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Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality

Individuals with autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit impairments in response to others’ pain. Evidence suggests that features of autism are not restricted to individuals with ASD, and that autistic traits vary throughout the general population. To investigate the association between autistic trai...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Meng, Jing, Li, Zuoshan, Shen, Lin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5358845/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28319204
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174109
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author Meng, Jing
Li, Zuoshan
Shen, Lin
author_facet Meng, Jing
Li, Zuoshan
Shen, Lin
author_sort Meng, Jing
collection PubMed
description Individuals with autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit impairments in response to others’ pain. Evidence suggests that features of autism are not restricted to individuals with ASD, and that autistic traits vary throughout the general population. To investigate the association between autistic traits and the responses to others’ pain in typically developing adults, we employed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) to quantify autistic traits in a group of 1670 healthy adults and explored whether 60 participants (30 males and 30 females) with 10% highest AQ scores (High-AQ) would exhibit difficulties in the responses to others’ pain relative to 60 participants (30 males and 30 females) with 10% lowest AQ scores (Low-AQ). This study included a Visual Task and an Auditory Task to test behavioral differences between High-AQ and Low-AQ groups’ responses to others’ pain in both modalities. For the Visual Task, participants were instructed to respond to pictures depicting others’ pain. They were instructed to judge the stimuli type (painful or not), judge others’ pain intensity, and indicate the unpleasantness they personally felt. For the Auditory Task, experimental procedures were identical to the Visual Task except that painful voices were added. Results showed the High-AQ group was less accurate than the Low-AQ group in judging others’ pain. Moreover, relative to Low-AQ males, High-AQ males had significantly longer reaction times in judging others’ pain in the Auditory Task. However, High-AQ and Low-AQ females showed similar reaction times in both tasks. These findings demonstrated identification of others’ pain by healthy adults is related to the extent of autistic traits, gender, and modality.
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spelling pubmed-53588452017-04-06 Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality Meng, Jing Li, Zuoshan Shen, Lin PLoS One Research Article Individuals with autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit impairments in response to others’ pain. Evidence suggests that features of autism are not restricted to individuals with ASD, and that autistic traits vary throughout the general population. To investigate the association between autistic traits and the responses to others’ pain in typically developing adults, we employed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) to quantify autistic traits in a group of 1670 healthy adults and explored whether 60 participants (30 males and 30 females) with 10% highest AQ scores (High-AQ) would exhibit difficulties in the responses to others’ pain relative to 60 participants (30 males and 30 females) with 10% lowest AQ scores (Low-AQ). This study included a Visual Task and an Auditory Task to test behavioral differences between High-AQ and Low-AQ groups’ responses to others’ pain in both modalities. For the Visual Task, participants were instructed to respond to pictures depicting others’ pain. They were instructed to judge the stimuli type (painful or not), judge others’ pain intensity, and indicate the unpleasantness they personally felt. For the Auditory Task, experimental procedures were identical to the Visual Task except that painful voices were added. Results showed the High-AQ group was less accurate than the Low-AQ group in judging others’ pain. Moreover, relative to Low-AQ males, High-AQ males had significantly longer reaction times in judging others’ pain in the Auditory Task. However, High-AQ and Low-AQ females showed similar reaction times in both tasks. These findings demonstrated identification of others’ pain by healthy adults is related to the extent of autistic traits, gender, and modality. Public Library of Science 2017-03-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5358845/ /pubmed/28319204 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174109 Text en © 2017 Meng et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Meng, Jing
Li, Zuoshan
Shen, Lin
Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality
title Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality
title_full Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality
title_fullStr Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality
title_full_unstemmed Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality
title_short Responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: The influence of gender and stimuli modality
title_sort responses to others’ pain in adults with autistic traits: the influence of gender and stimuli modality
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5358845/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28319204
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174109
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