ORCID Profile
0000-0002-3760-1382
Current Organisation
University of Western Australia
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In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Psychology | Biological Psychology (Neuropsychology, Psychopharmacology, Physiological Psychology) | Learning, Memory, Cognition And Language | Sensory Processes, Perception and Performance | Developmental Psychology and Ageing | Personality, Abilities and Assessment | Health, Clinical and Counselling Psychology | Sensory Processes, Perception And Performance | Cognitive Science not elsewhere classified | Psychology not elsewhere classified
Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences | Behavioural and cognitive sciences | Learner and Learning Processes | Child Health | Nervous System and Disorders | Mental Health |
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-06-2018
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2005
DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.31.3.412
Abstract: This study examined the role of stimulus characteristics in a visuospatial order reconstruction task in which participants were required to recall the order of sequences of spatial locations. The complexity of the to-be-remembered sequences, as measured by path crossing, path length, and angles, was found to affect serial memory, in terms of both recall accuracy and response times. The results demonstrate that not all sequences are remembered equally and that spatial characteristics of the sequences constitute an important variable in the understanding of visuospatial serial memory. More important, the data suggest that spatial path represents transitional information and that, as is the case in verbal serial memory, transitional information is of critical importance in serial memory.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-01-2010
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-010-0945-7
Abstract: Crespi and Badcock (2008) proposed that autism and psychosis represent two extremes on a cognitive spectrum with normality at its center. Their specific claim that autistic and positive schizophrenia traits contrastingly affect preference for local versus global processing was investigated by examining Embedded Figures Test performance in two groups of students separated on autistic-like traits but matched on positive schizotypy traits, and two groups separated on positive schizotypy traits but matched on autistic-like traits (n = 20 per group). Consistent with their theory, higher levels of autistic-like traits were associated with faster identification of hidden figures, whereas higher levels of positive schizotypy traits were associated with slower identification.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-08-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-11-2013
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-013-1975-8
Abstract: This study investigated the involvement of inner speech limitations in the executive dysfunction associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Seventeen children with ASD and 18 controls, statistically-matched in age and IQ, performed a computer-based card sorting test (CST) to assess cognitive flexibility under four conditions: baseline, with articulatory suppression, with a concurrent mouthing task, and while verbalizing their strategies aloud. Articulatory suppression adversely affected CST performance for the control group but not the ASD group. The results additionally showed that overtly verbalizing strategies did not benefit the ASD children as it did the typically developing children. The findings thus provide further evidence that ASD children do not use inner speech to the same extent, or with the same effectiveness, as typically developing children when performing executive tasks.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-05-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-023-05914-X
Abstract: The importance of supporting parent-child interactions has been noted in the context of prodromal autism, but little consideration has been given to the possible contributing role of parental characteristics, such as psychological distress. This cross-sectional study tested models in which parent-child interaction variables mediated relations between parent characteristics and child autistic behaviour in a s le of families whose infant demonstrated early signs of autism (N = 103). The findings suggest that associations between parent characteristics (psychological distress aloofness) and child autistic behaviours may be mediated by the child’s inattentiveness or negative affect during interactions. These findings have important implications in developing and implementing interventions in infancy which target the synchrony of parent-child interaction with the goal to support children’s social communication development.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 05-2003
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617703940033
Abstract: While the Kaufman Hand Movements Test (KHMT) is argued to be sensitive to cognitive impairment secondary to various forms of brain dysfunction in adults, it is unknown which cognitive processes it addresses. Dual-task research has employed tasks similar to the KHMT to determine whether such tasks assess (1) verbal or visuospatial memory, or (2) a proposed additional short-term memory component, movement memory. However findings consistent with both hypotheses have been reported. Experiment 1 involved 24 participants completing a hand movement task and a letter span task under articulatory suppression, finger movement and no interference conditions. Performance on both the hand movement task and letter span task was significantly reduced by articulatory suppression. In Experiment 2, 16 participants were administered the hand movement task and a Corsi span task under articulatory suppression, finger movement, spatial tapping, and no interference. Again, hand movement span was most reduced by articulatory suppression, in contrast to Corsi span which was most reduced by spatial tapping. Hand movement task performance was therefore assumed to rely upon verbal recoding strategies and thus the proposition of an additional component of movement memory was not supported. ( JINS , 2003, 9 , 633–641.)
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2008
DOI: 10.1080/13546800701775683
Abstract: We have previously linked hallucinations in schizophrenia and hallucination predisposition to poor intentional inhibition. However, these previous studies have not systematically investigated the separable dimensions of inhibitory control involved, namely, intentional versus unintentional, and inhibition versus resistance to interference. The aim of this study was to clarify the critical component(s) of inhibitory control specifically related to hallucination predisposition. The Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale-Revised (LSHS-R) was completed by 589 undergraduate students, from which high- (n=28) and low- (n=25) hallucination predisposition groups were drawn. Participants were administered tasks measuring unintentional inhibition (Brown-Peterson variant task) and intentional resistance to interference (directed ignoring [DI] task). The high LSHS-R group showed significant difficulties relative to the low LSHS-R group on the DI task only although these differences did not remain significant when controlling for anxiety or delusional thinking. Regression analyses showed that anxiety, but not delusional thinking, independently contributed to variance in DI task performance above that accounted for by hallucination predisposition. Intentional rather than unintentional control of intrusive cognitions appears to play an important role in hallucination predisposition. The results indicate that difficulties with the intentional resistance to interference from concurrent external distractors may be a common mechanism underlying positive schizophrenia symptoms and anxiety. However, given previous findings reported by Paulik, Badcock, and Maybery (2007), we propose that hallucination predisposition is also characterised by a difficulty with the active suppression of intrusive cognitions - that is, intentional inhibition - which is not shared with anxiety or delusional symptoms.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 29-08-2019
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.2198
Abstract: The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is a psychometric scale that is commonly used to assess autistic-like traits and behaviors expressed by neurotypical in iduals. A potential strength of the AQ is that it provides subscale scores that are specific to certain dimensions associated with autism such as social difficulty and restricted interests. However, multiple psychometric evaluations of the AQ have led to substantial disagreement as to how many factors exist in the scale, and how these factors are defined. These challenges have been exacerbated by limitations in study designs, such as insufficient s le sizes as well as a reliance on Pearson, rather than polychoric, correlations. In addition, several proposed models of the AQ suggest that some factors are uncorrelated, or negatively correlated, which has ramifications for whether total-scale scores are meaningfully interpretable-an issue not raised by previous work. The aims of the current study were to provide: (a) guidance as to which models of the AQ are viable for research purposes, and (b) evidence as to whether total-scale scores are adequately interpretable for research purposes. We conducted a comprehensive series of confirmatory factor analyses on 11 competing AQ models using two large s les drawn from an undergraduate population (n = 1,702) and the general population (n = 1,280). Psychometric evidence largely supported using the three-factor model described by Russell-Smith et al. [Personality and In idual Differences 51(2), 128-132 (2011)], but did not support the use of total-scale scores. We recommend that researchers consider using AQ subscale scores instead of total-scale scores. Autism Res 2020, 13: 45-60. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: We examined 11 different ways of scoring subscales in the popular Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) questionnaire in two large s les of participants (i.e., general population and undergraduate students). We found that a three-subscale model that used "Social Skill," "Patterns/Details," and "Communication/Mindreading" subscales was the best way to examine specific types of autistic traits in the AQ. We also found some weak associations between the three subscales-for ex le, being high on the "Patterns/Details" subscale was not predictive of scores on the other subscales. This means that meaningful interpretation of overall scores on the AQ is limited.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-05-2021
DOI: 10.1186/S13229-021-00445-7
Abstract: Traits and characteristics qualitatively similar to those seen in diagnosed autism spectrum disorder can be found to varying degrees in the general population. To measure these traits and facilitate their use in autism research, several questionnaires have been developed that provide broad measures of autistic traits [e.g. Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ)]. However, since their development, our understanding of autism has grown considerably, and it is arguable that existing measures do not provide an ideal representation of the trait dimensions currently associated with autism. Our aim was to create a new measure of autistic traits that reflects our current understanding of autism, the Comprehensive Autism Trait Inventory (CATI). In Study 1, 107 pilot items were administered to 1166 in iduals in the general population and exploratory factor analysis of responses used to create the 42-item CATI comprising six subscales: Social Interactions , Communication , Social Camouflage , Repetitive Behaviours , Cognitive Rigidity , and Sensory Sensitivity . In Study 2, the CATI was administered to 1119 new in iduals and confirmatory factor analysis used to verify the factor structure. The AQ and BAPQ were administered to validate the CATI, and additional autistic participants were recruited to compare the predictive ability of the measures. In Study 3, to validate the CATI subscales, the CATI was administered to 202 new in iduals along with existing valid measures qualitatively similar to each CATI subscale. The CATI showed convergent validity at both the total-scale ( r ≥ .79) and subscale level ( r ≥ .68). The CATI also showed superior internal reliability for total-scale scores ( α = .95) relative to the AQ ( α = .90) and BAPQ ( α = .94), consistently high reliability for subscales ( α .81), greater predictive ability for classifying autism (Youden’s Index = .62 vs .56–.59), and demonstrated measurement invariance for sex. Analyses of predictive ability for classifying autism depended upon self-reported diagnosis or identification of autism. The autistic s le was not large enough to test measurement invariance of autism diagnosis. The CATI is a reliable and economical new measure that provides observations across a wide range of trait dimensions associated with autism, potentially precluding the need to administer multiple measures, and to our knowledge, the CATI is also the first broad measure of autistic traits to have dedicated subscales for social camouflage and sensory sensitivity.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.BIOPSYCHO.2014.08.009
Abstract: Two competing theories address the influence of foetal testosterone on cerebral laterality: one proposing exposure to high foetal testosterone concentrations is related to atypical lateralisation (Geschwind-Galaburda hypothesis), the other that high foetal testosterone concentrations exaggerate typical lateralisation (callosal hypothesis). The current study examined the relationship between cord testosterone concentrations and cerebral laterality for language and spatial memory in adulthood. Male participants with high (>0.15nmol) and low (<0.10nmol) cord testosterone levels were invited to take part in the study (n=18 in each group). Cerebral laterality was measured using functional Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, while participants completed word generation and visual short-term memory tasks. Typical left lateralisation of language was more common in the high-testosterone group than in the low-testosterone group, χ(2)=4.50, df=1, p=034. Spatial memory laterality was unrelated to cord testosterone level. Our findings indicate that foetal testosterone exposure is related to language laterality in a direction that supports the callosal hypothesis.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 10-02-2006
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-2005
DOI: 10.1080/13803390490520328
Abstract: A meta-analysis conducted by Binder, Rohling and Larrabee established a relationship between mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and small reductions in cognitive functioning in in iduals assessed more than 3 months post-injury. As a follow-up, this study summarized similar research that (1) was published since the previous meta-analysis, and (2) included data collected at any stage post-injury. An extensive literature search revealed 17 suitable studies from which effect sizes were aggregated. The overall effect size was g = 0.32, p < .001. Speed of processing measures had the largest effect, g = 0.47, p < .001. The merging of post-acute effect sizes with those reported in Binder et al.'s review yielded a nonsignificant result, g = 0.11. Time since injury was found to be a significant moderator variable, with effect sizes tending to zero with increasing time post injury.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-1995
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-08-2017
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.1824
Abstract: Atypical facial characteristics have been observed in many disorders associated with developmental disability. While autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have not previously been thought to be associated with a distinct facial phenotype, an emerging research literature is casting doubt on this assumption. The identification of differences in the facial phenotype of in iduals with ASC may contribute to efforts to promote early identification of the condition and help elucidate etiological pathways. With the aim of identifying facial phenotypes associated with ASC, this commentary evaluated facial features purported to distinguish ASC from typical development. Although there is little consensus across the reviewed studies for the majority of facial characteristics described, preliminary evidence suggests increased facial asymmetry may be more common in ASC. There is also evidence to suggest that there are morphologically distinct subgroups within ASC that correspond with different cognitive and behavioral symptomatology. However, in light of the various inconsistencies in the reported literature, and based on an accumulating understanding of etiological pathways proposed to be associated with ASC, we propose an alternative paradigm for investigating facial phenotypes in ASC. A series of studies are outlined to demonstrate the promise of a research program that has taken a hypothesis-driven approach to examine facial phenotypes associated with increased exposure to prenatal testosterone and to ASC. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1910-1918. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This commentary reviewed studies that found differences in the facial features of in iduals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) compared to typically developing in iduals. While there is little agreement between studies, there is some support for asymmetrical facial features associated with ASC, and preliminary evidence that particular facial features relate to specific patterns of cognitive and behavioral symptoms. However, in light of inconsistencies between studies and based on accumulating understanding of etiological pathways, we propose an alternative approach to investigating facial differences in ASC.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 05-2007
