and posterior cerebellum. Lower local efficiency of left superior temporal and supramarginal gyri was associated with higher ADHD symptom scores. Also greater local clustering of right putamen and lower local clustering of left supramarginal gyrus correlated with ADHD symptom severity. Overall, the findings indicate preserved global but altered local network organization in adult ADHD implicating regions underpinning putative ADHD-related neuropsychological deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Justina Sidlauskaite
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, Ghent B-9000, Belgium
| | - Karen Caeyenberghs
- School of Psychology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, 115 Victoria Parade, Melbourne, VIC 3065, Australia
| | - Edmund Sonuga-Barke
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, Ghent B-9000, Belgium ; Developmental Brain-Behaviour Unit, Psychology, University of Southampton, Shackleton Building (B44), Highfield Campus, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
| | - Herbert Roeyers
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, Ghent B-9000, Belgium
| | - Jan R Wiersema
- Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, Ghent B-9000, Belgium
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Baetens I, Claes L, Onghena P, Grietens H, Van Leeuwen K, Pieters C, Wiersema JR, Griffith JW. The effects of nonsuicidal self-injury on parenting behaviors: a longitudinal analyses of the perspective of the parent. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 2015; 9:24. [PMID: 26157481 PMCID: PMC4495844 DOI: 10.1186/s13034-015-0059-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2015] [Accepted: 06/16/2015] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The present study is the first to examine predictors and consequences of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescence using parent-reported data in a longitudinal design. Across three time points, we examined the reciprocal effects of parent-reported parenting behaviors as they are related to adolescents' NSSI. METHODS The present study is a three-wave prospective study in a large sample of community adolescents and their parents. At time 1 (age 12), the sample consisted of 1396 adolescent reports and 1438 parent reports. Time 2 (age 13) included 827 adolescent and 936 parent reports. At time 3 (age 14), 754 adolescent and 790 parent reports were obtained. Engagement in NSSI (adolescent report) was determined by an affirmative response to the item 'Have you intentionally injured yourself (e.g., cut, burn, scratch) this year, without the intent to die?'. Parental awareness of NSSI at age 13 and 14 was examined using a single-item screening question. Parenting behaviors were examined by the parent versions of the Parental Behavior Scale. RESULTS Results showed that although NSSI was reported by 10 % of the adolescents, only 3 % of the parents were aware of the NSSI behaviors of their children. Cross-lagged analyses showed a reciprocal relationship between NSSI and parenting behaviors over time. We found a significant effect of both positive parenting and controlling parenting on the presence of NSSI at time 2. But vice versa NSSI also has an effect on parenting behaviors over time. Results showed that NSSI at time 1 has an impact on controlling parenting behaviors, namely punishment at time 2. NSSI at time 2 showed an impact on parent's perception of positive parenting, parental rule setting, punishment and harsh punishment. CONCLUSIONS The present study examined predictors and consequences of NSSI in a longitudinal design, and emphasized the importance of examining reciprocal interactions between NSSI and parenting behaviors. Furthermore, it is the first study to examine parent-reported data in a longitudinal design and gives insight into parents' perspectives.
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