Human beings, animals and inanimate objects: what do people with autism like?

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social interaction and communication deficits.
• Understanding the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying these social difficulties is crucial for targeted interventions.
• Previous research suggests altered processing of social information in individuals with autism.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the nature of social information processing in individuals with autism using a 'sorting by preference' experimental paradigm.
• To compare the social preference patterns of children with autism to those with Down syndrome and typically developing children.
• To identify specific conditions under which social processing differs between these groups.

Main Methods:

• Employed a forced-choice 'sorting by preference' task with participants aged 6-12 years.
• Included three groups: autism spectrum disorder (n=12), Down syndrome (n=12), and typically developing children (n=12), matched for verbal mental age.
• Tested preferences across four conditions: relatedness (human vs. inanimate), animate (animals vs. inanimate), interpersonal relationship (social interaction drawings), and control (pleasant vs. unpleasant non-social stimuli).

Main Results:

• Significant differences in performance were observed between the autism group and the other two groups specifically in the relatedness and interpersonal relationship conditions.
• Participants with autism showed distinct patterns of preference related to human beings and social interactions compared to controls.
• No significant differences were found in the animate or control conditions, suggesting a specific deficit in processing human-related social stimuli.

Conclusions:

• Individuals with autism exhibit unique difficulties in attending to and processing social information, particularly concerning human beings and interpersonal relationships.
• These findings support the hypothesis of specific social-cognitive atypicalities in autism spectrum disorder.
• The 'sorting by preference' method provides valuable insights into the subjective experience and cognitive biases associated with autism.