Abstract: This article tests the hypothesis that in iduals with autism poorly encode verbal information to the semantic level of processing, instead paying greater attention to phonological attributes. Participants undertook a novel explicit verbal recall task. Twenty children with autism were compared with 20 matched typically developing children. On each trial, 20 words were presented in idually on a computer screen. Half of the items were related through having either a common semantic theme, or a common phonological feature. Following a filler task, the participants were presented with a cue and asked to recall items consistent with the cue. No differences between the autism and comparison groups were found in either the semantic or the phonological condition. A follow-up comparison revealed that the participants with autism showed comparable levels of recall to an additional group of children matched in chronological age. The findings do not support the idea of a developmental delay in semantic encoding in children with autism.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.YHBEH.2011.08.011
Abstract: In this paper we review the evidence that fetuses gestated with a male co-twin are masculinized in development, perhaps due to the influence of prenatal androgens: the so-called twin testosterone transfer (TTT) hypothesis. Evidence from studies of behavioral, perceptual, cognitive, morphological and physiological traits in same- and opposite-sex human twins is considered. Apart from two studies reporting increases in aspects of sensation-seeking for females with a male rather than a female co-twin, there is sparse evidence supporting the TTT hypothesis in behavioral studies. Outcomes from studies of perception (in particular otoacoustic emissions) and cognition (in particular vocabulary acquisition and visuo-spatial ability) provide more consistent evidence in support of masculinized performance in twins with a male co-twin compared to twins with a female co-twin. The outcomes favorable to the TTT hypothesis for otoacoustic emissions and visuo-spatial ability are restricted to females. Studies of physiology and morphology (e.g., brain volume, tooth size and 2D:4D ratio) also show some influence of co-twin sex, but again these effects are often restricted to female twins. Because females produce little endogenous testosterone, the effects of gestation with a male co-twin may be more pronounced in females than males. Thus, while uneven, the evidence for the TTT hypothesis is sufficient to warrant further investigation, ideally using large s les of same- and opposite-sex twins, along with control groups of same- and opposite-sex siblings when the characteristics assessed are potentially open to social influences.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-01-2012
DOI: 10.1111/J.1469-7610.2011.02523.X
Abstract: Preliminary evidence suggests that prenatal testosterone exposure may be associated with language delay. However, no study has examined a large s le of children at multiple time-points. Umbilical cord blood s les were obtained at 861 births and analysed for bioavailable testosterone (BioT) concentrations. When participating offspring were 1, 2 and 3 years of age, parents of 767 children (males = 395 females = 372) completed the Infant Monitoring Questionnaire (IMQ), which measures Communication, Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Adaptive and Personal-Social development. Cut-off scores are available for each scale at each age to identify children with 'clinically significant' developmental delays. Chi-square analyses and generalized estimating equations examined longitudinal associations between sex-specific quartiles of BioT concentrations and the rate of developmental delay. Significantly more males than females had language delay (Communication scale) at age 1, 2 and 3 years (p-values ≤. 01). Males were also more likely to be classified as delayed on the Fine-Motor (p = .04) and Personal-Social (p < .01) scales at age 3 years. Chi-square analyses found a significant difference between BioT quartiles in the rate of language delay (but not Fine-Motor and Personal-Social delay) for males (age 3) and females (age 1 and 3). Generalized estimating equations, incorporating a range of sociodemographic and obstetric variables, found that males in the highest BioT quartile were at increased risk for a clinically significant language delay during the first 3 years of life, with an odds ratio (OR) of 2.47 (95% CI: 1.12, 5.47). By contrast, increasing levels of BioT reduced the risk of language delay among females (Quartile 2: OR = 0.23, 95% CI: 0.09, 0.59 Quartile 4: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.21, 0.99). These data suggest that high prenatal testosterone levels are a risk factor for language delay in males, but may be a protective factor for females.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2012
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA.2012.08.006
Abstract: Voices provide a wealth of socially-relevant information, including cues to a speaker's identity and emotion. Deficits recognising emotion from voice have been extensively described in schizophrenia, and linked specifically to auditory hallucinations (AH), but relatively little attention has been given to examining the ability to analyse speaker identity. Hence, the current study assessed the ability to discriminate between different speakers in people with schizophrenia (including 33 with and 32 without AH) compared to 32 healthy controls. Participants rated the degree of perceived identity similarity of pairs of unfamiliar voices pronouncing three-syllable words. Multidimensional scaling of the dissimilarity matrices was performed and the resulting dimensions were interpreted, a posteriori, via correlations with acoustic measures relevant to voice identity. A two-dimensional perceptual space was found to be appropriate for both schizophrenia patients and controls, with axes corresponding to the average fundamental frequency (F0) and formant dispersion (D(f)). Patients with schizophrenia did not differ from healthy controls in their reliance on F0 in differentiating voices, suggesting that the ability to use pitch-based cues for discriminating voice identity may be relatively preserved in schizophrenia. On the other hand, patients (both with and without AH) made less use of D(f) in discriminating voices compared to healthy controls. This distorted pattern of responses suggests some potentially important differences in voice identity processing in schizophrenia. Formant dispersion has been linked to perceptions of dominance, masculinity, size and age in healthy in iduals. These findings open some interesting new directions for future research.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-2005
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X05220137
Abstract: The dual-deficit model of visual hallucinations (Collerton et al. target article) is compared with the dual-deficit model of auditory hallucinations (Waters et al., in press). Differences in cognitive mechanisms described may be superficial. Similarities between these models may provide the basis for a general model of complex hallucinations extended across disorders and modalities, involving shared (overlapping) cognitive processes.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2015
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 12-1996
DOI: 10.2466/PR0.1996.79.3F.1331
Abstract: Research on perceptions of risk in Australia began only recently. Typically, data from other countries were used to determine what hazards might be considered most and least risky by the Australian public. Relying on overseas data is problematic, however, because cultural contexts may influence risk perceptions. To address the paucity of data on risk perceptions in Australia, we obtained relative risk ratings for 30 hazardous technologies and activities from 40 Australian undergraduate students. The results suggested that, while there are some similarities with other countries, there are also some unique features in Australian risk perceptions. Researchers should investigate the reasons underlying similarities and differences in risk perceptions across cultures.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2008
Publisher: American Medical Association (AMA)
Date: 11-2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2004
DOI: 10.1016/J.BANDC.2004.08.002
Abstract: Research has suggested the presence of subtle long-term cognitive changes in otherwise well-functioning in iduals who have previously sustained a mild head injury (MHI). This paper investigated the long-term effects of MHI on visual, spatial, and visual-spatial short-term memory in well-functioning university students. Sixteen students who reported having sustained a MHI were compared to 16 controls on tests of short-term memory (STM) for abstract polygons in haphazardly arranged locations. The three tests differed only in the requirements for recall (shapes for the visual task, locations for the spatial task, and the shapes in their respective locations for the visual-spatial task). MHI participants were selectively impaired on spatial memory, suggesting that tasks of spatial STM may be more sensitive, compared to tasks of visual STM, to the subtle long-term cognitive changes that may be present after a MHI.
Publisher: No publisher found
Date: 1994
DOI: 10.1111/J.1467-8624.1994.TB00820.X
Abstract: The assumption of some developmental theories that short-term memory is the workspace of higher cognitive processes, and consequently that span measures processing capacity, is claimed to be inconsistent with the working memory literature. 4 experiments, using children aged 5 to 12 years, contrast this theory with a model in which short-term memory and the processing space component of working memory are at least partly distinct. Experiments 1 and 2 varied processing load, holding duration constant. The processing load manipulation had little effect on recall of a short-term memory preload. Experiments 3 and 4 failed to support the prediction that the greater processing efficiency of older children would be associated with slower loss of information from short-term memory. Although counting and rehearsal rates increased with age, and correlated with span, they did not predict the rate of loss of memory preload due to intervening counting. The data suggest that effects obtained with short-term memory span do not provide clear indications of overall working memory development, because short-term memory span and the processing space component of working memory entail distinct systems.
Publisher: Hindawi Limited
Date: 21-08-2013
DOI: 10.1155/2013/680428
Abstract: Conduct problems that emerge in childhood often persist into adolescence and are associated with a range of negative outcomes. It is therefore important to identify the factors that predict conduct problems in early childhood. The present study investigated the relations among maternal attachment status, mother-child emotion talk, child emotion understanding, and conduct problems in a s le of 92 (46 males) typically developing children (M age = 61.3 months, SD = 8.3 months). The results support a model in which maternal attachment status predicts the level of appropriate/responsive mother-child emotion talk, which predicts child emotion understanding, which in turn negatively predicts child conduct problems. These findings further underline the developmental role of mother-child emotion talk as well as the importance of involving parents in programs designed to increase children’s emotion understanding and/or decrease the incidence of conduct problems.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-04-2017
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-017-3119-Z
Abstract: There is preliminary evidence that infant siblings of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have an atypical pattern of cry, characterized by higher fundamental frequency and increased dysphonation. This prospective study collected multiple cry s les of 12-month old siblings of children with ASD (n = 22, 'high-risk' group) and 12-month olds with no family history of ASD (n = 27, 'low risk' group). While there was no difference between groups in the fundamental frequency or degree of phonation of the cry s les, the duration of each cry unit was significantly shorter in the high-risk siblings (p < .05). The six infant siblings who received a diagnosis of ASD at age two had amongst the shortest recorded cry durations.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2007
DOI: 10.1080/13546800600753120
Abstract: Previous studies have linked intrusive cognitions (hallucinations and obsessions) with inhibitory dysregulation. Combined deficits in intentional inhibition and context memory have been proposed to explain the intrusive nature and perceived nonself origin of auditory hallucinations (Waters et al., 2006). This study tested the prediction, from this model, that in iduals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), who do not mistake the origin of their intrusive thoughts, will show a deficit of intentional inhibition but intact contextual memory. The performance of 14 in iduals with OCD and 24 healthy controls was compared on two measures of intentional cognitive inhibition and on a context memory task.Results. Participants with OCD were significantly impaired on both measures of inhibition but were not significantly different from controls in any condition of the context memory task. The predictions were confirmed. In iduals with OCD, like schizophrenia patients with auditory hallucinations, showed impaired intentional inhibition. This impairment might be responsible for the intrusive thoughts reported in both disorders, and might also partially account for the high rates of comorbidity of OCD and schizophrenia. Finally, intact context memory abilities in OCD may contribute to an efficient memory system, and may differentiate this group from those with hallucinations.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-1996
DOI: 10.3758/BF03204776
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 10-1986
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.PSYCHRES.2010.07.011
Abstract: Emotion regulation involves the use of strategies to influence the experience and expression of emotions. Anxiety and depression are strongly associated with the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as auditory hallucinations (AHs). In iduals usually try to down-regulate (decrease) such emotions, consequently abnormal or maladaptive use of one or more of these down-regulatory processes (e.g. increased use of expressive suppression or maladaptive attentional deployment, i.e. rumination/worry) may play an important role in AHs (e.g. increasing AH severity and distress). This study examined the self-reported use of a range of emotion regulation strategies in in iduals with schizophrenia and current AHs (SZ AH N=34) and healthy controls (N=34). Two separable dimensions of hallucinatory experiences (severity and distress) were assessed together with measures of anxiety, depression and happiness. Within the SZ AH group, greater use of expressive suppression was associated with an increase in severity of AHs and greater disruption in daily life. In addition, rumination was significantly positively correlated with the distress (but not with the severity) associated with AHs. Within the control group, expressive suppression, rumination and worry were associated with more anxiety/depression and less happiness, as predicted. The implications of different emotion regulation strategies for the treatment of in iduals with schizophrenia and AHs are discussed.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-10-2012
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2002
DOI: 10.1002/SMI.915
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-02-2020
DOI: 10.1111/JCPP.13203
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-09-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S41252-022-00282-6
Abstract: Children who have an older sibling diagnosed with autism have an increased likelihood of being diagnosed with autism or developing broader developmental difficulties. This study explored perinatal experiences of parents of a child diagnosed with autism, spanning pre-conception until the subsequent child’s early developmental period. Qualitative interviews were conducted with ten parents of a child diagnosed with autism, and ten parents of a child with no neurodevelopmental diagnosis, each of whom had gone on to have a subsequent child. Thematic analysis occurred concurrently with data collection and involved comparisons between the two s les. Four themes were identified in relation to the perinatal period of a subsequent child following the autism diagnosis of an older child. These were parental experiences of “apprehension”, “adjustment”, and “adaptation”, underpinned by the “importance of support”. Many experiences of parenting were similar between the two groups, with comparison between the groups identifying the role of autism in an increased focus, concern, and hypervigilance to their child’s development. Having a child diagnosed with autism intensifies some of the common experiences of parenting and infancy. The challenges identified by parents throughout the experience of parenting an infant after having a child diagnosed with autism indicate that the development of supports could help empower families in this situation going forwards.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-2004
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 2014
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2014
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-01-2015
