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Liu H, Zhang Q, Elhai JD, Montag C, Yang H. Attentional bias to threat is modulated by stimulus content: an fNIRS study. Front Hum Neurosci 2024; 17:1308457. [PMID: 38273882 PMCID: PMC10808614 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1308457] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/26/2023] [Indexed: 01/27/2024] Open
Abstract
People are evolutionarily predisposed to associate threat relevant stimuli with fear or aversiveness and show an attentional bias toward threat. Attentional bias modification (ABM) has been shown to reduce threat biases, while quantitative reviews assessing the effectiveness of bias modification yielded inconsistent results. The current study examined the relationship between the training effect of attentional bias to threat and the type of threatening stimuli. Twenty-two participants performed a modified dot-probe task while undergoing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging. Results indicated that there was a strong pattern of attentional avoidance among individuals in an animal but not human threat condition. Furthermore, findings from fNIRS confirmed that the influence from type of threatening stimulus would be modulated by cortical activation patterns, especially in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortices (vlPFC) and angular gyrus. Overall, these results suggest that stimulus-specific may play a major role in personalization of specific psychological interventions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hejun Liu
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
| | - Qihan Zhang
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
| | - Jon D. Elhai
- Department of Psychology, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, United States
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, United States
| | - Christian Montag
- Department of Molecular Psychology, Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany
| | - Haibo Yang
- Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
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Ghosn F, Perea M, Sahuquillo-Leal R, Moreno-Giménez A, Almansa B, Navalón P, Vento M, García-Blanco A. The effects of reward and frustration on the task performance of autistic children and adolescents. RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2023; 140:104567. [PMID: 37467540 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104567] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2022] [Revised: 06/21/2023] [Accepted: 07/04/2023] [Indexed: 07/21/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Autistic individuals often exhibit social communication and socio-emotional styles that may interfere with achieving social and academic outcomes. At a more specific level, they may perform differently in various social and academic tasks due to different modes of processing rewards or unpleasant experiences (e.g., frustrating events). AIM The present experiment examines how rewards and frustration affect the task performance of autistic children and adolescents METHODS AND PROCEDURES: An affective Posner task was applied to introduce rewards and induce frustration. Forty-four autistic children and adolescents and forty-four typically developing (TD) peers participated in this study OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Results showed that presenting social and non-social rewards resulted in shorter reaction times and lower error rates in autistic participants, but not in their TD peers. While frustration increased error rates in both autistic and TD individuals, the effect was more pronounced in the autistic group. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Social and non-social rewards help the performance of autistic children and adolescents, whereas frustration (induced through unpredictable feedback) significantly interferes with their task performance. Therefore, receiving two types of rewards and providing predictable feedback may help to improve interventions designed to optimize task performance for autistic children and adolescents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Farah Ghosn
- Health Research Institute La Fe, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain; Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
| | - Manuel Perea
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain; Center of Cognitive Science, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain
| | | | - Alba Moreno-Giménez
- Health Research Institute La Fe, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain; Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
| | - Belén Almansa
- Health Research Institute La Fe, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain; Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
| | - Pablo Navalón
- Health Research Institute La Fe, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain; Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain
| | - Máximo Vento
- Health Research Institute La Fe, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain
| | - Ana García-Blanco
- Health Research Institute La Fe, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain; Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
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Meng C, Li T, Wang J. Temporal course of attention bias toward emotional faces in individuals with autistic traits: an eye-movement study. Front Neurosci 2023; 17:1218595. [PMID: 37575304 PMCID: PMC10416432 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1218595] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2023] [Accepted: 07/12/2023] [Indexed: 08/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Similar attention patterns have been found in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autistic traits (ATs). The Intense World Theory and previous studies suggest that individuals with ASD may demonstrate a vigilance-avoidance attention pattern toward emotional faces. However, the attention patterns in individuals with ATs remain unclear. Therefore, this study employs eye-tracking technology to examine the characteristics and temporal course of attention bias toward emotional faces in individuals with ATs. Methods The Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) was used to evaluate the level of ATs among 2,502 college students. A total of 50 participants were selected from the 2,502 college students: 25 high-AQ group participants were randomly selected from the 10% of individuals with the highest AQ scores. Similarly, 25 low-AQ group