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Feedback Related Negativity Amplitude is Greatest Following Deceptive Feedback in Autistic Adolescents

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate if feedback related negativity (FRN) can capture instantaneous elevated emotional reactivity in autistic adolescents. A measurement of elevated reactivity could allow clinicians to better support autistic individuals without the need for self-reporting or verbal conveyance. The study investigated reactivity in 46 autistic adolescents (ages 12–21 years) completing the Affective Posner Task which utilizes deceptive feedback to elicit distress presented as frustration. The FRN event-related potential (ERP) served as an instantaneous quantitative neural measurement of emotional reactivity. We compared deceptive and distressing feedback to both truthful but distressing feedback and truthful and non-distressing feedback using the FRN, response times in the successive trial, and Emotion Dysregulation Inventory (EDI) reactivity scores. Results revealed that FRN values were most negative to deceptive feedback as compared to truthful non-distressing feedback. Furthermore, distressing feedback led to faster response times in the successive trial on average. Lastly, participants with higher EDI reactivity scores had more negative FRN values for non-distressing truthful feedback compared to participants with lower reactivity scores. The FRN amplitude showed changes based on both frustration and reactivity. The findings of this investigation support using the FRN to better understand emotion regulation processes for autistic adolescents in future work. Furthermore, the change in FRN based on reactivity suggests the possible need to subgroup autistic adolescents based on reactivity and adjust interventions accordingly.

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Acknowledgments

Research in this publication was supported by NSF IIS 1844885, DoD Grant W81XWH-18-1-0284, R01 HD079512, and the Edith L. Trees Charitable Trust.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Nathan T. Riek, Busra T. Susam & Murat Akcakaya

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Caitlin M. Hudac & Susan W. White

  3. Department of Psychology and Carolina Autism and Neurodevelopment (CAN) Research Center, University of South Carolina, Colombia, SC, USA

    Caitlin M. Hudac

  4. Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Caitlin M. Conner & Carla A. Mazefsky

  5. Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Jane Yun

  6. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Philip A. Gable

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Contributions

All authors contributed to multiple stages of this manuscript. SWW, CAM, MA designed the study, received funding, and oversaw the research. NTR, BTS, CMC performed data collection and preprocessing. NTR, BTS, JY performed the analysis for the paper supervised by CMH, PAG, MA. PAG conceived the idea for this analysis. NTR drafted the manuscript and it was revised extensively with the help of all authors. All authors approved the final version for publication.

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Correspondence to Nathan T. Riek.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 2, 3 and Figs. 6, 7

Table 2 Overall F(1, 44) results from simple linear regression
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Fig. 6
figure 6

Mean FRN Values (Elevated EDI-Reactivity). The mean FRN values for each feedback condition with their 95% confidence intervals are shown in the figure. The elevated EDI-Reactivity subgroup has a negative FRN for all feedback conditions

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Fig. 7
figure 7

Mean FRN Values (Non-Elevated EDI-Reactivity). The mean FRN values for each feedback condition with their 95% confidence intervals are shown in the figure. The non-elevated EDI-Reactivity subgroup has a positive FRN to “Correct” feedback and the most negative FRN to “Too Slow” feedback

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Table 3 Clinical correlation table
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Riek, N.T., Susam, B.T., Hudac, C.M. et al. Feedback Related Negativity Amplitude is Greatest Following Deceptive Feedback in Autistic Adolescents. J Autism Dev Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06038-y

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