Abstract: While autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) have traditionally been conceptualized as distinct disorders, recent findings indicate that the boundaries between these two conditions are not clear-cut. While considerable research has investigated overlap in the linguistic characteristics of ASD and SLI, relatively less research has explored possible overlap in the socio-cognitive domain, particularly in terms of the emotion recognition abilities of these two groups of children. To investigate facial and vocal emotion recognition in children with ASD, children with SLI and typically developing (TD) children. To do so, the ASD group was sub ided into those with 'normal' (ALN) and those with 'impaired' (ALI) language to explore the extent to which language ability influenced performance on the emotion recognition task. Twenty-nine children with ASD (17 ALN and 12 ALI), 18 children with SLI and 66 TD children completed visual and auditory versions of an emotion recognition task. For the visual version of the task, the participants saw photographs of people expressing one of six emotions (happy, sad, scared, angry, surprised, disgusted) on the whole face. For the auditory modality, the participants heard a neutral sentence that conveyed one of the six emotional expressions in the tone of the voice. In both conditions, the children were required to indicate how the person they could see/hear was feeling by selecting a cartoon face that was presented on the computer screen. The results showed that all clinical groups were less accurate than the TD children when identifying emotions on the face and in the voice. While the ALN children were less accurate than the TD children only when identifying expressions that require inferring another's mental state (surprise, disgust) emotional expressions, the ALI and the SLI children were less accurate than the TD children when identifying the basic (happy, sad, scared, angry) as well as the inferred emotions. The results indicate that children with ALI and children with SLI share emotion recognition deficits, which are likely to be driven by the poor language abilities of these two groups.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA.2010.10.009
Abstract: The Embedded Figures Test (EFT) requires detecting a shape within a complex background and in iduals with autism or high Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores are faster and more accurate on this task than controls. This research aimed to uncover the visual processes producing this difference. Previously we developed a search task using radial frequency (RF) patterns with controllable amounts of target/distracter overlap on which high AQ participants showed more efficient search than low AQ observers. The current study extended the design of this search task by adding two lines which traverse the display on random paths sometimes intersecting target/distracters, other times passing between them. As with the EFT, these lines segment and group the display in ways that are task irrelevant. We tested two new groups of observers and found that while RF search was slowed by the addition of segmenting lines for both groups, the high AQ group retained a consistent search advantage (reflected in a shallower gradient for reaction time as a function of set size) over the low AQ group. Further, the high AQ group were significantly faster and more accurate on the EFT compared to the low AQ group. That is, the results from the present RF search task demonstrate that segmentation and grouping created by intersecting lines does not further differentiate the groups and is therefore unlikely to be a critical factor underlying the EFT performance difference. However, once again, we found that superior EFT performance was associated with shallower gradients on the RF search task.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-10-2022
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-022-02575-3
Abstract: Autistic in iduals and in iduals with high levels of autistic-like traits often show better visual search performance than their neurotypical peers. The present work investigates whether this advantage stems from increased ability to filter out distractors. Participants with high or low levels of autistic-like traits completed an attentional blink task in which trials varied in target-distractor similarity. The results showed no evidence that high levels of autistic-like traits were associated with superior distractor filtering (indexed by the difference in the size of the attentional blink across the high- and low-similarity distractors). This suggests that search advantages seen in previous studies are likely linked to other mechanisms such as enhanced pre-attentive scene processing, better decision making, or more efficient response selection.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2006
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2014.02.010
Abstract: The current study compared time-based prospective memory (PM) for in iduals with high depressive symptomatology (HDS) and low depressive symptomatology (LDS). We examined PM accuracy rate, clock-checking frequency, and decrements in ongoing task performance (i.e., costs to ongoing tasks) associated with an embedded time-based PM task. HDS participants demonstrated numerically lower but statistically comparable clock-checking frequency to LDS participants. However, their PM performance was significantly poorer than that of LDS participants. The pattern of observed costs to ongoing tasks and correlational analyses between ongoing task performance and PM accuracy showed that, relative to LDS participants, HDS participants were restricted in their allocation of attentional resources to support PM. We concluded that although HDS and LDS participants externally controlled their time-based PM task performance (i.e., clock-checking) similarly, the HDS participants lacked the cognitive initiative to allocate attentional resources to internally control PM task performance. Such internal control might reflect time-estimation processes, the resources required to maintain the PM task response intention, and/or the ability to coordinate the PM task response with ongoing task demands. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to have examined time-based PM strategies used by HDS in iduals beyond clock-checking. The data suggest that interventions that encourage intermittent strategic reviews of PM goals may be beneficial for in iduals with high depressive symptomatology.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-08-2014
DOI: 10.1111/DMCN.12576
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2009
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2011
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 21-02-2013
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-2013
DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2012.709183
Abstract: Both clinical and non-clinical auditory hallucinations (AH) have been associated with source memory deficits, supporting a continuum of underlying cognitive mechanisms, though few studies have employed the same task in patient and nonpatient s les. Recent commentators have called for more debate on the continuum model of psychosis. Consequently, the current study investigated the continuity model of AH with reference to memory binding. We used an identical voice and word recognition memory task to assess binding in two separate studies of: (1) healthy hallucination-prone in iduals and controls (30 high and 30 low scorers on the Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale-Revised) and (2) schizophrenia patient s les (32 with AH, 32 without AH) and 32 healthy controls. There was no evidence of impaired binding in high hallucination-prone, compared to low hallucination-prone in iduals. In contrast, in iduals with schizophrenia (both with and without AH) had difficulties binding (remembering "who said what"), alongside difficulties remembering in idual words and voices. Binding ability and memory for voices were also negatively linked to the loudness of hallucinated voices reported by patients with AH. These findings suggest that different mechanisms may exist in clinical and non-clinical hallucinators, adding to the growing debate on the continuum model of psychotic symptoms.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-05-2020
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.2296
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 23-03-2022
Abstract: The broad autism phenotype commonly refers to sub-clinical levels of autistic-like behaviour and cognition presented in biological relatives of autistic people. In a recent study, we reported findings suggesting that the broad autism phenotype may also be expressed in facial morphology, specifically increased facial masculinity. Increased facial masculinity has been reported among autistic children, as well as their non-autistic siblings. The present study builds on our previous findings by investigating the presence of increased facial masculinity among non-autistic parents of autistic children. Using a previously established method, a ‘facial masculinity score’ and several facial distances were calculated for each three-dimensional facial image of 192 parents of autistic children (58 males, 134 females) and 163 age-matched parents of non-autistic children (50 males, 113 females). While controlling for facial area and age, significantly higher masculinity scores and larger (more masculine) facial distances were observed in parents of autistic children relative to the comparison group, with effect sizes ranging from small to medium (0.16 ≤ d ≤ .41), regardless of sex. These findings add to an accumulating evidence base that the broad autism phenotype is expressed in physical characteristics and suggest that both maternal and paternal pathways are implicated in masculinized facial morphology.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 20-12-2010
Abstract: According to Racine and Carpendale’s constructivist theory, the acquisition of shared linguistic practice is grounded in the development of competence in shared forms of activity such as joint attention which are naturally embedded in socio-emotional engagement. The present study investigated the relationships among socio-emotional engagement, joint attention, imitation, and conversation skill by establishing a model of these relationships in 94 typically developing children ( M age = 5 ) and further assessing this model in another group of 93 typically developing children ( M age = 5 ) and 30 children with specific language impairment ( M age = 5 ). Joint attention and imitation were found to mediate the relationship between socio-emotional engagement and conversation skill.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 2014
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-09-2021
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.2612
Abstract: Greater facial asymmetry has been consistently found in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relative to children without ASD. There is substantial evidence that both facial structure and the recurrence of ASD diagnosis are highly heritable within a nuclear family. Furthermore, sub‐clinical levels of autistic‐like behavioural characteristics have also been reported in first‐degree relatives of in iduals with ASD, commonly known as the ‘broad autism phenotype’. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine whether a broad autism phenotype expresses as facial asymmetry among 192 biological parents of autistic in iduals (134 mothers) compared to those of 163 age‐matched adults without a family history of ASD (113 females). Using dense surface‐modelling techniques on three dimensional facial images, we found evidence for greater facial asymmetry in parents of autistic in iduals compared to age‐matched adults in the comparison group ( p = 0.046, d = 0.21 [0.002, 0.42]). Considering previous findings and the current results, we conclude that facial asymmetry expressed in the facial morphology of autistic children may be related to heritability factors. In a previous study, we showed that autistic children presented with greater facial asymmetry than non‐autistic children. In the current study, we examined the amount of facial asymmetry shown on three‐dimensional facial images of 192 parents of autistic children compared to a control group consisting of 163 similarly aged adults with no known history of autism. Although parents did show greater levels of facial asymmetry than those in the control group, this effect is statistically small. We concluded that the facial asymmetry previously found in autistic children may be related to genetic factors.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-1997
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 27-06-2006
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617706060711
Abstract: This study examined whether memory span was impaired during the acute and post-acute phases following mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Twenty-two adults with mTBI were compared with 22 controls on computerized tasks of immediate memory for verbal, spatial, and hand movement sequences under no interference (baseline) and articulatory suppression conditions. Groups were assessed within a month and followed up 3-12 months post-injury. In the acute phase, there were no group differences across tasks under either condition. At follow-up, all spatial and verbal span scores and associated practice effects were equivalent across groups. Yet for the hand movement task, baseline movement span was worse for the mTBI group suggesting that they failed to benefit from practice to the same extent as controls. Furthermore, the fact that this group difference in span scores disappeared when articulatory suppression was imposed indicates that successful hand movement task performance involves verbal recoding.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 18-04-2023
DOI: 10.1177/10731911221086987
Abstract: Empathy, the ability to infer and share others’ affective states, plays a vital role in social interactions. However, no existing scale comprehensively assesses empathy’s cognitive and affective components across positive and negative emotional valence domains. This article explores the latent structure of the empathy construct and attempts to remedy past measurement limitations by developing and validating a new 20-item self-report measure, the Perth Empathy Scale (PES). In Study 1 ( N = 316), factor analyses revealed a coherent empathy construct comprised of cognitive and valence-specific affective components. Study 2 ( N = 331) replicated this factor structure, showed measurement invariance between males and females, and highlighted the importance of assessing negative and positive emotions in empathy. The PES showed convergent and discriminant validity from comparisons with alexithymia and other empathy measures. Overall, this article empirically establishes a conceptually clear structure of the multidimensional empathy construct, which the PES reliably and validly measures.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 07-03-2013
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617713000180
Abstract: The present study investigated the impact of cue type and delay interval on prospective memory performance in depressed, compared to non-depressed, in iduals using a clinically relevant measure, the Memory for Intentions Screening Test. The depressed group demonstrated impaired performance on time-based, but not event-based, prospective memory tasks relative to the nondepressed group. The depressed group also demonstrated impaired prospective memory on tasks with longer delay intervals (15 min), but not on tasks with shorter delay intervals (2 min). These data support theoretical frameworks that posit that depression is associated with deficits in cognitive initiative (i.e., reduced ability to voluntarily direct attention to relevant tasks) and thus that depressed in iduals are susceptible to poor performance on strategically demanding tasks. The results also raise multiple avenues for developing interventions (e.g., implementation intentions) to improve prospective memory performance among in iduals with depression, with potential implications for medication and other treatment adherence. ( JINS , 2013, 19 , 1–5)
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2002
Publisher: Hindawi Limited
Date: 12-01-2014
DOI: 10.1155/2014/741543
Abstract: The present study analyzed the concurrent and longitudinal relations among cognitive flexibility, theory of mind, and hyperactivity/inattention in a s le of 70 typically developing children ( M age = 61.4 months, SD = 8.3 months). Mothers and teachers reported on children’s hyperactivity/inattention using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (Goodman, 1997), cognitive flexibility was measured using the dimension change card sort task (Zelazo, 2006), and theory of mind was assessed using a battery of tasks. Cognitive flexibility and theory of mind scores were found to be significantly negatively correlated with the level of hyperactivity/inattention at both time points. Furthermore, year 1 cognitive flexibility score was found to be a significant predictor of year 2 hyperactivity/inattention score after controlling for child age, gender, and year 1 hyperactivity/inattention score. Directions for future research include training studies which would further our understanding of these relationships and allow more effective interventions.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 31-10-2006
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-2006
DOI: 10.1111/J.1467-8624.2006.00977.X
Abstract: Recent research has found that the acquisition of theory of mind (ToM) is delayed in children with specific language impairment (SLI). The present study used a battery of ToM and visual perspective taking (VPT) tasks to investigate whether the delayed acquisition of ToM in children with SLI is associated with delayed VPT development. Harris' (1992, 1996) simulation theory predicts that the development of VPT will be delayed. Participants were 20 children with SLI (M=62.9 months) and 20 typically developing children (M=61.2 months) who were matched for nonverbal ability, gender, and age. The results supported Harris' theory and a role for language in ToM and VPT development.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-08-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-017-09939-Y
Abstract: Elevated prenatal testosterone exposure has been associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and facial masculinity. By employing three-dimensional (3D) photogrammetry, the current study investigated whether prepubescent boys and girls with ASD present increased facial masculinity compared to typically-developing controls. There were two phases to this research. 3D facial images were obtained from a normative s le of 48 boys and 53 girls (3.01–12.44 years old) to determine typical facial masculinity/femininity. The sexually dimorphic features were used to create a continuous ‘gender score’, indexing degree of facial masculinity. Gender scores based on 3D facial images were then compared for 54 autistic and 54 control boys (3.01–12.52 years old), and also for 20 autistic and 60 control girls (4.24–11.78 years). For each sex, increased facial masculinity was observed in the ASD group relative to control group. Further analyses revealed that increased facial masculinity in the ASD group correlated with more social-communication difficulties based on the Social Affect score derived from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale-Generic (ADOS-G). There was no association between facial masculinity and the derived Restricted and Repetitive Behaviours score. This is the first study demonstrating facial hypermasculinisation in ASD and its relationship to social-communication difficulties in prepubescent children.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 16-12-2013
DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2013.865512
Abstract: Auditory hallucinations occur in schizophrenia and also in the general population. However, evidence points to differences in the nature and the mechanisms of clinical and non-clinical hallucinations, challenging the dominant assumption that they represent the same phenomenon. The current study extended this evidence by examining voice identity perception in hallucination-prone in iduals. In schizophrenia, deficiencies discriminating between real (external) voices have been linked to basic acoustic cues, but voice discrimination has not yet been investigated in non-clinical hallucinations. Using a task identical to that employed in patients, multidimensional scaling of voice dissimilarity judgements was used to examine how healthy in iduals differing in hallucination-proneness (30 high and 30 low hallucination-prone in iduals) distinguish pairs of unfamiliar voices. The resulting dimensions were interpreted with reference to acoustic measures relevant to voice identity. A two-dimensional "voice space", defined by fundamental frequency (F0) and formant dispersion (Df), was derived for high and low hallucination-prone groups. There were no significant differences in speaker discrimination for high versus low hallucination-prone in iduals on the basis of either F0 or Df. These findings suggest voice identity perception is not impaired in healthy in iduals predisposed to hallucinations, adding a further challenge to the continuum model of psychotic symptoms.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-1988
DOI: 10.3758/BF03214229
Abstract: The Mre11/Rad50/NBN complex plays a central role in coordinating the cellular response to DNA double-strand breaks. The importance of Rad50 in that response is evident from the recent description of a patient with Rad50 deficiency characterized by chromosomal instability and defective ATM-dependent signaling. We report here that ATM (defective in ataxia-telangiectasia) phosphorylates Rad50 at a single site (Ser-635) that plays an important adaptor role in signaling for cell cycle control and DNA repair. Although a Rad50 phosphosite-specific mutant (S635G) supported normal activation of ATM in Rad50-deficient cells, it was defective in correcting DNA damage-induced signaling through the ATM-dependent substrate SMC1. This mutant also failed to correct radiosensitivity, DNA double-strand break repair, and an S-phase checkpoint defect in Rad50-deficient cells. This was not due to disruption of the Mre11/Rad50/NBN complex revealing for the first time that phosphorylation of Rad50 plays a key regulatory role as an adaptor for specific ATM-dependent downstream signaling through SMC1 for DNA repair and cell cycle checkpoint control in the maintenance of genome integrity.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-1985
DOI: 10.1177/016502548500800305
Abstract: The running memory span task and the fixed memory span task were administered to children aged 7 to 13 years under conditions which made them directly comparable. A probe task, consisting of a short string of digits embedded in a block of longer strings, was also used. The running probe task was argued to be a better measure of strategy-free span than the standard running task. The probe task showed age differences as great as with the fixed span task, and span was reduced by only about half an item over all ages. It is therefore concluded that strategies are not responsible for memory span development over this age range.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-11-2017
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.1895
Abstract: While neurotypical in iduals over-attend to the left-side of centrally-presented visual stimuli, this bias is reduced in in iduals with autism/high levels of autistic traits. Because this difference is hypothesized to reflect relative reductions in right-hemisphere activation, it follows that increasing right-hemisphere activation should increase leftward bias. We administered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right posterior parietal cortex to in iduals with low levels (n = 19) and high levels (n = 19) of autistic traits whilst they completed a greyscales task. Anodal tDCS increased leftward bias for high-trait, but not low-trait, in iduals, while cathodal tDCS had no effect. This outcome suggests that typical attentional patterns driven by hemispheric lateralization could potentially be restored following right-hemisphere stimulation in high-trait in iduals. Autism Res 2018, 11: 385-390. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Attentional differences between in iduals with and without autism may reflect differences in underlying activation of the left and right hemispheres. In this study, we combine an attentional task that reflects relative hemispheric activation with non-invasive cortical stimulation, and show that attentional differences between healthy in iduals with low and high levels of autistic-like traits can be reduced. This outcome is encouraging, and suggests that other aspects of attention in autism (e.g., face processing) may stand to benefit from similar stimulation techniques.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2005
DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.31.1.175
Abstract: According to several current models of short-term memory, items are retained in order by associating them with positional codes. The models differ as to whether temporal oscillators provide those codes. The authors examined errors in recall of sequences comprising 2 groups of 4 consonants. A critical manipulation was the precise timing of items within the groups, whereby temporal position (time from group onset) and ordinal position (number of items from group onset) were partially unconfounded. Errors that involve items migrating across groups should preserve within-group temporal position according to oscillator models, but should preserve within-group ordinal position according to nonoscillator models. Results from the intergroup errors strongly favored preservation of ordinal rather than temporal position.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-05-2013
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-013-1847-2
Abstract: Findings that a subgroup of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have linguistic capabilities that resemble specific language impairment (SLI) have led some authors to hypothesise that ASD and SLI have a shared aetiology. While considerable research has explored overlap in the language phenotypes of the two conditions, little research has examined possible overlap in cognitive characteristics. In this study, we explored nonword and sentence repetition performance, as well as performance on the Children's Embedded Figures Test (CEFT) for children with ASD or SLI. As expected, 'language impaired' children with ASD (ALI) and children with SLI performed worse than both 'language normal' ASD (ALN) and typically developing (TD) children on the nonword and sentence repetition tests. Further, the SLI children performed worse than all other groups on the CEFT. This finding supports distinct cognitive profiles in ASD and SLI and may provide further evidence for distinct aetiological mechanisms in the two conditions.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-2007
DOI: 10.1080/13546800701394329
Abstract: Intentional inhibition deficits have been found in hallucinating in iduals with schizophrenia using the Inhibition of Currently Irrelevant Memories (ICIM) task. This study sought to investigate whether similar difficulties are found in healthy in iduals predisposed to hallucinations. The Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale-Revised (LSHS-R) was completed by 589 undergraduate students, from which high- and low-predisposed groups were drawn. On the ICIM task, participants were asked to identify within-run picture repetitions, requiring them to inhibit memory traces of the same items seen in previous runs. Compared to the low LSHS-R group, the high LSHS-R group showed significantly increased false alarms on critical "inhibitory" runs (incorrectly identifying previous-run items as within-run repetitions), but no group differences were found in first-run false alarms or in the identification of within-run targets. These results were specific to hallucination predisposition and could not be explained by other schizophrenia-related characteristics. In iduals predisposed to hallucinations show subtle, though consistent difficulties with intentional inhibition similar to patients with hallucinations. These findings demonstrate a continuity of cognitive processes in in iduals predisposed to hallucinations and in patients with schizophrenia who hallucinate, consistent with a common neurodevelopmental pathway.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-07-2016
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.1658
Abstract: In iduals diagnosed with autistic spectrum conditions often show deficits in processing emotional faces relative to neurotypical peers. However, little is known about whether similar deficits exist in neurotypical in iduals who show high-levels of autistic-like traits. To address this question, we compared performance on an attentional blink task in a large s le of adults who showed low- or high-levels of autistic-like traits on the Autism Spectrum Quotient. We found that threatening faces inserted as the second target in a rapid serial visual presentation were identified more accurately among in iduals with low- compared to high-levels of autistic-like traits. This is the first study to show that attentional blink abnormalities seen in autism extend to the neurotypical population with autistic-like traits, adding to the growing body of research suggesting that autistic-related patterns of behaviors extend into a subset of the neurotypical population. Autism Res 2017, 10: 311-320. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-05-2010
DOI: 10.1111/J.1469-7610.2009.02203.X
Abstract: Several researchers have found evidence for impaired global processing in the dorsal visual stream in in iduals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, support for a similar pattern of visual processing in the ventral visual stream is less consistent. Critical to resolving the inconsistency is the assessment of local and global form processing ability. Within the visual domain, radial frequency (RF) patterns - shapes formed by sinusoidally varying the radius of a circle to add 'bumps' of a certain number to a circle - can be used to examine local and global form perception. Typically developing children and children with an ASD discriminated between circles and RF patterns that are processed either locally (RF24) or globally (RF3). Children with an ASD required greater shape deformation to identify RF3 shapes compared to typically developing children, consistent with difficulty in global processing in the ventral stream. No group difference was observed for RF24 shapes, suggesting intact local ventral-stream processing. These outcomes support the position that a deficit in global visual processing is present in ASDs, consistent with the notion of Weak Central Coherence.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2004
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 06-07-2011
DOI: 10.1002/ICD.740
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-12-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-022-25500-Y
Abstract: Evidence shows that participants performing a continuous visual categorization task respond slower following the presentation of a task-irrelevant sound deviating from an otherwise repetitive or predictable auditory context (deviant sound among standard sounds). Here, for the first time, we explored the role of the environmental context (instrumentalized as a task-irrelevant background picture) in this effect. In two experiments, participants categorized left/right arrows while ignoring irrelevant sounds and background pictures of forest and city scenes. While equiprobable across the task, sounds A and B were presented with probabilities of .882 and .118 in the forest context, respectively, and with the reversed probabilities in the city context. Hence, neither sound constituted a deviant sound at task-level, but each did within a specific context. In Experiment 1, where each environmental context (forest and city scene) consisted of a single picture each, participants were significantly slower in the visual task following the presentation of the sound that was unexpected within the current context (context-dependent distraction). Further analysis showed that the cognitive system reset its sensory predictions even for the first trial of a change in environmental context. In Experiment 2, the two contexts (forest and city) were implemented using sets of 32 pictures each, with the background picture changing on every trial. Here too, context-dependent deviance distraction was observed. However, participants took a trial to fully reset their sensory predictions upon a change in context. We conclude that irrelevant sounds are incidentally processed in association with the environmental context (even though these stimuli belong to different sensory modalities) and that sensory predictions are context-dependent.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2003
DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.39.4.646
Abstract: C. Jarrold, W. Butler, E. M. Cottington, and F. Jiminez (2000) proposed that weak central coherence is a primary cognitive deficit in autism and speculated that it may even account for theory of mind impairments. The current study investigated whether weak central coherence could account for deficits in 2 behaviors purported to tap capabilities fundamental to a theory of mind: joint attention and pretend play. Twenty-one children (ages 3-5 years) with autism spectrum disorders were matched to 21 control children on chronological age, nonverbal ability, and gender. Pretend play did not differentiate the groups. Weak central coherence, poor joint attention, and low verbal ability contributed significantly and independently to the prediction of autism group membership, a finding consistent with 3 independent cognitive deficits underlying autism.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-12-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-019-54813-8
Abstract: Although autistic and anxious traits are positively correlated, high levels of autistic traits are associated with poorer emotional guidance of attention (EGA) whilst high levels of anxious traits are associated with greater EGA. In order to better understand how these two trait dimensions influence EGA, we simultaneously examined the effects of anxiety and autistic traits in neurotypical adults on target identification in an attentional blink task. Analyses indicated that implicit EGA is attenuated in in iduals with higher levels of autistic traits, but largely unaffected by variation in anxious traits. Our results suggest that anxiety plays a comparatively limited role in modulating implicit EGA and reinforces the importance of disentangling correlated in idual differences when exploring the effects of personality, including emotional predisposition, on attention.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2010
DOI: 10.3758/APP.72.2.279
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-04-2017
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-017-3113-5
Abstract: Neurotypical in iduals display a leftward attentional bias, called pseudoneglect, for physical space (e.g. landmark task) and mental representations of space (e.g. mental number line bisection). However, leftward bias is reduced in autistic in iduals viewing faces, and neurotypical in iduals with autistic traits viewing 'greyscale' stimuli, suggestive of atypical lateralization of attention in autism. We investigated whether representational pseudoneglect for in iduals with autistic traits is similarly atypically lateralized by comparing biases on a greyscales, landmark, and mental number line task. We found that pseudoneglect was intact only on the representational measure, the mental number line task, suggesting that mechanisms for atypical lateralization of attention in in iduals with autistic traits are specific artefacts of processing physically visual stimuli.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-1996
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-0720(199604)10:2<105::AID-ACP367>3.0.CO;2-4
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 11-2009
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617709990609
Abstract: Impairments in intentional—but not unintentional—inhibition have been found in schizophrenia, and are thought to contribute to the presence of psychotic symptoms. However, it was previously unknown whether this intentional cognitive control impairment extends to intentional resistance to interference—another form of cognitive control. The current study resolved this issue through administering two cognitive control measures: one with a high intentional resistance to interference demand and the other with a high unintentional inhibition demand, to schizophrenia ( n = 61) and healthy control ( n = 34) participants. Consistent with previous findings, schizophrenia participants’ performance on the measures with a high unintentional inhibition demand was intact however, they were impaired on the task with high intentional resistance to interference demands compared with controls. This latter finding suggests that intentional cognitive control impairments previously found in schizophrenia are not specific to inhibition, but instead are more general, including both processes requiring inhibition (as consistently reported in the literature) and resistance to interference (as found in the current study). ( JINS , 2009, 15 , 982–989.)
