A matter of precision? Scene imagery in individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder

作者：Larissa L. Faustmann，Mareike Altgassen

摘要 The ability to create mental representations of scenes is essential for remembering, predicting, and imagining. In individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) this ability may be impaired. Considering that autistic characteristics such as weak central coherence or reduced communication abilities may disadvantage autistic

participants in traditional imagery tasks, this study attempted to use a novel task design to measure the ability of scene imagery. Thirty high-functioning adults with ASD and 27 non-autistic matched control adults were asked to describe imagined fictitious scenes using two types of scene imagery tasks. In a free imagery task, participants were asked to imagine a scene based on a given keyword. In a guided imagery task, participants had to imagine a scene based on a detailed description of the scene. Additionally, narrative abilities were assessed using the Narrative Scoring Scheme. Statistical analyses revealed no group effects in the free and guided imagery of fictional scenes. Participants with ASD performed worse than control participants in the narrative task. Narrative abilities correlated positively with performance in both imagery tasks in the ASD group only. Hence, individuals with ASD seem to show as good imagery abilities as non-autistic individuals. The results are discussed in the light of the differences between imagery and imagination and possible gender differences.

Lay Summary

The ability to imagine is an essential basis for a wide range of cognitive functions such as thinking about the future, remembering past information, or fantasizing about (im)possible events. Previous studies suggest impairments in imagery abilities in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. However, we hypothesize that the traditional task designs used in past studies may have disadvantaged individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) given the tasks’ high demands on fantasy, verbal ability, and central coherence which are often compromised in ASD.Using a novel approach—taking the characteristic neural processing style in ASD into account—, we aim to re-examine imagery in this population.

摘要  创造场景的心理表征的能力对于记忆、预测和想象是必不可少的。在患有自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)的人中，这种能力可能会受到损害。考虑到自闭症患者的特点，如中枢连贯性较弱或沟通能力降低，在传统表象任务中可能会对自闭症参与者不利，本研究尝试使用一种新颖的任务设计来测量场景表象能力。30名患有自闭症的高功能成年人和27名非自闭症对照成年人被要求使用两种类型的场景想象任务描述想象的虚构场景。在一项自由成像任务中，参与者被要求根据给定的关键字想象一个场景。在引导式成像任务中，参与者必须根据场景的详细描述来想象场景。此外，还使用叙事评分方案评估了叙事能力。统计分析表明，在虚构场景的自由和引导意象中，没有群体效应。患有自闭症的参与者在叙事任务中的表现比对照参与者差。只有自闭症组的叙事能力与两种表象任务的表现呈正相关。因此，自闭症患者的表象能力似乎和非自闭症患者一样好。根据表象和想象之间的差异以及可能的性别差异对结果进行了讨论。

想象能力是一系列认知功能的重要基础，如思考未来、记住过去的信息或幻想可能发生的事件。先前的研究表明，自闭症谱系障碍患者的表象能力存在损害。然而，我们假设，过去研究中使用的传统任务设计可能对自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)患者不利，因为这些任务对幻想、言语能力和中央一致性的要求很高，而ASD往往会损害这些要求。使用一种新的方法–考虑到ASD特有的神经处理方式–我们的目标是重新检查这一人群中的图像。