Regulation of Personal Space by Socio-Economical Interactions in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorders: An fMRI Study

Autor(en)

Giorgia Silani, Alexander Groessing, Mareike Hubinger, Claudia Massaccesi, Lisa Anna Rosenberger, Michela Candini, Giuseppe di Pellegrino, Francesca Frassinetti

Abstrakt

Aims: Personal Space (PS) is an area which an individual tries to maintain around themself.
Developmental and psychiatric disorders influence the regulation of PS. Importantly, in the case of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), a condition characterized by deficits in interpersonal interaction, the regulation of PS is often altered compared to typically developing (TD) children. Due to the importance of regulation of PS, this study aimed at extending the previous findings about the ASD adult population and to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological underpinning of PS and its modulation by different types of social interactions.
Methods: Fifteen ASD and 15 TD matched participants underwent fMRI Investigation while performing a modified version of the stop-distance paradigm for measuring PS preferences. In particular, participants were presented with several prerecorded videos from a firstperson perspective: an actor moving a predetermined number of steps towards them. They were asked to specify how comfortable they perceived the observed distance. In order to see the effect of social interaction on PS perception, the participants and the confederate played a
one-shot trust game session, in which cooperative and non-cooperative interactions were experimentally manipulated. After the game, the participants were confronted a second time with the distance task, in order to measure PS preference variation due to the type of social interaction (cooperative or not) previously experienced. Results: We observed a significant modulation of the trust game on the PS, as TD participants showed increased comfort toward
the cooperative player and increased discomfort towards the non-cooperative one, associated with modulation of emotional brain areas (bilateral insula). Notably, we observed the same effect in the ASD population on the behavioral level, but reduced insular activity on the neural level, suggesting that the perception of a cooperative (or not) interaction has a different impact
in the ASD population. Conclusion: A better understanding of these behavioral characteristics and the neuronal mechanisms underlying them could improve the overall ability to understand the development of ASD.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie, Institut für Psychologie der Kognition, Emotion und Methoden

Externe Organisation(en)

Università di Bologna, Unknown External Organisation Unbekannt/undefiniert

Journal

Journal of Mental Health Research in Intellectual Disabilities

Band

10

Seiten

174-175

ISSN

1931-5864

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/19315864.2017.1368259

Publikationsdatum

01-2017

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

301401 Hirnforschung, 501010 Klinische Psychologie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/aec4dd3b-f36a-4a4f-9199-3d20da536ef5