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-03-2012
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-012-1506-Z
Abstract: The aim of this investigation was to explore the degree to which specific subsets of autistic-like traits relate to performance on the Embedded Figures Test (Witkin et al. in A manual for the embedded figures test. Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA, 1971). In the first group-based investigation with this focus, students were selected for their extreme scores (either high or low) on each of the 'Social Skills' and 'Details/Patterns' factors of the Autism Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen et al. in J Austim Dev Disord 31:5-17, 2001). The resulting 2 × 2 factorial design permitted examination of the degree to which the social and non-social autistic-like traits separately relate to EFT performance. Surprisingly, in two studies, superior EFT performance was found to relate only to greater social difficulty, suggesting that the local processing bias in autism may be linked specifically to the social deficits.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-01-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41398-020-0695-Z
Abstract: Autism spectrum disorder is a heritable neurodevelopmental condition diagnosed based on social and communication differences. There is strong evidence that cognitive and behavioural changes associated with clinical autism aggregate with biological relatives but in milder form, commonly referred to as the ‘broad autism phenotype’. The present study builds on our previous findings of increased facial masculinity in autistic children (Sci. Rep., 7:9348, 2017) by examining whether facial masculinity represents as a broad autism phenotype in 55 non-autistic siblings (25 girls) of autistic children. Using 3D facial photogrammetry and age-matched control groups of children without a family history of ASD, we found that facial features of male siblings were more masculine than those of male controls ( n = 69 p 0.001, d = 0.81 [0.36, 1.26]). Facial features of female siblings were also more masculine than the features of female controls ( n = 60 p = 0.005, d = 0.63 [0.16, 1.10]). Overall, we demonstrated for males and females that facial masculinity in non-autistic siblings is increased compared to same-sex comparison groups. These data provide the first evidence for a broad autism phenotype expressed in a physical characteristic, which has wider implications for our understanding of the interplay between physical and cognitive development in humans.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.VISRES.2014.08.015
Abstract: In iduals with autistic traits (measured with Autism-spectrum Quotient, AQ) often excel in detecting shapes hidden within complex structures (e.g. on the Embedded Figures Test, EFT). This facility has been attributed to either weaker global integration of scene elements or enhanced local processing, but 'local' and 'global' have various meanings in the literature. The function of specific global visual mechanisms involved in integrating contours, similar to EFT targets was examined. High AQ scorers produced enhanced performance on the EFT and an alternative Radial Frequency Search Task. Contrary to 'generic' interpretations of weaker global pooling, this group displayed stronger pooling of contour components that was correlated with search ability. This study therefore shows a global contour integration advantage in high AQ observers.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-04-2009
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-009-0740-5
Abstract: The current research investigated, firstly, whether in iduals with high levels of mild autistic-like traits display a similar profile of embedded figures test (EFT) and global motion performance to that seen in autism. Secondly, whether differences in EFT performance are related to enhanced local processing or reduced global processing in the ventral visual stream was also examined. Results indicated that people who scored high on the Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) were faster to identify embedded figures, and had poorer global motion and global form thresholds than low AQ scorers. However, the two groups did not differ on a task assessing lower-level input to the ventral stream. Overall the results indicate that in iduals with high levels of autistic-like traits have difficulties with global integration in the visual pathways, which may at least partly explain their superior EFT performance.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 11-2016
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000257
Abstract: Radial Frequency (RF) patterns are a useful stimulus for assessing sensitivity to changes in shape. With these patterns it is possible to separate sensitivity to local curvature information from the ability to globally integrate information around the contour. Previous work has demonstrated that young, school-age children are less sensitive to deformation in RF patterns than adults. However, since the efficiency of contour integration was not assessed, age-related differences in performance could arise from either changes in the strength of global pooling of information, the sensitivity to local curvature information, or both. In this study, psychophysical methods were used to reassess changes in sensitivity to RF patterns, separating changes in sensitivity to local curvature information from changes in contour integration strength. Typically developing observers (aged 6-24, N = 104) were tested using a 2-alternative forced-choice discrimination task with either 1, 2 or 3 cycles of sinusoidal modulation in a pattern of fixed RF. Thresholds were lower for older observers but the rate of change, as more modulation cycles were added, was approximately constant across age. The results indicate that changes in sensitivity to RF3 patterns across age are due to changes in local curvature sensitivity and not to the strength of contour integration. (PsycINFO Database Record
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 23-03-2015
DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2015.1021907
Abstract: Hallucinations in schizophrenia and hallucination proneness in healthy young adults are associated with a common cognitive mechanism, namely impaired inhibitory control. Hallucinatory-like experiences also seem related to hypomanic symptoms in non-clinical participants however, the mechanisms involved are unknown. We sought to examine self-reported hallucinatory/anomalous perceptual experiences in students selected for high versus low levels of hypomanic personality traits, and whether hypomania is characterised by deficient inhibitory control. Undergraduate students with either high (n = 26) or low (n = 28) scores on the Hypomanic Personality Scale-Revised (HPS-20) were compared on: (1) the Launay Slade Hallucination Scale-Revised (LSHS-R), a measure of hallucination proneness, (2) the Cardiff Anomalous Perceptions Scale (CAPS) and (3) the Inhibition of Currently Irrelevant Memories (ICIM) task, an index of intentional inhibition. The high HPS group had higher total scores, as well as higher frequency (on CAPS only), intrusiveness and distress (CAPS) scores compared to the low HPS group. They also produced significantly more false alarms on the second run of the ICIM task than the low hypomania traits group. Frequent, intrusive and distressing perceptual anomalies and proneness to hallucinations tend to occur in healthy in iduals with hypomanic personality traits and may be associated with transient difficulties with inhibitory control. Inhibitory control may be a cognitive marker of vulnerability to hallucinations across diagnostic boundaries.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-04-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-023-05977-W
Abstract: The Repetitive Behaviours Questionnaire for Adults (RBQ-2A) measures two factors of restricted and repetitive behaviours (RRBs) associated with autism. However, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) provides four criteria for RRBs: repetitive motor behaviours, insistence on sameness, restricted interests, and interest in sensory aspects of the environment (or atypical sensitivity). The current paper aimed to examine whether the RBQ-2A is a psychometrically sound measure of these four factors. Study 1 had university students ( N = 368) complete the RBQ-2A and other related measures online and revealed that the RBQ-2A can assess the factors highlighted in the DSM-5 and that these four factors comprise a general RRB construct. Study 2 had in iduals disclosing a diagnosis of autism ( N = 283) complete the RBQ-2A and other related measures online and supported that this four-factor structure provided good psychometric properties. While the current paper provides findings for an online autistic population, further research is needed to generalize these findings to autistic in iduals less likely to partake in online studies (e.g., those with intellectual or language disabilities). Overall, the results suggest that the RBQ-2A reliably and validly assesses RRBs.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2005
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA.2004.10.003
Abstract: Frith and Happe (Frith, U., & Happe, F. (1994). Autism: Beyond theory of mind. Cognition, 50, 115-132) argue that in iduals with autism exhibit 'weak central coherence': an inability to integrate elements of information into coherent wholes. Some authors have speculated that a high-level impairment might be present in the dorsal visual pathway in autism, and furthermore, that this might account for weak central coherence, at least at the visuospatial level. We assessed the integrity of the dorsal visual pathway in children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and in typically developing children, using two visual tasks, one examining functioning at higher levels of the dorsal cortical stream (Global Dot Motion (GDM)), and the other assessing lower-level dorsal stream functioning (Flicker Contrast Sensitivity (FCS)). Central coherence was tested using the Children's Embedded Figures Test (CEFT). Relative to the typically developing children, the children with ASD had shorter CEFT latencies and higher GDM thresholds but equivalent FCS thresholds. Additionally, CEFT latencies were inversely related to GDM thresholds in the ASD group. These outcomes indicate that the elevated global motion thresholds in autism are the result of high-level impairments in dorsal cortical regions. Weak visuospatial coherence in autism may be in the form of abnormal cooperative mechanisms in extra-striate cortical areas, which might contribute to differential performance when processing stimuli as Gestalts, including both dynamic (i.e., global motion perception) and static (i.e., disembedding performance) stimuli.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-05-2023
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.2956
Abstract: Most in iduals show a small bias towards visual stimuli presented in their left visual field (LVF) that reflects right‐hemispheric specialization of visuospatial functions. Moreover, this bias is altered by some neurodevelopmental disorders, suggesting they may be linked to changes in hemispheric asymmetry. To examine whether autism potentially alters hemispheric asymmetry, we conducted a systematic search of scientific databases to review existing literature on the link between autism and alterations in visuospatial bias. This search identified 13 publications that had explored this issue using a wide range of experimental designs and stimuli. Evidence of reduced LVF bias associated with autism was most consistent for studies examining attentional bias or preference measured using tasks such as line bisection. Findings for studies examining attentional performance (e.g., reaction time) were more equivocal. Further investigation is called for, and we make several recommendations for how this avenue of research can be extended.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-03-2011
DOI: 10.1111/J.1469-8749.2011.03915.X
Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine whether gastrointestinal problems in early childhood relate to autistic-like traits in a general population s le. The parents of 804 children (442 females 362 males) reported at 1-, 2-, 3-, and 5-year follow-ups whether their child had been taken to a hospital, general practitioner, or health clinic for any of five gastrointestinal symptoms: (1) constipation (2) diarrhoea (3) abdominal bloating, discomfort, or irritability (4) gastro-oesophageal reflux or vomiting and (5) feeding issues or food selectivity. Parents also reported whether their child had received the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination. Autistic-like traits were measured when the children had reached early adulthood (mean age 19 y 7 mo SD 0.63 y) using a self-report questionnaire, the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). There was no statistically significant difference in AQ scores between those who had (n=133) and those who had not (n=671) experienced early gastrointestinal symptoms. χ(2) analyses revealed that the children with early gastrointestinal problems were no more likely to be represented in the upper quintile of scores on any of the AQ scales. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination was unrelated to gastrointestinal symptoms or AQ scores. Parent-reported gastrointestinal problems in early childhood are unrelated to self-reported autistic-like traits in the general population.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2013
DOI: 10.1016/J.BIOPSYCHO.2012.10.016
Abstract: Prenatal exposure to testosterone is known to affect fetal brain maturation and later neurocognitive function. However, research on the effects of prenatal testosterone exposure has been limited by indirect measures of testosterone and small unrepresentative s les. This study investigated whether bioavailable testosterone (BioT) concentrations in umbilical cord blood are associated with expressive vocabulary development, in a large birth cohort. Cord blood s les were taken immediately after delivery and expressive vocabulary was measured at two years of age using the language development survey (LDS). BioT concentration significantly predicted vocabulary size in males (n=197), such that higher concentrations were associated with lower LDS scores, indicating smaller vocabulary. This relationship between BioT concentrations and vocabulary at aged 2 years was not observed in girls (n=176). Higher circulating prenatal testosterone concentrations at birth may be associated with reduced vocabulary in early childhood among boys.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 09-03-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-05-2021
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-021-05086-6
Abstract: People on the autism spectrum may have difficulty inferring others' emotions (cognitive empathy), but may share another's emotions (affective empathy) and exhibit heightened personal distress. The present study examined independent autistic trait dimensions (social difficulties and restricted/repetitive behaviours) and the roles alexithymia and trait anxiety have in explaining this profile of empathy. Results from the general population (n = 301) revealed that pronounced social difficulties and not restricted/repetitive behaviours related to reduced cognitive and affective empathy, and heightened personal distress. However, both dimensions, through alexithymia and anxiety, indirectly influenced empathy. Surprisingly, while the dimensions indirectly improved affective empathy, pronounced social difficulties directly reduced affective empathy. This study motivates a nuanced model of empathy by including autistic trait dimensions, anxiety, and alexithymia.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-10-2008
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-008-0658-3
Abstract: Although there is good evidence that the behavioral traits of autism extend in lesser form to the general population, there has been limited investigation of whether cognitive features of the disorder also accompany these milder traits. This study investigated whether the superiority in visuospatial analysis established for in iduals with autism also extends to in iduals in the general population who self-report autistic-like traits. In an initial study, students scoring high on the Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) were faster and more accurate on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) and the Block Design subscale of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale III compared to those scoring low on the AQ. A second study showed that high AQ scorers were faster to complete the EFT compared to low AQ scorers irrespective of IQ. Results are discussed with reference to weak central coherence theory and the autism spectrum.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 11-08-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-1998
Abstract: Five experiments were performed to test whether participants induced a coherent representation of the structure of a task, called a relational schema, from specific instances. Properties of a relational schema include: An explicit symbol for a relation, a binding that preserves the truth of a relation, potential for higher-order relations, omnidirectional access, potential for transfer between isomorphs, and ability to predict unseen items in isomorphic problems. However relational schemas are not necessarily coded in abstract form. Predictions from relational schema theory were contrasted with predictions from configural learning and other nonstructural theories in five experiments in which participants were taught a structure comprised of a set of initial-state,operator-->end-state instances. The initial-state,operator pairs were presented and participants had to predict the correct end-state. Induction of a relational schema was achieved efficiently by adult participants as indicated by ability to predict items of a new isomorphic problem. The relational schemas induced showed the omnidirectional access property, there was efficient transfer to isomorphs, and structural coherence had a powerful effect on learning. The "learning to learn" effect traditionally associated with the learning set literature was observed, and the long-standing enigma of learning set acquisition is explained by a model composed of relational schema induction and structure mapping. Performance was better after reversal of operators than after shift to an alternate structure, even though the latter entailed more overlap with previously learned tasks in terms of the number of configural associations that were preserved. An explanation for the reversal shift phenomenon in terms of induction and mapping of a relational schema is proposed. The five experiments provided evidence supporting predictions from relational schema theory, and no evidence was found for configural or nonstructural learning theories.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-06-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2019
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 05-07-2023
DOI: 10.1017/S0033291723001721
Abstract: Few studies have examined associations between gender non-conformity (GNC) in childhood or adolescence and mental health outcomes later in life. This study examined associations between (1) GNC and mental health over multiple time points in childhood and adolescence, and (2) GNC in childhood and/or adolescence and mental health in adulthood. Second generation participants from the Raine Study, a longitudinal cohort from Perth, Western Australia. Data were collected between 1995 and 2018, comprising seven waves: ages 5 ( N = 2236), 8 ( N = 2140), 10 ( N = 2048), 14 ( N = 1864), 17 ( N = 1726), 22 ( N = 1236) and 27 ( N = 1190) years. History of GNC, v. absence of this history, was based on responses to item 110 from the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL)/Youth Self Report (YSR) (‘wishes to be of opposite sex’). The CBCL/YSR were used to measure internalising and externalising symptoms. Items 18 (‘deliberate self-harm [DSH] or attempts suicide’) and 91 (‘talks/thinks about killing self’) were used as measures of suicidal ideation (SI) and DSH. For adults, Depression, Anxiety and Stress Subscales and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale assessed mental health. Child and adolescent GNC was associated with elevated internalising and externalising behaviours and increased odds of DSH. A history of GNC was also associated with vulnerability for severe psychological distress in adulthood in some symptom scales. GNC over the child and adolescent period is associated with significant emotional and behavioural difficulties, and psychological distress. A history of GNC in childhood and/or adolescence also predicts poorer mental health in adulthood on multiple symptom domains.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-06-2019
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.2161
