Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Recent work suggests that we are better at interpreting the movements of others who move like us, and that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) move in a quantifiably different way from typical individuals. Therefore, "social impairments" exhibited by individuals with ASD may, at least in part, represent a failure by typical individuals to infer the correct mental states from the movements of those with ASD. To examine this possibility, individuals with ASD and typical adults manually directed 2 triangles to generate animations depicting mental state interactions. Kinematic analysis of the generated animations demonstrated that the participants with ASD moved atypically, specifically with increased jerk compared to the typical participants. In confirmation of our primary hypothesis, typical individuals were better able to identify the mental state portrayed in the animations produced by typical, relative to autistic, individuals. The participants with ASD did not show this "same group" advantage, demonstrating comparable performance for the 2 sets of animations. These findings have significant implications for clinical assessment and intervention in ASD, and potentially other populations with atypical movement. (PsycINFO Database Record

Original publication

DOI

10.1037/abn0000199

Type

Journal article

Journal

J Abnorm Psychol

Publication Date

01/10/2016

Volume

125

Pages

879 - 885

Keywords

Adult, Aged, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Psychomotor Performance, Social Perception, Young Adult