Social-Pragmatic Inferencing, Visual Social Attention and Physiological Reactivity to Complex Social Scenes in Autistic Young Adults

Katja Dindar; Soile Loukusa; Terhi M Helminen; Leena Mäkinen; Antti Siipo; Seppo Laukka; Antti Rantanen; Marja-Leena Mattila; Tuula Hurtig; Hanna Ebeling

doi:10.1007/s10803-021-04915-y

Social-Pragmatic Inferencing, Visual Social Attention and Physiological Reactivity to Complex Social Scenes in Autistic Young Adults

J Autism Dev Disord. 2022 Jan;52(1):73-88. doi: 10.1007/s10803-021-04915-y. Epub 2021 Feb 27.

Authors

Katja Dindar¹, Soile Loukusa², Terhi M Helminen³, Leena Mäkinen², Antti Siipo⁴, Seppo Laukka⁵, Antti Rantanen⁵, Marja-Leena Mattila⁶, Tuula Hurtig^{6

7}, Hanna Ebeling⁶

Affiliations

¹ Research Unit of Logopedics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, PO Box 1000, 90014, Oulu, Finland. [email protected].
² Research Unit of Logopedics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, PO Box 1000, 90014, Oulu, Finland.
³ Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
⁴ Department of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
⁵ Learning Research Laboratory, Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
⁶ PEDEGO Research Unit, Clinic of Child Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Oulu University Hospital, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
⁷ Research Unit of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.

Abstract

This study examined social-pragmatic inferencing, visual social attention and physiological reactivity to complex social scenes. Participants were autistic young adults (n = 14) and a control group of young adults (n = 14) without intellectual disability. Results indicate between-group differences in social-pragmatic inferencing, moment-level social attention and heart rate variability (HRV) reactivity. A key finding suggests associations between increased moment-level social attention to facial emotion expressions, better social-pragmatic inferencing and greater HRV suppression in autistic young adults. Supporting previous research, better social-pragmatic inferencing was found associated with less autistic traits.

Keywords: Autism spectrum; Autistic traits; Heart rate variability; Physiological reactivity; Social-pragmatic ability; Visual social attention.

MeSH terms

Attention
Autism Spectrum Disorder*
Autistic Disorder*
Emotions
Facial Expression
Humans
Young Adult

Abstract

MeSH terms

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