participants were randomly selected from the 10% of participants with the lowest AQ scores. All selected participants completed an eye-tracking study while performing a dot-probe task with emotional faces (positive-neutral, negative-neutral, and negative-positive). By analyzing data from different time periods, the attention bias and time course of individuals with ATs toward emotional faces were investigated. Results The results show that compared to the low-AQ group, the high-AQ group detected negative faces faster in the early stages of emotional face processing. As the presentation time of emotional faces increased (at the 2-3 s mark), the fixation scores for negative-neutral faces of the high-AQ group were less than 0.5, which was significantly lower than those of the low-AQ group. Meanwhile, the high-AQ group showed brief attentional avoidance toward positive emotion at 3-4 s in the positive-neutral trials, indicating that the high-AQ group exhibited attention avoidance to both negative and positive faces during the middle and later stages of emotional processing. Conclusion This study suggests that individuals with ATs display a vigilance-avoidance pattern toward emotional faces. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of attention in persons with ATs and further supports the Intense World Theory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chunyan Meng
- Department of Public Curriculum, Zigong Vocational and Technical College, Sichuan, China
- Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
| | - Taolin Li
- Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
- Mental Health Guidance Center, Qianjiang Senior High School, Chongqing, China
| | - Jing Wang
- School of Health Rehabilitation, Zigong Vocational and Technical College, Sichuan, China
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Sfärlea A, Radix AK, Schulte-Körne G, Legenbauer T, Platt B. Attention Biases for Eating Disorder-Related Stimuli Versus Social Stimuli in Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa - An Eye-Tracking Study. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 2023; 51:541-555. [PMID: 36418631 PMCID: PMC10017650 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-022-00993-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by attention biases for eating disorder-related information as well as altered attentional processing of social information. However, little is known about the interplay between the altered attentional processing of these two types of information. The present study investigates attention biases for eating disorder-related information (pictures of bodies) versus social information (pictures of faces), in adolescents with AN. Attention biases were assessed via eye-tracking during a passive-viewing task in which female bodies and faces were presented simultaneously and thus competed directly for attention. Female adolescents (13-18 years) with AN (n = 28) were compared to a clinical comparison group (adolescents with major depression; n = 20) and a comparison group of adolescents with no mental illness (n = 24). All groups looked longer at bodies than at faces, i.e., showed attention biases for bodies in maintenance of attention. These biases were more pronounced in adolescents with AN than in both comparison groups, particularly for underweight bodies, at the expense of looking less at social stimuli. The results indicate "dual" attention biases in adolescents with AN (i.e., towards bodies and away from emotional faces) which could have a twofold negative impact on eating disorder psychopathology: increased attention to eating disorder-related information might directly influence eating disorder symptoms while less attention to social information might have an indirect influence through the amplification of interpersonal difficulties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anca Sfärlea
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Research Department, Nussbaumstr. 5, 80336, Munich, Germany.
| | - Anne Kathrin Radix
- LWL-University Clinic of the RUB Bochum, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics, Hamm, Germany
| | - Gerd Schulte-Körne
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Research Department, Nussbaumstr. 5, 80336, Munich, Germany
| | - Tanja Legenbauer
- LWL-University Clinic of the RUB Bochum, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics, Hamm, Germany
| | - Belinda Platt
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Research Department, Nussbaumstr. 5, 80336, Munich, Germany
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Faustmann LL, Kretschmer-Trendowicz A, Altgassen M. Do emotionally salient cues improve prospective memory performance in children and adolescents with autism? RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2022; 131:104375. [PMID: 36401920 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104375] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2021] [Revised: 10/03/2022] [Accepted: 11/09/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Prospective memory (PM) describes the ability to initiate and perform a planned action after a delay. Previous studies suggest reduced PM in autism spectrum disorder (ASD); especially when tasks put high demands on executive control resources. Increasing cue salience by presenting emotional cues improves PM performance in non-autistic populations. AIMS To explore whether children with ASD, whose processing of emotionally connoted information might differ from that of typically developing children, may also benefit from this type of salience in PM tasks. METHODS AND PROCEDURES Twenty-five children with and 25 children without ASD completed a 1-back ongoing task into which an event-based PM task was embedded. Emotional salience of PM cues was varied. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS Children with ASD performed as well as children without ASD on the PM task and equally benefited from emotionally salient cues. Specifically, negative cues increased PM performance compared to neutral cues in both groups CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The findings are consistent with the multiprocess framework which postulates that salient PM cues increase performance by promoting automatic intention retrieval and reducing executive control demands. Children with ASD seem to show similar comprehension and accessibility to emotional cues as typically developing children.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Mareike Altgassen
- Department of Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany.
