Joint attention effect on irrelevant stimuli resistance in high functional autism and neurotypical adults

IF 1.7 4区医学 Q3 PSYCHIATRY

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry Pub Date : 2024-12-01 DOI:10.1016/j.jbtep.2024.102005

Brunetti Marcella , Alessandrelli Riccardo , Ceci Franca , D.'Andrea Antea , Pettorruso Mauro , Martinotti Giovanni , Di Matteo Rosalia

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background and objectives

Clinical practice reveals that individuals with autism characterized by the absence of cognitive impairment (High Functioning Autism-HFA) show difficulty in sharing attention with unfamiliar people. We hypothesized that this difficulty could affect cognitive control by selectively impairing stimulus-encoding or response-selection.

Methods

Twenty-one HFA and 23 neurotypical adults were involved in a two-phase study. The first phase was performed at home, through an online link; the second one was held four months later in our laboratory in the presence of two experimenters. A letter-flanker task was administered in both phases. In the Stimulus-Response (SR) conflict condition, the target and flankers were assigned to the same/different response keys. In the Stimulus-Stimulus (SS) conflict condition, the target and flankers were perceptually similar/dissimilar. Two mixed-ANOVAs were conducted on response times and accuracy with Phases (Home vs Lab), Groups (HFA, Neurotypical), SR conditions (congruent, incongruent, neutral) and SS conditions (congruent, incongruent) as factors.

Results

Results show that only HFAs' inhibition ability was negatively affected by the experimenters’ presence compared to when they were alone, by reducing accuracy when dealing with an SS conflict.

Limitations

The differences between the home-phase and lab-phase sessions require further elaboration to understanding the nature of social interaction during the lab session.

Conclusions

These results suggest that, for HFA, the “at home” context, free from social and emotional pressure, allowed them to emphasize their detail-focused cognitive style.

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来源期刊

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry Multiple-

CiteScore

3.60

自引率

5.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： The publication of the book Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition (1958) by the co-founding editor of this Journal, Joseph Wolpe, marked a major change in the understanding and treatment of mental disorders. The book used principles from empirical behavioral science to explain psychopathological phenomena and the resulting explanations were critically tested and used to derive effective treatments. The second half of the 20th century saw this rigorous scientific approach come to fruition. Experimental approaches to psychopathology, in particular those used to test conditioning theories and cognitive theories, have steadily expanded, and experimental analysis of processes characterising and maintaining mental disorders have become an established research area.