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Not So Automatic Imitation: Expectation of Incongruence Reduces Interference in Both Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development

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Abstract

Research has observed evidence for both hypo-(supposedly due to a broken mirror neuron system) and hyper-(thought to be the result of deficits in adaptive control) imitation in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This work sought to adjudicate between these findings using an automatic imitation (AI) paradigm with the novel manipulation of the need to engage adaptive control of imitation. Results demonstrated that ASD participants do not display a specific deficit in AI capability, are able to engage in proactive control of AI, and that relative to a well-matched effector condition, AI is not selectively associated with ASD symptom severity. These data cast doubt upon the notion of impairments in imitation or its control in ASD.

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Notes

  1. The length of presentation was determined by randomly selecting a time within this range (in 50 ms increments). During the first trial of each block this image was displayed for 2000-3000 ms to give participants extra time to prepare for the task.

  2. Median RTs were used instead of mean RTs in order to provide an unbiased measure in the presence of skewed RT distributions (see Brenner and Smeets 2019; Rousselet and Wilcox 2019; Whelan 2008). In order to ascertain that this choice did not unduly affect the pattern of data observed we re-ran the analyses using mean RTs and observed results equivalent to those using median RTs.

  3. In addition, and in order to provide data consistent with prior work (e.g., 47) we re-ran our analyses on inverse-efficiency scores (IES: calculated as the reaction time divided by the accuracy) that are also designed to address the speed-accuracy trade-off. The results of these analyses did not differ from those using drift rate and we therefore only report the drift rate analysis in this manuscript.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a National Institute of Mental Health Grant (R01MH10651802) awarded to Marjorie Solomon. The authors would like to thank Matthew Elliott, Garrett Gower, Ashley Tay, and Rachel Wulff for their assistance with this study.

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  1. Raphael Geddert

    Present address: Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MIND Institute, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, USA

    Andrew Gordon, Raphael Geddert, Marie K. Krug & Marjorie Solomon

  2. Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA

    Jeremy Hogeveen

  3. Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavior, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

    Sukhvinder Obhi

  4. Imaging Research Center, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, USA

    Marjorie Solomon

  5. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Solomon Lab, UC Davis M.I.N.D Institute, Sacramento, USA

    Andrew Gordon

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Contributions

AG performed all analyses and wrote the manuscript. RG assisted with data collection, data analysis and manuscript preparation. JH programmed the task, was responsible for initial idea for the experiment, and provided feedback on the manuscript. SO was responsible for the original task design in separate publications and also provided feedback on the manuscript. MKK assisted with data analysis and provided feedback on the manuscript. MS provided the funding for the experiment, and assisted with data analysis and manuscript preparation.

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Correspondence to Andrew Gordon.

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Gordon, A., Geddert, R., Hogeveen, J. et al. Not So Automatic Imitation: Expectation of Incongruence Reduces Interference in Both Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 1310–1323 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04355-9

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