Abstract: A key research priority in the study of autism spectrum conditions (ASC) is the discovery of biological markers that may help to identify and elucidate etiologically distinct subgroups. One physical marker that has received increasing research attention is facial structure. Although there remains little consensus in the field, findings relating to greater facial asymmetry (FA) in ASC exhibit some consistency. As there is growing recognition of the importance of replicatory studies in ASC research, the aim of this study was to investigate the replicability of increased FA in autistic children compared to nonautistic peers. Using three-dimensional photogrammetry, this study examined FA in 84 autistic children, 110 typically developing children with no family history of the condition, and 49 full siblings of autistic children. In support of previous literature, significantly greater depth-wise FA was identified in autistic children relative to the two comparison groups. As a further investigation, increased lateral FA in autistic children was found to be associated with greater severity of ASC symptoms on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, second edition, specifically related to repetitive and restrictive behaviors. These outcomes provide an important and independent replication of increased FA in ASC, as well as a novel contribution to the field. Having confirmed the direction and areas of increased FA in ASC, these findings could motivate a search for potential underlying brain dysmorphogenesis. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1774-1783. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: This study looked at the amount of facial asymmetry (FA) in autistic children compared to typically developing children and children who have siblings with autism. The study found that autistic children, compared to the other two groups, had greater FA, and that increased FA was related to greater severity of autistic symptoms. The face and brain grow together during the earliest stages of development, and so findings of facial differences in autism might inform future studies of early brain differences associated with the condition.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2011
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-04-2005
DOI: 10.1111/J.1469-7610.2004.00380.X
Abstract: Frith and Happé (1994) describe central coherence (CC) as the normal tendency to integrate in idual elements into a coherent whole, a cognitive style which varies in the general population. In iduals with autism are at the extreme (weak) end of the continuum of coherence. There has been debate over whether CC is independent from other psychological functions such as theory of mind and executive control. We examined the validity of the CC construct in 76 typically developing 4- and 5-year-old children using four visuospatial coherence tasks. We also investigated the extent to which in idual differences in performance on CC measures were associated with in idual differences on measures of mindreading and executive functioning (EF). Unexpectedly, the CC variables were not highly intercorrelated and did not form a single coherence factor. Instead, the results revealed a two-factor structure, one of which corresponded to visuospatial constructional ability. Correlations between the emerging factors of coherence and mindreading ability were weak, even when developmental differences in age and verbal and nonverbal ability were taken into account. In contrast, visuospatial constructional ability was reliably related to measures of EF, whilst correlations between EF and the second CC factor were very weak. CC in typically developing preschoolers is not a unitary construct. Whilst there is little relationship between CC and mindreading abilities in these young children, executive control appears to be associated with one aspect of coherence: visuospatial construction.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-2006
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 06-09-2022
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0274188
Abstract: It has been established that participants performing a continuous categorization task respond significantly slower following the presentation of unexpected, task-irrelevant, auditory stimuli, compared to a repetitive (standard) sound. Evidence indicates that such distraction emerges because of the violation of sensory predictions. This has typically been studied by measuring the impact of replacing the repeated sound by a different sound on rare and unpredictable trials. Here, we examine the impact of a different type of violation: the mere omission of the standard sound. Capitalizing upon the recent finding that deviant sounds exert distinct effects on response times as a function of whether participants produced or withheld a response on the previous trial, we present the results of an experiment seeking to disentangle two potential effects of sound omission: deviance distraction and the removal of an unspecific warning signal. The results indicate that deviant sound and the unexpected omission of the standard sound impact response times through, at least partially, distinct mechanisms. Deviant sounds affect performance by triggering the orienting of attention towards a new sensory input. Sound omissions, in contrast, appear to affect performance in part because responses no longer benefit from an unspecific warning signal to prepare for action.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-07-2012
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-012-1614-9
Abstract: Crespi and Badcock's (Behaviour Brain Sci 31: 241-261, 2008) novel theory, which presents autism and positive schizophrenia as diametrical opposites on a cognitive continuum, has received mixed support in the literature to date. The current study aimed to further assess the validity of this theory by investigating predictions in relation to empathizing and systemizing. Specifically, it is predicted by Crespi and Badcock that while mild autistic traits should be associated with a cognitive profile of superior mechanistic cognition (which overlaps with systemizing) but reduced mentalistic cognition (which overlaps with empathizing), positive schizotypy traits should be associated with the opposite profile of superior mentalistic but reduced mechanistic cognition. These predictions were tested in a student s le using a battery of self-report and behavioural measures. The pattern of results obtained provides no support for Crespi and Badcock's theory.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 04-2002
DOI: 10.1080/02724980143000343
Abstract: The nature of the mechanisms that code item position in serial short-term verbal recall was investigated with reference to temporal grouping phenomena—effects that arise when additional pauses are inserted in a presented list to form groups of items. Several recent models attempt to explain these phenomena by assuming that positional information is retained by associating items with contextual information. According to two of the models—the Phonological Loop model (Hitch, Burgess, Towse, & Culpin, 1996) and the OSCAR model (Brown, Preece, & Hulme, 2000)—contextual information depends critically on the timing of item presentation with reference to group onset. By contrast, according to the Start-End model (Henson, 1998) and a development from it, which we label the Oscillator-Revised Start-End model (Henson & Burgess, 1997), contextual information is independent of time from group onset. Three experiments examined whether coding of position is time dependent. The critical manipulation was to vary stimulus-onset asynchrony from one group to the next in the same list. Lists of consonants were presented visually, but with vocalization in Experiment 1, auditorily in Experiment 2, and auditorily with articulatory suppression in Experiment 3. The pattern of order errors consistently favoured the predictions of the time-independent models over those of the time-dependent models in that across-group transpositions reflected within-group serial position rather than time from group onset. Errors involving intrusions from previous lists also reflected within-group serial position, thereby extending support for the time-independent models.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-07-2016
DOI: 10.1002/AUR.1518
Abstract: Numerous studies have observed that a proportion of infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience accelerated head growth during the first years of life. An emerging methodology for examining the developmental trajectory prior to a diagnosis of ASD is to investigate siblings of affected in iduals. The current study is the first prospective investigation of fetal growth in siblings of children with ASD. Two groups of pregnant women were recruited as part of the PRegnancy Investigation of Siblings and Mothers of children with autism cohort in Perth, Western Australia. The "high risk" group (n = 23) comprised pregnant women who have an existing child with a diagnosis of ASD and the "low risk" group (n = 36) comprised pregnant mothers who have an existing child who has developed typically. Prenatal ultrasounds were procured at multiple time-points throughout the second- and third-trimesters, enabling an examination of growth trajectories. Growth measurements were then compared for the high- and low-risk fetuses. Mixed linear regression models identified no significant differences between the high- and low-risk fetuses in the rate of prenatal head and body growth throughout the second- and third-trimester (all P-values >0.05). Similarly, there were no significant differences observed when comparing high and low risk groups on a ratio of head circumference relative to body size (β = -0.019, P = 0.75). Future studies may consider looking beyond the macro architecture of the prenatal brain and examine the growth of brain subregions that have been implicated in the presentation of ASD symptoms.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2201
DOI: 10.1016/S1388-2457(00)00257-1
Abstract: The present experiment examined the ERP correlates of response inhibition to elemental and configural Nogo stimuli in a Go/Nogo task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while 8 subjects completed a visual Go/Nogo task. Nogo stimuli required the inhibition of a response to stimuli that differed from Go stimuli (A+, B+) either on the basis of each of two physical features (elemental Nogo stimuli CD-) or on the basis of the conjunction of features represented in the Go stimuli (configural Nogo stimuli AB-). Behavioural data and ERP component measures ( litude and latency) were analysed using analysis of variance. An enhanced N2 component and an enhanced fronto-centrally distributed P3 component were elicited following elemental Nogo stimuli relative to Go stimuli, consistent with a number of studies examining ERPs during Go/Nogo tasks. In contrast, an enhanced late frontal negative arietal positive slow wave was elicited following configural Nogo stimuli relative to Go stimuli. These results cast doubt on the interpretation of the N2 enhancement as reflecting response inhibition processes per se. The pattern of results was interpreted as providing support for the unique cue model of learning rather than the configural model of learning and was discussed in the context of a recent model of executive functioning.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2006
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-01-2006
DOI: 10.1002/AJMG.B.30267
Abstract: Non-autistic relatives of people with autistic disorder have an increased risk of social and communicative difficulties: this is known as the "broad phenotype." Better methods for characterizing the broad phenotype are needed to facilitate identification of risk genes for autism. 29 siblings of 20 children with autistic disorder, 13 siblings of 9 children with PDDNOS, and 46 typically developing control children from 26 families were assessed by parental report using the Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2). Groups were matched on age and IQ and siblings with autism were excluded. Group mean scores on the CCC-2 differed on only one subscale, syntax. However, siblings of children with autism or PDDNOS were over-represented in the tails of the distributions of several scales, and 10 (24%) scored more than 2 SD below the control mean on a total score based on all 10 subscales. Only two of these 10 children scored above threshold on one or more scales of the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). Children with abnormal scores on the CCC-2 total were characterized by low-verbal IQ and their fathers tended to score high on the social and communication scales of the Autism Quotient, a measure of the broad phenotype in adults. The CCC-2 shows promise as a quick screening device for the broad phenotype in non-autistic siblings of children with autism.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 21-05-2014
DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2014.918090
Abstract: Depression has been found to be related to neurocognitive deficits in areas important to successful prospective memory (PM) performance, including executive function, attention, and retrospective memory. However, research specific to depression and PM has produced a mixed pattern of results. The current study further examined the task conditions in which event-based PM deficits may emerge in in iduals with high depressive symptomatology (HDS) relative to in iduals with low depressive symptomatology (LDS) and the capacity of HDS in iduals to allocate attentional resources to event-based PM tasks. Sixty-four participants (32 HDS, 32 LDS) were required to make a PM response when target words were presented during an ongoing lexical decision task. When the importance of the ongoing task was emphasized, response time costs to the ongoing task, and PM accuracy, did not differ between the HDS and LDS groups. This finding is consistent with previous research demonstrating that event-based PM task accuracy is not always impaired by depression, even when the PM task is resource demanding. When the importance of the PM task was emphasized, costs to the ongoing task further increased for both groups, indicating an increased allocation of attentional resources to the PM task. Crucially, while a corresponding improvement in PM accuracy was observed in the LDS group when the importance of the PM task was emphasized, this was not true for the HDS group. The lack of improved PM accuracy in the HDS group compared with the LDS group despite evidence of increased cognitive resources allocated to PM tasks may have been due to inefficiency in the application of the allocated attention, a dimension likely related to executive function difficulties in depression. Qualitatively different resource allocation patterns may underlie PM monitoring in HDS versus LDS in iduals.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.EARLHUMDEV.2014.12.011
Abstract: Ratio of second digit length to fourth digit length (2D:4D) has been extensively used in human and experimental research as a marker of fetal sex steroid exposure. However, very few human studies have measured the direct relationship between fetal androgen or estrogen concentrations and digit ratio. We investigated the relationships between both androgen and estrogen concentrations in umbilical cord blood and digit ratio in young adulthood. In addition we calculated measures of total serum androgen and total estrogen bioactivity and investigated their relationship to digit ratio. Prospective cohort study. An unselected subset of the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (159 female 182 male). Cord serum s les were collected immediately after delivery. S les were assayed for androgen (testosterone, Δ4-androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone) and estrogen (estrone, estradiol, estriol, estetrol) concentrations using liquid-chromatography mass-spectrometry. Digit ratio measurements were taken from hand photocopies at age 19-22years. For both males and females, there were no significant correlations between digit ratio and any androgen or estrogen concentrations considered in idually, the testosterone to estradiol ratio, total androgen bioactivity measure or ratio of androgen to estrogen bioactivity (all p>.05). In males, but not females, total estrogen bioactivity was negatively correlated with left hand digit ratio (r=-.172, p=.02), but this relationship was no longer significant when adjusted for variables known to affect sex steroid concentrations in cord blood. Our findings indicate that digit ratio is not related to fetal androgens or estrogens at late gestation.
Publisher: American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
Date: 15-02-2004
DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-03-0112
Abstract: Purpose: To determine whether estrogen receptor (ER)-α specifically phosphorylated at Ser118 is detectable in multiple human breast cancer biopsy s les. To gain insight into possible roles for P-Ser118-ERα in human breast cancer in vivo. Experimental Design: A specific antibody for P-Ser118-ERα was validated for immunohistochemistry (IHC), and Western blot analysis confirmed IHC results. IHC was used to determine the relationship of P-Ser118-ERα to known prognostic markers and active mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK erk1/2) expression. Results: P-Ser118-ERα was significantly correlated with the expression of total ER, determined by ligand binding assay (r = 0.442, P = 0.002), but not with progesterone receptor expression or nodal status. P-Ser118-ERα was inversely correlated with histological grade (r = −0.34, P = 0.023), reflecting a similar trend for total ER (r = −0.287, P = 0.056). Categorical contingency analysis confirmed that P-Ser118-ERα was more frequently associated with lower than higher grade breast tumors (P = 0.038). In addition P-Ser118-ERα was significantly associated with detection of active MAPK (Erk1/2 Spearman r = 0.649, P & 0.0001 Fisher’s exact test, P = 0.0004). Conclusions: P-Ser118-ERα detection is associated with a more differentiated phenotype and other markers of good prognosis in human breast cancer. P-Ser118-ERα is correlated with active MAPK in human breast tumor biopsies, suggesting the possibility that active MAPK either directly or indirectly has a role in the regulation of P-Ser118-ERα expression in vivo. These data provide evidence for a role of P-Ser118-ERα in human breast cancer in vivo.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2013
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 19-06-2020
Abstract: ‘High functioning autism’ is a term often used for in iduals with autism spectrum disorder without an intellectual disability. Over time, this term has become synonymous with expectations of greater functional skills and better long-term outcomes, despite contradictory clinical observations. This study investigated the relationship between adaptive behaviour, cognitive estimates (intelligence quotient) and age at diagnosis in autism spectrum disorder. Participants ( n = 2225, 1–18 years of age) were notified at diagnosis to a prospective register and grouped by presence ( n = 1041) or absence ( n = 1184) of intellectual disability. Functional abilities were reported using the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales. Regression models suggested that intelligence quotient was a weak predictor of Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales after controlling for sex. Whereas the intellectual disability group’s adaptive behaviour estimates were close to reported intelligence quotients, Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales scores fell significantly below intelligence quotients for children without intellectual disability. The gap between intelligence quotient and Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales scores remained large with increasing age at diagnosis for all children. These data indicate that estimates from intelligence quotient alone are an imprecise proxy for functional abilities when diagnosing autism spectrum disorder, particularly for those without intellectual disability. We argue that ‘high functioning autism’ is an inaccurate clinical descriptor when based solely on intelligence quotient demarcations and this term should be abandoned in research and clinical practice.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-04-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2004
DOI: 10.3758/BF03196602
Abstract: Grouping effects in serial recall have been widely studied with verbal stimuli, but hardly ever with spatial stimuli and not at all with auditory spatial stimuli. In Experiment 1, we examined the influence of combined temporal and pitch grouping on recall of the locations from which bursts of white noise were presented. Similar to findings in verbal studies, effects of the grouping manipulation were found in performance accuracy, in the nature of order errors, and in the timing of responses. Experiment 2 was designed to distinguish the role played by pitch grouping from that played by temporal grouping, through independent manipulation of the presence of a shift in pitch and that of a temporal gap. The results showed that the temporal grouping manipulation determined performance and the pitch grouping manipulation did not. Similarities between our findings and those of verbal studies, and implications for the understanding of serial memory are discussed.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2003
DOI: 10.1016/S0920-9964(02)00358-4
Abstract: The study investigated whether auditory hallucinations (AH) in schizophrenia are linked to a deficit in inhibition. Two tasks assessing the intentional suppression of cognitive events-the Hayling Sentence Completion Test (HSCT) [Neuropsychologia 34 (1996) 263] and the Inhibition of Currently Irrelevant Memories Task (ICIM) [Nature Neuroscience 2 (1999) 677]-were administered to 42 patients with schizophrenia and 24 normal controls. Presence and severity of symptoms in the patient group were examined using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Patients performed significantly worse on the measures of inhibition compared to controls. More importantly, among patients, significant positive correlations were obtained between an index of AH severity (defined as an increase in frequency of AH on PANSS) and the number of type A errors on the HSCT and errors in the last three runs of the ICIM. An increase in AH severity was, therefore, associated with increasingly impaired control of intentional inhibition. Furthermore, no significant correlations were found between these indices of inhibition and either negative, general or positive symptoms (excluding AH scores).