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Zhang Y, Li D, Yang T, Chen C, Li H, Zhu C. Characteristics of emotional gaze on threatening faces in children with autism spectrum disorders. Front Psychiatry 2022; 13:920821. [PMID: 36072450 PMCID: PMC9441573 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.920821] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2022] [Accepted: 08/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Most evidence suggested that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experienced gaze avoidance when looking at the eyes compared to typically developing (TD) individuals. Children with ASD magnified their fears when received threatening stimuli, resulting in a reduced duration of eye contact. Few studies have explored the gaze characteristics of children with ASD by dividing emotional faces into threatening and non-threatening pairs. In addition, although dynamic videos are more helpful in understanding the gaze characteristics of children with ASD, the experimental stimuli for some of the previous studies were still emotional pictures. We explored the viewing of dynamic threatening and non-threatening faces by children with ASD in different areas of interest (AOIs). In this study, 6-10 years old children with and without ASD viewed faces with threatening (fearful and angry) and non-threatening (sad and happy) expressions, respectively, with their eyes movements recorded. The results showed that when confronted with threatening faces, children with ASD, rather than TD, showed substantial eye avoidances, particularly non-specific avoidances in the fixation time on the mouths and significantly less time gazing at the mouths in any emotions, which was not observed for non-threatening faces. No correlations were found between the severity of symptoms and characteristics of gaze at the eyes and mouths in children with ASD. These results further enhance the understanding of the gaze characteristics of children with ASD on threatening and non-threatening faces and possibly provide additional evidence for their social interaction improvements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yifan Zhang
- The School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Dandan Li
- The School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China.,Department of Neurology, First Affiliated Hospital, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Tingting Yang
- The School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
| | - Chuanao Chen
- Anhui Province Hefei Kang Hua Rehabilitation Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Hong Li
- Anhui Hospital Affiliated to the Pediatric Hospital of Fudan University, Hefei, China
| | - Chunyan Zhu
- The School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.,Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China
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Sahuquillo-Leal R, Navalón P, Moreno-Giménez A, Almansa B, Vento M, García-Blanco A. Attentional biases towards emotional scenes in autism spectrum condition: An eye-tracking study. RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2022; 120:104124. [PMID: 34775276 DOI: 10.1016/j.ridd.2021.104124] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2021] [Revised: 10/08/2021] [Accepted: 10/27/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Different attentional processing of emotional information may underlie social impairments in Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). It has been hypothesized that individuals with ASC show hypersensitivity to threat, which may be related to an avoidance behaviour. However, research on the attentional processing of emotional information in autism is inconclusive. AIM To examine the attentional processing biases of 27 children with ASC and 25 typically developed (TD) participants. METHODS AND PROCEDURES The initial orienting of attention, the attentional engagement, and the attentional maintenance to complex emotional scenes in competition (happy, neutral, threatening, sad) were assessed in a 20-second eye-tracking based free-viewing task. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS i) children with ASC showed an initial orienting bias towards threatening stimuli; ii) TD children demonstrated an attentional engagement and maintenance bias towards threat, while children with ASC did not; and iii) in children with ASC, attentional problems and somatic complaints were associated with higher initial orienting and with higher attentional maintenance towards threat, respectively. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS These results suggest that a perceived threat induces an early overwhelming response in autism, giving rise to an avoidance behaviour. The findings endorse affective information processing theories and shed light on the mechanisms underlying social disturbances in ASC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rosa Sahuquillo-Leal
- Department of Personality, Evaluation, and Psychological Treatments, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
| | - Pablo Navalón
- La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Valencia, Spain; Neonatal Research Group, La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain
| | | | - Belén Almansa
- Neonatal Research Group, La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain
| | - Máximo Vento
- Neonatal Research Group, La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain; La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital, Division of Neonatology, Valencia, Spain
| | - Ana García-Blanco
- Department of Personality, Evaluation, and Psychological Treatments, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain; La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Valencia, Spain; Neonatal Research Group, La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain.
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Meng C, Huo C, Ge H, Li Z, Hu Y, Meng J. Processing of expressions by individuals with autistic traits: Empathy deficit or sensory hyper-reactivity? PLoS One 2021; 16:e0254207. [PMID: 34242310 PMCID: PMC8270190 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254207] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2020] [Accepted: 06/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Individuals with autistic traits display impaired social interaction and communication in everyday life, but the underlying cognitive neural mechanisms remain very unclear and still remain controversial. The mind-blindness hypothesis suggests that social difficulties in individuals with autistic traits are caused by empathy impairment in individuals; however, the intense world theory suggests that these social difficulties are caused by sensory hyper-reactivity and sensory overload, rather than empathy impairment. To further test these two theories, this study investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the cognitive neural processing of repetitive expressions in individuals with autistic traits. This study employed the Mandarin version of the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) to assess autistic traits in 2,502 healthy adults. Two subset groups were used, e.g., the participants of a high-AQ group were randomly selected among the 10% of individuals with the highest AQ scores; similarly, the participants in the low-AQ group were randomly selected from the 10% of participants with the lowest AQ scores. In an experiment, three different facial expressions (positive, neutral, or negative) of the same person were presented successively and pseudo-randomly in each trial. Participants needed to define the expression of the face that was presented last. The results showed that compared with the low-AQ group, the high-AQ group exhibited higher P1 amplitudes induced by the second and third presented expressions, as well as higher P3 amplitudes induced by the third presented negative expressions. This indicates that individuals with autistic traits may experience overly strong perception, attention, and cognitive evaluation to repetitive expressions, particularly negative expressions. This result supports the intense world theory more strongly than the mind-blindness hypothesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chunyan Meng
- Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
- Laboratory of Emotion and Mental Health, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Chongqing, China
- Nanchong Vocational College of Science and Technology, Nanchong, China
| | - Chao Huo
- Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
| | - Hongxin Ge
- Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
| | - Zuoshan Li
- Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
| | - Yuanyan Hu
- Laboratory of Emotion and Mental Health, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Chongqing, China
| | - Jing Meng
- Key Laboratory of Applied Psychology, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, China
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