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What Difference Does It Make? Implicit, Explicit and Complex Social Cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

We tested social cognition abilities of adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and neurotypically developed peers (NTD). A multi-faceted test-battery including facial emotion categorization (FEC), classical false belief tasks (FBT), and complex social cognition (SC), yielded significantly lower accuracy rates for FEC and complex SC tasks in ASD, but no significant differences in performance concerning FBT. A significant correlation between age and performance in a FEC task and in a complex task was found only in ASD. We propose that dynamic and/or fragmented FEC tasks can elicit deficits in implicit processing of facial emotion more efficiently. The difficulties of ASD in solving complex SC tasks can be ascribed to deficits in the acquisition and application of social schemata.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Volker Helzle, Simon Spielmann, Nils Zweiling and Diana Arellano of the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg for the development of the virtual characters in the DECT and the deployment of Frapper Software. For providing stimulus material from the series Shaun the Sheep ™ for the AToM test, we would like to thank Aardman Studios. For testing and data collection we would like to thank Annika Auch and Lara Seifert, Monica Biscaldi for expertise and helpful comments, Julian von Kügelgen, Gayatri Salunkhe, and Marie Vetter for proofreading and editing the article. Last but not least, we wish to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and valuable suggestions.

Author contributions

UMS conceptualized and designed the study, drafted the initial manuscript, helped to carry out the statistical analyses, reviewed and revised the manuscript, and approved the submission of the final manuscript. RR conceptualized and designed the study, supervised the initial manuscript, conducted the statistical analyses, helped to review and revise the manuscript, and approved the final manuscript for submission.

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  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, Medical Center – University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Hauptstrasse 8, 79104, Freiburg, Germany

    Ulrich M. Schaller & Reinhold Rauh

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  1. Ulrich M. Schaller
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Correspondence to Ulrich M. Schaller.

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Ulrich Max Schaller and Reinhold Rauh declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants and their legal guardians.

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Appendix

Appendix

Example scene, questions and correct answers.

Example scene: The sheep deceives the farmer into abandon the swimming-pool, by letting him believe that clouds are gathering (see Fig. 1).

Question: iToM/Facial Emotion Expression (FEC): What facial expression does the farmer show when the sun disappears?

Correct Answers: angry, furious, irate.

Question: eToM/ False Belief 1st Order (FB1O): What does the farmer think, why the sun has disappeared?

Correct Answer: He thinks that clouds cover the sun.

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M. Schaller, U., Rauh, R. What Difference Does It Make? Implicit, Explicit and Complex Social Cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 47, 961–979 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-3008-x

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