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 07-10-2015
Abstract: Prenatal testosterone may have a powerful masculinizing effect on postnatal physical characteristics. However, no study has directly tested this hypothesis. Here, we report a 20-year follow-up study that measured testosterone concentrations from the umbilical cord blood of 97 male and 86 female newborns, and procured three-dimensional facial images on these participants in adulthood (range: 21–24 years). Twenty-three Euclidean and geodesic distances were measured from the facial images and an algorithm identified a set of six distances that most effectively distinguished adult males from females. From these distances, a ‘gender score’ was calculated for each face, indicating the degree of masculinity or femininity. Higher cord testosterone levels were associated with masculinized facial features when males and females were analysed together ( n = 183 r = −0.59), as well as when males ( n = 86 r = −0.55) and females ( n = 97 r = −0.48) were examined separately ( p -values 0.001). The relationships remained significant and substantial after adjusting for potentially confounding variables. Adult circulating testosterone concentrations were available for males but showed no statistically significant relationship with gendered facial morphology ( n = 85, r = 0.01, p = 0.93). This study provides the first direct evidence of a link between prenatal testosterone exposure and human facial structure.
Publisher: ISCA
Date: 25-10-2020
Publisher: Hogrefe Publishing Group
Date: 1996
DOI: 10.1027/1015-5759.12.1.14
Abstract: The aim of the present paper was to test the effects of response mode (choice vs. judgment) on decision-making strategies when subjects were faced with the task of deciding the adequacy of a set of tests for a specific assessment situation. Compared with choice, judgment was predicted to lead to more information sought, more time spent on the task, a less variable pattern of search, and a greater amount of interdimensional search. Three variables hypothesized as potential moderators of the response mode effects are also studied: time pressure, information load and decision importance. Using an information board, 300 subjects made decisions (choices and judgments) on tests for a concrete assessment situation, under high or low time pressure, high or low information load, and high or low decision importance. Response mode produced strong effects on all measures of decision behavior except for pattern of search. Moderator effects occurred for time pressure and information load.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-04-2006
DOI: 10.1111/J.1469-7610.2006.01624.X
Abstract: Three experiments investigated the role of inner speech deficit in cognitive performances of children with autism. Experiment 1 compared children with autism with ability-matched controls on a verbal recall task presenting pictures and words. Experiment 2 used pictures for which the typical names were either single syllable or multisyllable. Two encoding conditions manipulated the use of verbal encoding. Experiment 3 employed a task-switching paradigm for which performance has been shown to be contingent upon inner speech. In Experiment 1, children with autism demonstrated a lower picture-superiority effect compared to controls. In Experiment 2, the children with autism showed a lower word-length effect when pictures were presented alone, but a more substantial word-length effect in a condition requiring overt labelling. In Experiment 3, articulatory suppression affected the task-switching performance of the control participants only. In iduals with autism have limitations in their use of inner speech.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 10-2014
DOI: 10.1017/S135561771400085X
Abstract: Bigler (2012) and Larrabee (2012) recently addressed the state of the science surrounding performance validity tests (PVTs) in a dialogue highlighting evidence for the valid and increased use of PVTs, but also for unresolved problems. Specifically, Bigler criticized the lack of guidance from neurocognitive processing theory in the PVT literature. For ex le, in idual PVTs have applied the simultaneous forced-choice methodology using a variety of test characteristics (e.g., word vs . picture stimuli) with known neurocognitive processing implications (e.g., the “picture superiority effect”). However, the influence of such variations on classification accuracy has been inadequately evaluated, particularly among cognitively impaired in iduals. The current review places the PVT literature in the context of neurocognitive processing theory, and identifies potential methodological factors to account for the significant variability we identified in classification accuracy across current PVTs. We subsequently evaluated the utility of a well-known cognitive manipulation to provide a Clinical Analogue Methodology (CAM), that is, to alter the PVT performance of healthy in iduals to be similar to that of a cognitively impaired group. Initial support was found, suggesting the CAM may be useful alongside other approaches (analogue malingering methodology) for the systematic evaluation of PVTs, particularly the influence of specific neurocognitive processing components on performance. ( JINS , 2014, 20 , 873–886)
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-2005
DOI: 10.1080/13546800344000363
Abstract: The frequency of auditory hallucinations (AH) is associated with efficiency in inhibiting irrelevant memories, suggesting that the presence of AH may be related to the intrusion of strongly activated representations in memory. Therefore, we hypothesised that the inability to suppress irrelevant memories would be found only in patients currently experiencing AH. Performance on a repeated, continuous recognition task was examined in 23 schizophrenia patients with AH present, 20 schizophrenia patients with AH absent, and 24 healthy controls. Patients with current AH made significantly more inappropriate responses (false alarms) to distractors seen on previous runs of the task than nonhallucinating patients. The ability to detect targets (hits) was significantly better in healthy controls than schizophrenia patients, however, there was no significant difference between the two patient subgroups. The findings confirm that the presence of AH involves a failure to suppress memories that are not relevant to ongoing reality. We propose that a combination of deficits in inhibition and (episodic) memory provides a useful model of AH, which can accommodate many of the characteristic features of the symptom and fits well with the neuroanatomical circuitry that is believed to underlie the occurrence of AH.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 05-2004
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-04-2013
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-013-1838-3
Abstract: Extensive empirical evidence indicates that the lesser variant of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) involves a communication impairment that is similar to, but milder than, the deficit in clinical ASD. This research explored the relationship between the broader autism phenotype (BAP) among parents, an index of genetic liability for ASD, and proband communication difficulties. ASD probands with at least one BAP parent (identified using the Autism Spectrum Quotient) had greater structural and pragmatic language difficulties (assessed using the Children's Communication Checklist-2) than ASD probands with no BAP parent. This finding provides support for the position that genetic liability for ASD is associated with increased communication difficulties across structural and pragmatic domains.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-06-2016
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-016-2832-3
Abstract: People with autism show superior performance to controls on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT). However, studies examining the relationship between autistic-like traits and EFT performance in neurotypical in iduals have yielded inconsistent findings. To examine the inconsistency, a meta-analysis was conducted of studies that (a) compared high and low Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) groups, and (b) treated AQ as a continuous variable. Outcomes are consistent with superior visual search forming part of the broader autism phenotype, but in existing literature, this is evident only when comparing extreme groups. Reanalysis of data from previous studies suggests findings are unlikely to be driven by a small number of high scorers. Monte Carlo simulations are used to illustrate the effect of methodological differences on results.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 14-06-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2014
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-02-2012
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-012-1456-5
Abstract: There is debate regarding the relationship between autism and specific language impairment (SLI), with some researchers proposing aetiological overlap between the conditions and others maintaining their aetiological distinction. Although considerable research has investigated the language phenotypes of these disorders, the relationship between the cognitive phenotypes has been left relatively unexplored. This paper reviews relevant literature on whether in iduals with SLI exhibit cognitive characteristics reminiscent of autism. Overall, findings are inconsistent and there is a lack of substantive evidence supporting overlapping cognitive phenotypes in autism and SLI. Better powered and more rigorous experimental designs, as well as studies directly comparing the cognitive phenotype of children with SLI and those with autism will further elucidate the aetiological relationship between these two conditions.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-10-2013
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-012-1669-7
Abstract: Relative to low scorers, high scorers on the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) show enhanced performance on the embedded figures test and the radial frequency search task (RFST), which has been attributed to both enhanced local processing and differences in combining global percepts. We investigate the role of local and global processing further using the RFST in four experiments. High AQ adults maintained a consistent advantage in search speed across erse target-distracter stimulus conditions. This advantage may reflect enhanced local processing of curvature in early stages of the form vision pathway and superior global detection of shape primitives. However, more probable is the presence of a superior search process that enables a consistent search advantage at both levels of processing.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-12-2020
DOI: 10.1111/BJOP.12436
Abstract: Reports linking prenatal testosterone exposure to autistic traits and to a masculinized face structure have motivated research investigating whether autism is associated with facial masculinization. This association has been reported with greater consistency for females than for males, in studies comparing groups with high and low levels of autistic traits. In the present study, we conducted two experiments to examine facial masculinity/femininity in 151 neurotypical adults selected for either low, mid-range, or high levels of autistic traits. In the first experiment, their three-dimensional facial photographs were subjectively rated by 41 raters for masculinity/femininity and were objectively analysed. In the second experiment, we generated 6-face composite images, which were rated by another 36 raters. Across both experiments, findings were consistent for ratings of photographs and composite images. For females, a linear relationship was observed where femininity ratings decreased as a function of higher levels of autistic traits. For males, we found a U-shaped function where males with mid-range levels of traits were rated lowest on masculinity. Objective facial analyses revealed that higher levels of autistic traits were associated with less feminine facial structures in females and less masculine structures in males. These results suggest sex-specific relationships between autistic traits and facial masculinity/femininity.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.PSYNEUEN.2010.02.007
Abstract: Prenatal exposure to testosterone has been shown to affect fetal brain maturation as well as postnatal cognition and behavior in animal studies. Although there are well-established sex-differences in the use of social communication (or 'pragmatic language') in humans, there has been limited investigation of the association between fetal testosterone exposure and postnatal pragmatic language ability. In this prospective study, pragmatic language skills, assessed using a pragmatic language score (PLS), were measured in 78 girls aged 10 years and correlated with testosterone levels in umbilical cord blood. A measure of the biologically active, 'free' fraction of testosterone, the free androgen index (FAI), was positively correlated with the PLS (R=.3). Regression analyses showed that the FAI was a significant, positive predictor of pragmatic language difficulties in girls after controlling for maternal and infant-health variables (B=0.02, 95% confidence interval=0.01-0.04, p=0.02). This is the first prospective study to identify an association between early life testosterone exposure and pragmatic language difficulties in girls. These novel findings are discussed with reference to the 'extreme male-brain' theory of autism.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA.2009.09.024
Abstract: The Embedded Figure Test (EFT) requires locating a simple shape embedded within a background of overlapping target-irrelevant scene elements. Observers with autism, or those with high levels of autistic-like traits, typically outperform matched comparison groups on the EFT. This research investigated the critical visual properties which give rise to this improved performance. The EFT is a search task and so here a radial frequency (RF) search task was created to directly explore efficacy of visual search and also the influence of element overlap on performance. In all conditions, the task was to detect whether the target RF3 (a triangular shape chosen for its visual properties) was present among a number of distracter RF4 (a square shape) patterns. The conditions employed were: 'singles', where all the patterns were spatially discrete, 'pairs', where two overlapping elements formed each cluster, and 'quads', comprising four overlapping elements per cluster. Compared to students scoring low on the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ n=27), those scoring high on the AQ (n=23) were faster on the EFT and also significantly less influenced by increasing set size of the stimulus array in all RF search task conditions. However, the group difference in RF search performance was unaffected by the amount of stimulus overlap. Thus a simple search task is sufficient to detect a performance advantage associated with higher levels of autistic traits and has the advantages of a solid footing in visual theory and being readily repeatable for the purpose of assessing performance variability and change with interventions.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-1990
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 17-07-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.BRAINRESBULL.2010.02.016
Abstract: The main aim of this review is to evaluate the proposal that several developmental disorders affecting vision share an impairment of the dorsal visual stream. First, the current definitions and common measurement approaches used to assess differences in both local and global functioning within the visual system are considered. Next, studies assessing local and global processing in the dorsal and ventral visual pathways are reviewed for five developmental conditions for which early to mid level visual abilities have been assessed: developmental dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, developmental dyspraxia, Williams syndrome and Fragile X syndrome. The reviewed evidence is broadly consistent with the idea that the dorsal visual stream is affected in developmental disorders. However, the potential for a unique profile of visual abilities that distinguish some of the conditions is posited, given that for some of these disorders ventral stream deficits have also been found. We conclude with ideas regarding future directions for the study of visual perception in children with developmental disorders using psychophysical measures.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-06-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S41252-022-00262-W
Abstract: Developmental theory and previous studies support the potential value of prodromal interventions for infants at elevated likelihood of developing autism. Past research has supported the efficacy of parent-mediated prodromal therapies with infants from as early as 7 months. We outline the rationale for implementing interventions following this model from even earlier in development and report on the feasibility of a novel intervention developed following this model of parent-mediated infant interventions. We report a feasibility study ( n = 13) of a parent-mediated, video-aided intervention, beginning during pregnancy, focussed on parent-infant interactions. The study evaluated the feasibility of this intervention initially with a general population s le. Feasibility was assessed across four domains (acceptability, implementation, practicality and integration) using self-report questionnaire, semi-structured interviews with parents and therapists, attendance and assessment completion. Feasibility assessment shows that the intervention was acceptable, with all participants reporting that they had benefited from the program, with perceived positive benefits to their understanding of and communication with their infant, and that they had integrated program teachings into everyday life. The intervention was implemented as planned with 100% attendance for the core sessions. Changes to minimise the number of antenatal sessions was suggested to improve practicality. This study found initial feasibility for this intervention in a general population s le. This suggests parent-mediated video feedback interventions are a promising format to be implemented within the perinatal developmental time period.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 02-2013
DOI: 10.1037/A0028732
Abstract: There is ongoing debate concerning the mechanisms of feature binding in working memory. In particular, there is controversy regarding the extent to which these binding processes are automatic. The present article demonstrates that binding mechanisms differ depending on whether the to-be-integrated features are perceived as forming a coherent object. We presented a series of experiments that investigated the binding of color and shape, whereby color was either an intrinsic feature of the shape or an extrinsic feature of the shape's background. Results show that intrinsic color affected shape recognition, even when it was incidentally studied and irrelevant for the recognition task. In contrast, extrinsic color did not affect shape recognition, even when the association of color and shape was encoded and retrievable on demand. This strongly suggests that binding of intrinsic intra-item information but not extrinsic contextual information is obligatory in visual working memory. We highlight links to perception as well as implicit and explicit long-term memory, which suggest that the intrinsic-extrinsic dimension is a principle relevant to multiple domains of human cognition.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-1999
Abstract: Verbal and spatial span, articulation and tapping rate, and verbal and spatial speed-of-search tasks were administered to sixty 6- to 12-year-olds. A variance-partitioning procedure was then used to identify age-related and age-invariant components of variance in span. Outcomes were very similar for verbal and spatial span, in particular, (i) most of the age-related variance was shared by the speed-of-search and rate predictors, (ii) articulation rate provided an age-independent contribution, (iii) changing-state versions of predictor tasks did not account for variance over steady-state versions, and (iv) predictors of the same modality as the span task did not outperform predictors of the other modality. We conclude that verbal and spatial short-term memory appear to rely on similar processes when serial recall is required and that developments in span are closely tied to increases in processing speed.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 2013
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-12-2011
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-010-1129-1
Abstract: We investigated the relationship between autistic-like traits in early childhood and age at menarche in typically developing girls. Autistic-like symptoms were measured at age 2 years using the Child Behaviour Checklist, and age at menarche (AAM) was determined prospectively using self-report questionnaires at age 8, 10, 14 and 17 years. Girls with 'high' autistic-like symptoms at age 2 years demonstrated significantly later AAM (n = 70 M = 13.07 years SD = 1 year) than girls reported to show 'typical' (n = 216 M = 12.72 years SD = 1.1) or 'low' (n = 47 M = 12.66 years SD = 1.13 years) levels of these behaviors. These data further establish a link between the autism phenotype and later AAM and may provide insights into the etiology of the condition.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 02-05-2014
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-08-2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-06-2015
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-015-2493-7
Abstract: In iduals with autism spectrum conditions attend less to the left side of centrally presented face stimuli compared to neurotypical in iduals, suggesting a reduction in right hemisphere activation. We examined whether a similar bias exists for non-facial stimuli in a large s le of neurotypical adults rated above- or below-average on the autism spectrum quotient (AQ). Using the "greyscales" task, we found the typical leftward bias in the below-average group was significantly reduced in the above-average group. Moreover, a negative correlation between leftward bias and the social skills factor of the AQ suggested a link between atypical hemispheric activation and social difficulties in high-AQ trait in iduals that extends to non-facial stimuli.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-02-2017
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-017-3054-Z
Abstract: Previous research shows inconsistency in clinician-assigned diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We conducted an exploratory study that examined the concordance of diagnoses between a multidisciplinary assessment team and a range of independent clinicians throughout Australia. Nine video-taped Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) assessments were collected from two Australian sites. Twenty-seven Australian health professionals each observed two video-recordings and rated the degree to which the in idual met the DSM-5 criteria for ASD. There was 100% agreement on the diagnostic classification for only 3 of the 9 video clips (33%), with the remaining 6 clips (66%) reaching poor reliability. In addition, only 24% of the participating clinicians achieved 'good' or 'excellent' levels of agreement (Cohen's kappa > 0.6) with the original ASD assessment. These findings have implications for clinical guidelines for ASD assessments.
