The advantage in responding to self vs. others’ body and face-parts (the so called selfadvantage) is considered to reflect the implicit access to the bodily self representation and has been studied in healthy and brain-damaged adults in previous studies. If the distinction of the self from others is a key aspect of social behaviour and is a precursory ability of later conceptual self development, it is interesting to investigate these functions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we investigate the implicit access to self representation in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and in children with typical development (TD). Children with ASD were submitted to a visual matchingto- sample task with stimuli depicting their own or other people’s body or face-parts. Participants were required to decide which of the two vertically aligned images matched the central target stimulus. The performance of children with ASD was compared to the performance of children with typical development (TD). Children with ASD were less accurate compared to children with typical development. Interestingly, children with ASD performed the task better when they visually matched their own, compared to others’ stimuli showing the self-advantage effect, as well as children with TD.
Self-face and self-body recognition in autism / Erica Gessaroli;Veronica Andreini;Elena Pellegri;Francesca Frassinetti. - In: RESEARCH IN AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS. - ISSN 1750-9467. - STAMPA. - 7:(2013), pp. 793-800. [10.1016/j.rasd.2013.02.014]
Self-face and self-body recognition in autism
FRASSINETTI, FRANCESCA
2013
Abstract
The advantage in responding to self vs. others’ body and face-parts (the so called selfadvantage) is considered to reflect the implicit access to the bodily self representation and has been studied in healthy and brain-damaged adults in previous studies. If the distinction of the self from others is a key aspect of social behaviour and is a precursory ability of later conceptual self development, it is interesting to investigate these functions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we investigate the implicit access to self representation in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and in children with typical development (TD). Children with ASD were submitted to a visual matchingto- sample task with stimuli depicting their own or other people’s body or face-parts. Participants were required to decide which of the two vertically aligned images matched the central target stimulus. The performance of children with ASD was compared to the performance of children with typical development (TD). Children with ASD were less accurate compared to children with typical development. Interestingly, children with ASD performed the task better when they visually matched their own, compared to others’ stimuli showing the self-advantage effect, as well as children with TD.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.