Empathic Accuracy and Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Young Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

McKenzie, Karen; Russell, Ailsa; Golm, Dennis; Fairchild, Graeme

doi:10.1007/s10803-021-05093-7

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Furthermore, the literature has consistently shown the existence of a perspective taking deficit in ASD (8,91), and our results provide further support for this idea. Our findings also mirror those using the EA task in adults with ASD, showing no differences in cognitive on the EA, but some cognitive empathy deficits on the self-report questionnaires, namely perspective taking (57). In summary, our results show a cognitive deficit in ASD that seems to be specific to the subcomponent of perspective taking, and suggests that adolescents with ASD seem to have, at least to a certain extent, insight into their poor perspective taking abilities (55).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…These studies have found no differences in either cognitive or affective empathy using the behavioural measure in adults with ASD compared to a group of typically developing adults. However, some deficits were noted on the cognitive empathy self-report questionnaire (57). When the behavioural measure was assessed in adolescents with conduct disorder, affective empathy deficits were reported (58).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Investigation of Behavioural and Self-Reported Cognitive Empathy Deficits in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Adolescents With Behavioural Difficulties

2021

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Deficits in empathy have been considered hallmarks in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) but are also considered to underlie antisocial behaviour associated with individuals with callous unemotional traits (CU). Research has suggested that individuals with autism spectrum disorders show more difficulties with cognitive empathy, and that individuals diagnosed with behaviours difficulties, characterised by CU traits and antisocial behaviour, demonstrate low affective empathy. In the current manuscript we present findings of two studies. The first study describes the validation of a new stimulus set developed for the empathic accuracy task, focused on its cognitive component. The second study compares the performance of 27 adolescents with ASD, 27 age matched typically developing adolescents and 17 adolescents with behavioural difficulties on the empathic accuracy task and a self-report measure of empathy. While, no differences were observed between the three groups across the empathy accuracy task, the adolescents with ASD and CD showed deficits in their cognitive empathy across the self-report measure. Adolescents with ASD showed lower scores in particularly their perspective taking abilities, whereas the adolescences with behavioural difficulties showed more difficulties with their online simulation. No differences in self-reported affective empathy across the three groups were observed. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Investigation of Behavioural and Self-Reported Cognitive Empathy Deficits in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Adolescents With Behavioural Difficulties

2021

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“…On the other hand, dynamic visual information portraying a social interaction is more ecologically valid and information-rich than verbal narratives ( Henry et al, 2013 ). For this purpose, new tools have been developed to ensure ecological validity by portraying everyday interactions in a realistic way, such as the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC; Dziobek et al, 2006 ), the Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT; McDonald et al, 2004 ), the Empathic Accuracy Task ( McKenzie et al, 2022 ), and the Adult Theory of Mind ( Brewer et al, 2017 ). The potential of these tools consists of embedding social situations in a rich real-life scenario, ensuring the multimodal perception related to everyday living.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Italian adaptation of the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT): A new tool for the assessment of theory of mind and social norm understanding

Isernia

MacPherson²,

Baksh³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

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The relevance of social cognition assessment has been formally described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5. However, social cognition tools evaluating different socio-cognitive components for Italian-speaking populations are lacking. The Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT) is a new social cognition measure that uses animations of everyday social interactions to assess (i) cognitive theory of mind, (ii) affective theory of mind, (iii) interpersonal social norm understanding, and (iv) intrapersonal social norm understanding. Previous studies have shown that the ESCoT is a sensitive measure of social cognition in healthy and clinical populations in the United Kingdom. This work aimed to adapt and validate the ESCoT in an Italian population of healthy adults. A translation-back-translation procedure was followed to create and refine the Italian version. Then, 94 healthy adults (47 females, mean age 35 ± 15.9) completed the ESCoT, a battery of conventional social cognition tests (Yoni; Reading the Mind in the Eyes Strange Stories, and Social Norm Questionnaire, SNQ) and measures of intelligence and executive functions. Reliability, convergent validity, and predictors of performance on the ESCoT were examined. Results demonstrated good reliability of the ESCoT and an association between the ESCoT scores and some traditional social cognition tests (Yoni cognitive subscale, SNQ). Hierarchical regression results showed that the ESCoT total score was associated with age. Also, the ESCoT subscore (intrapersonal social norm understanding) was associated with education. These findings support the ESCoT as a valid tool testing social norm understanding, a reliable measure of social cognition for an adult Italian population, and provides further evidence that the ESCoT is sensitive to age- and education-related changes in social cognition, and it is a task not affected by general cognitive functioning.

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“…Regarding empathic capabilities, individuals with ASD showed deficits in cognitive empathy (CE) but not affective empathy (Mazza et al, 2014; Ziermans, de Bruijn, Dijkhuis, Staal, & Swaab, 2019). Reports of empathic abilities may further differ between objective and subjective assessments (McKenzie, Russell, Golm, & Fairchild, 2021). Interpretation of these results in synopsis is undoubtedly complex, which is indicative of the fact that ER research in ASD is still in its infancy (Cai, Richdale, Uljarević, Dissanayake, & Samson, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding empathic capabilities, individuals with ASD showed deficits in cognitive empathy but not affective empathy (35, 36). Reports of empathic abilities may further differ between objective and subjective assessments (37). Interpretation of these results in synopsis is undoubtedly complex, which is indicative of the fact that emotion regulation research in ASD is still in its infancy (38).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual brain regulation as learned via neurofeedback is related to affective changes in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Klöbl

Prillinger

Diehm

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Intro: Even though emotions often play a role in neurofeedback (NF) regulation strategies, investigations of the relationship between the induced neuronal changes and improvements in affective domains are scare in electroencephalography-based studies. We thus extend the findings of the first study on slow cortical potential (SCP) NF in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Konicar, et al., 2021; NeuroImage: Clinical) by relating affective changes to whole-brain activity at rest and during regulation. Methods: Forty-one male adolescents with ASD were scanned at rest using functional magnetic resonance imaging before and after half of them underwent NF training and half received treatment as usual. Furthermore, parents reported on affective characteristics at both times. The NF group had to alternatingly produce negative and positive SCP shifts (increase and decrease cortical excitability) during training and was additionally scanned while applying their developed regulation strategies. Results: We found increases of resting activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and right inferior temporal gyrus as well as improvements in affective characteristics over both groups. Activation corresponding to SCP differentiation (difference of the activations caused by applying the strategies to produce negative and positive SCP shifts) in these regions correlated with the affective improvements. A further correlation was found for Rolandic operculum activation corresponding to positive SCP shifts. However, there were no significant correlations with the respective achieved SCP regulation during NF training. Conclusion: SCP NF in ASD did not lead to superior improvements in neuronal or affective functioning compared to treatment as usual. However, the affective changes might be related to the individual regulation strategies as indicated by significant correlations to brain activation during the transfer run but not the achieved SCP regulation. Our study further corroborates the importance of the ACC and ITG as well as of affective functioning for the treatment of ASD.

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Empathic Accuracy and Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Young Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cited by 14 publications

References 81 publications

An Investigation of Behavioural and Self-Reported Cognitive Empathy Deficits in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Adolescents With Behavioural Difficulties

An Investigation of Behavioural and Self-Reported Cognitive Empathy Deficits in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Adolescents With Behavioural Difficulties

Italian adaptation of the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT): A new tool for the assessment of theory of mind and social norm understanding

Individual brain regulation as learned via neurofeedback is related to affective changes in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

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