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 09-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2003
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-07-2021
DOI: 10.1007/S10802-021-00838-5
Abstract: Child temperament and caregiver psychological distress have been independently associated with social-emotional difficulties among in iduals with autism. However, the interrelationship among these risk factors has rarely been investigated. We explored the reciprocal interplay between child temperament (surgency, negative affectivity, and self-regulation) and caregiver psychological distress in the development of child internalizing and externalizing symptoms, in a cohort of 103 infants showing early autism traits. Caregivers completed questionnaires when children were aged around 12-months (Time 1 [T1]), 18-months (Time 2 [T2]), and 24-months (Time 3 [T3]). Cross-lagged path models revealed a significant pathway from T1 caregiver psychological distress through lower T2 child self-regulation to subsequently greater T3 child internalizing symptoms. No such caregiver-driven pathway was evident through T2 child negative affectivity or in the prediction of T3 child externalizing symptoms. Further, no support was found for temperament-driven pathways through caregiver psychological distress to child social-emotional difficulties. Child surgency was mostly unrelated to caregiver psychological distress and social-emotional difficulties. These findings implicate the need to support the mental health of caregivers with an infant with autism traits in order to enhance the emotion regulation and social-emotional development of their infants.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-1984
DOI: 10.1007/BF02686546
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 18-11-2013
DOI: 10.3109/17549507.2013.855262
Abstract: This paper presents a response to the Camarata (2014) lead article regarding the accuracy and effectiveness of early identification and early intervention for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). While Caramata focused heavily on the challenges of behavioural screening for ASD, we believe that he has overlooked the potential that the identification of ASD biomarkers may have for the early detection of the disorder. We propose that the discovery of biomarkers, particularly those that may be used in conjunction with behavioural screening, may provide an important next step in reliably detecting and accurately diagnosing ASD in the early years. This would have important clinical implications in terms of providing early intervention, which may alter the developmental path for the child.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 11-2008
DOI: 10.1037/A0013258
Abstract: The grouping of list items is known to improve serial memory accuracy and constrain the nature of temporal errors. A recent study (M. T. Maybery, F. B. R. Parmentier, & D. M. Jones, 2002) showed that grouping results in a temporal organization of the participants' responses that mimics the list structure but not the timing of its presentation. Here the authors tested the prediction that the temporal grouping of responses should yield the same pattern of response time (RT) irrespective of the method of grouping at presentation. Comparing temporal, location, and voice grouping, the results show that although these methods impact on recall accuracy to varying degrees, all 3 conditions produce significant and equivalent peaks in RT at the first position of each group. The RT data were accurately simulated through a model based on ACT-R's (J. R. Anderson & M. Matessa, 1997) basic principles. Altogether, the data suggest that the temporal organization of responses in verbal serial recall results from (a) declarative knowledge about the list's structure that is independent of the perceptual means by which grouping is induced at presentation and (b) the level of activation of the items per se.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-02-2010
DOI: 10.1111/J.1469-8749.2009.03546.X
Abstract: Fetal androgens influence fetal growth as well as postnatal neurocognitive ability. However, to our knowledge, no published study has prospectively examined the impact of early-life androgens on infant brain growth. We report the association between circulating fetal androgen levels, measured from umbilical-cord blood at birth, and a proxy measure of brain growth: head circumference. Participants were 82 unselected female infants from a large representative birth cohort (mean gestational age 39.4 wks, SD 1.7). Umbilical-cord blood was obtained at birth and analysed for androgen concentrations (total testosterone, androstenedione, dehyrdroepiandrosterone, and its sulphated metabolite). Head circumference and two other measures of growth - weight (mean 3311.4 g, SD 461.3) and length - were measured within 3 days of birth and again at approximately 1 year of age (mean age 13.1 mo, SD 1.1). Multivariate linear regressions found an inverse association between levels of free testosterone and growth in head circumference (correlation=-.24), even when adjusting for sociodemographic/obstetric covariates and head size at birth. Growth in weight and length could not be predicted by free testosterone concentration. This is the first report of an association between prenatal androgen levels and postnatal growth in head circumference. These findings suggest that early-life androgens may impact brain development during infancy.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2006
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 04-1998
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X98391165
Abstract: We take up two issues discussed by Chow: the claim by critics of hypothesis testing that the null hypothesis (H 0 ) is always false, and the claim that reporting effect sizes is more appropriate than relying on statistical significance. Concerning the former, we agree with Chow's sentiment despite noting serious shortcomings in his discussion. Concerning the latter, we agree with Chow that effect size need not translate into scientific relevance, and furthermore reiterate that with small s les effect size measures cannot substitute for significance.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2006
DOI: 10.1080/13546800444000191
Abstract: This paper presents a new cognitive model of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. We suggest that auditory hallucinations are auditory representations derived from the unintentional activation of memories and other irrelevant current mental associations. Our model proposes that a combination of deficits in intentional inhibition and contextual memory is critical to the experience of auditory hallucinations. The failure in intentional inhibition produces unwanted and uncontrollable mental events which are not recognised because they have lost the contextual cues that would normally facilitate recognition. This article amalgamates recently published data and presents a reanalysis of the findings on 43 patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (Badcock, Waters, Maybery, & Michie, 2005 Waters, Badcock, Maybery, & Michie, 2003a Waters, Maybery, Badcock, & Michie, 2004a). Relative risk was also estimated to determine whether the combination of deficits increases the risk of having auditory hallucinations. Almost 90% of patients currently experiencing auditory hallucinations showed the predicted combination of deficits on both inhibition and context memory, compared to only a third of patients without hallucinations. In addition, the results showed that those patients with the specified cognitive deficits were at an especially increased risk of having auditory hallucinations relative to patients without the deficits. The results of our investigations strongly support the role of intentional inhibition and context memory in auditory hallucinations. Critical consideration of the findings also suggests that additional cognitive processes might be important for the expression of this symptom.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-12-2011
DOI: 10.1111/J.1467-8624.2011.01681.X
Abstract: The hypothesis that language plays a role in theory-of-mind (ToM) development is supported by a number of lines of evidence (e.g., H. Lohmann & M. Tomasello, 2003). The current study sought to further investigate the relations between maternal language input, memory for false sentential complements, cognitive flexibility, and the development of explicit false belief understanding in 91 English-speaking typically developing children (M age = 61.3 months) and 30 children with specific language impairment (M age = 63.0 months). Concurrent and longitudinal findings converge in supporting a model in which maternal language input predicts the child's memory for false complements, which predicts cognitive flexibility, which in turn predicts explicit false belief understanding.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-06-2017
DOI: 10.1007/S10803-017-3198-X
Abstract: Previous work shows that doing a continuous performance task (CPT) shifts attentional biases in neurotypical in iduals towards global aspects of hierarchical Navon figures by selectively activating right hemisphere regions associated with global processing. The present study examines whether CPT can induce similar modulations of attention in in iduals with high levels of autistic traits who typically show global processing impairments. Participants categorized global or local aspects of Navon figures in pre- and post-CPT blocks. Post-CPT, high trait in iduals showed increased global interference during local categorization. This result suggests that CPT may be useful for temporarily enhancing global processing in in iduals with high levels of autistic traits and possibly those diagnosed with autism.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 08-2016
DOI: 10.1111/AP.12233
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 23-01-2006
DOI: 10.1017/S0033291705007026
Abstract: Objectives. Depression is a frequent feature of schizophrenia but the cognitive processes involved in its development and maintenance are unclear. Recent studies have shown that clinical depression is associated with faulty inhibitory mechanisms of selective attention for negative information. The current study examined whether patients with schizophrenia also have an attentional bias towards negative stimuli. The inhibitory processes of interference control and task-shifting abilities were also examined to assess whether patients would show a selective impairment. Method. Forty-three patients with schizophrenia and 24 healthy controls completed the Affective Shifting Task. Results. As a group, schizophrenia patients did not show an attentional bias for negative material. However, those patients with high levels of depression demonstrated faster latencies when negative words were the targets, and higher depression scores were found to be associated with an increasing number of false alarms for negative words when they were not the targets. The results also showed that patients had impaired interference control but intact task-shifting abilities. Conclusions. Faulty inhibitory mechanisms of selective attention for negative information are not a general feature of schizophrenia but appear to be selective to those with a depressed mood. The results highlight the need for further studies examining the exact nature of the affective dysfunction in schizophrenia and the cognitive processes supporting negative emotions.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2008
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 20-09-2019
DOI: 10.3390/JCM8101503
Abstract: Research suggests an overrepresentation of autism spectrum diagnoses (ASD) or autistic traits in gender erse s les, particularly in children and adolescents. Using data from the GENTLE (GENder identiTy Longitudinal Experience) Cohort at the Gender Diversity Service at the Perth Children’s Hospital, the primary objective of the current retrospective chart review was to explore psychopathology and quality of life in gender erse children with co-occurring ASD relative to gender erse children and adolescents without ASD. The Social Responsiveness Scale (Second Edition) generates a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) score indicating a likely clinical ASD diagnosis, which was used to partition participants into two groups (indicated ASD, n = 19) (no ASD indicated, n = 60). Indicated ASD was far higher than would be expected compared to general population estimates. Indicated ASD on the Social Responsiveness Scale 2 (SRS 2) was also a significant predictor of Internalising behaviours (Anxious/Depressed, Withdrawn/Depressed, Somatic Complaints, Thought Problems subscales) on the Youth Self Report. Indicated ASD was also a significant predictor of scores on all subscales of the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory. The current findings indicate that gender erse children and adolescents with indicated ASD comprise an especially vulnerable group that are at marked risk of mental health difficulties, particularly internalising disorders, and poor quality of life outcomes. Services working with gender erse young people should screen for ASD, and also provide pathways to appropriate care for the commonly associated mental health difficulties.
Start Date: 04-2007
End Date: 12-2011
Amount: $187,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 06-2011
End Date: 12-2015
Amount: $422,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 09-2016
End Date: 09-2021
Amount: $415,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 03-2019
End Date: 03-2023
Amount: $360,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2012
End Date: 12-2016
Amount: $275,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2004
End Date: 12-2007
Amount: $135,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity