Influences of heart rate feedback and autistic traits on affective mindreading

Although mindreading is an important prerequisite for successful social interactions, the underlying mechanisms are still matter of debate. It is unclear, for example, if inferring others' and own mental states are distinct processes or are based on a common mechanism. Using an affect-induction experimental set-up with an acoustic heart rate feedback that addresses affective mindreading in self and others, we investigated if non-autistic study participants relied on similar information for self- and other-directed mindreading. We assumed that due to altered mindreading capacities in autism, mainly individuals with low autistic traits would focus on additional sensory cues, such as heart rate, to infer their own and their gambling partner's affective states. Our analyses showed that the interpretation of a heart rate signal differed in self- and other-directed mindreading trials. This effect was modulated by autistic traits suggesting that individuals with higher autistic traits might not have interpreted the heart rate feedback for gambling partner ratings and differentiated less between self- and other-directed mindreading trials. We discuss these results in the context of a common mechanism underlying self- and other-directed mindreading and hypothesize that the weighting of internal and external sensory information might contribute to how we make sense of our and others' mental states.