Altered emotional empathy in autism remains poorly understood. Emotional empathy has been suggested to rely on embodied simulation of others' emotions and the ability to identify one's own emotions...Show moreAltered emotional empathy in autism remains poorly understood. Emotional empathy has been suggested to rely on embodied simulation of others' emotions and the ability to identify one's own emotions. Two factors may contribute to altered empathy in autism: interoception and alexithymia. Interoception involves recognizing internal sensations, while alexithymia refers to difficulty identifying and describing emotions. This thesis aimed to investigate whether differences in emotional empathy between autistic individuals and neurotypical individuals could be explained by interoception and alexithymia. Study 1 included an online sample of 99 neurotypical participants and a lab sample of 100 neurotypical participants. Both groups completed an emotion recognition task and questionnaires, assessing autism traits, alexithymia, and interoceptive accuracy. The lab sample also completed an additional heartbeat discrimination task as an objective measure of interoceptive accuracy. No differences in emotion recognition related to autism traits were found, and this remained consistent when considering alexithymia and interoception. However, autism traits were positively associated with alexithymia. Study 2 involved 22 autistic individuals and 35 neurotypical controls who completed the same questionnaires as in Study 1 and an empathy measure. We found decreased emotional empathy and interoceptive accuracy and increased alexithymia in autistic individuals compared to neurotypical individuals. Furthermore, the observed diminished emotional empathy in autistic individuals was partially mediated by increased alexithymia. Thus, having difficulties in identifying and describing one's own emotions in autism can partly explain the reduced ability to share the emotions of others. Interventions focused on enhancing understanding of own emotions may improve emotional empathy abilities in autistic individuals.Show less
Alterations in interoception (i.e., the way in which individuals perceive their bodily signals) have been linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As previous literature points out a negative...Show moreAlterations in interoception (i.e., the way in which individuals perceive their bodily signals) have been linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As previous literature points out a negative relationship between ASD and interoception, we anticipated an implication that interoceptive ability could potentially serve as a predictive screening tool for ASD. For this, three major dimensions of interoception were studied, as identified in previous research, namely interoceptive accuracy, interoceptive sensibility and interoceptive awareness. More specifically, this study investigated the relationship between interoceptive awareness and autistic traits levels, and the relationship between interoceptive sensibility and autistic traits levels. Drawing from past research, we expected negative relationships. A total of 63 participants performed a heartbeat discrimination task (HDT) and two questionnaires, one on interoceptive sensibility and one on autistic trait levels. Regression analyses indicated that neither interoceptive sensibility nor interoceptive awareness showed to be a significant predictor of autistic trait levels. Further, exploratory analyses on the relationship between autistic traits and interoceptive accuracy and alexithymia revealed that only alexithymia is predictive of autistic trait levels. This suggests that, while interoceptive ability might not be a good predictor of autistic trait levels and potentially even ASD, alexithymia levels might be. Therefore, future research should further investigate alexithymia in relation to ASD.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
under embargo until 2024-12-22
2024-12-22T00:00:00Z
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a disorder characterized by impairments in interpersonal functioning such as experiencing difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships. These impairments...Show moreSocial anxiety disorder (SAD) is a disorder characterized by impairments in interpersonal functioning such as experiencing difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships. These impairments have negative intrapersonal consequences for individuals with SAD on different levels such as the physiological, behavioral, and psychological level. A newer perspective on SAD has suggested that it also negatively impacts the interaction partner (i.e. interpersonal consequences of the disorder). According to this perspective, certain verbal and nonverbal behaviors and thought or feeling content of the healthy interaction partner are affected while interacting with an individual who have SAD. The current study investigated the intra- and interpersonal consequences of SAD on the physiological, behavioral, and psychological level during initial interactions. Participants played a dyadic trust game (23 same-gender dyads) while their electrodermal activity (EDA) was continuously measured and filled in self-report measures during and after the game. The dyads consisted either of one participant scoring high on social anxiety (SA) and one low on SA (i.e. SA dyads) or two participants scoring low on SA (i.e. control dyads). EDA was used as the measure on the physiological level, participants’ trust ratings were the measure on the behavioral level, and the discrepancy between self and partner reports on positive/negative personal attributes to explore cognitive biases was the measure on the psychological level. We expected to observe higher EDA synchrony, lower trust ratings, and higher discrepancy between self and partner reports in SA dyads compared to control dyads. Results showed no difference between dyads on all levels indicating that we were not able to observe the predicted effect of finding intra- and interpersonal consequences of SAD in SA dyads. The most important implication of the current study is that, it included three different levels of SAD, in contrast to earlier studies that mainly focused on one level. This provides a useful example for how future studies might be designed and conducted.Show less
Interoception i.e. the perception of our internal bodily functions has been found to relate to the perception of our physical appearance, as well as our perception of other people’s emotions. As...Show moreInteroception i.e. the perception of our internal bodily functions has been found to relate to the perception of our physical appearance, as well as our perception of other people’s emotions. As interoception was also shown to play an important role in several mental health conditions (e.g., Autism Spectrum Disorder and depression), exploring these relationships in clinical population is crucial for improving people’s interoceptive ability, perception of emotions of others as well as body image. Therefore, one objective of this study was to thoroughly explore how interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive awareness relate to accuracy in emotion recognition as well as the level of perceived emotional intensity. Another objective was to examine the association between interoceptive awareness and body appreciation. A sample of 99 participants completed a facial emotion recognition task measuring accuracy and intensity ratings of five facial expressions – anger, fear, happiness, sadness, or a neutral expression. Additionally, self-reported measures were used to assess the participants’ interoception and body appreciation. As expected, we found a positive relationship between interoceptive awareness and perceived emotional intensity. However, we could not find a significant positive relationship between the other explored variables. One use of a potential link between interoception and emotion recognition as well as body appreciation could be to assist treatment of clinical conditions. Therefore, we suggest further exploration of this link.Show less
Models on social anxiety disorder, such as the Cognitive Behavioral Model by Rapee and Heimberg (1997) suggested that maladaptive attentional processes are strongly involved in the disorder’s...Show moreModels on social anxiety disorder, such as the Cognitive Behavioral Model by Rapee and Heimberg (1997) suggested that maladaptive attentional processes are strongly involved in the disorder’s etiology and maintenance. The current study aimed to build upon recent findings in highly socially anxious individuals by testing a non-clinical population for a positive relation between the attentional bias towards angry faces and social anxiety trait levels. Additionally, attentional biases to other emotional facial expressions (i.e., angry, happy, sad, and fearful) were explored for their relationship with social anxiety trait levels, as was the influence of context on the relationship between the attentional bias towards angry faces and social anxiety trait levels. 104 healthy participants completed the dot-probe task showing an emotional facial expression. This was done in in two natural settings (Apenheul or Night of Discoveries) and one lab setting. Results indicated a marginal significant trend of individuals with higher social anxiety trait levels also presenting stronger attentional biases towards angry faces. The additional exploratory investigations yielded no significant results. Based on the current results it was concluded that the relation between the attentional bias towards threat and social anxiety levels, which is quite consistently found in individuals with clinical levels of social anxiety, existed also in a weaker form in a healthy population, and might increase with higher social anxiety trait scores. This provides insight on how attentional biases might affect the general population’s behavior and how a potentially beneficial evolutionary function can turn dysfunctional in socially anxious individuals.Show less
Social anxiety (SA) is found to be highly co-prevalent for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both are characterized by attentional abnormalities in emotional processing. Previous...Show moreSocial anxiety (SA) is found to be highly co-prevalent for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both are characterized by attentional abnormalities in emotional processing. Previous research has shown a significant bias towards angry faces for individuals in both groups. This study aims to investigate the co-prevalence between SA and ASD traits in a non-clinical sample, and how these trait dimensions relate to an attentional bias (AB) towards angry faces. We want to investigate whether SA traits moderate the relationship between ASD traits and the AB towards threatening stimuli. A dot-probe paradigm and self-report questionnaires were used. The results suggest an overlap of characteristics of SA and ASD on trait levels in a non-clinical population. There was significant bias towards angry faces independent of SA and ASD traits. No significant link between the SA and ASD traits and the attentional bias was found and the relationship between ASD traits and the AB towards angry faces was independent of SA trait scores. These results could indicate that in comparison to clinical groups, individuals at lower levels of SA are able to regulate the attentional bias more easily or that the emotional processing for individuals with ASD traits does not reach the hypo- or hyper-arousal. We suggest further exploration of the AB at various points of the spectrum for SA, as well as for clinical groups with ASD. We recommend further investigation on the difference between the AB and disengagement index, in line with recent literature on SA.Show less
How humans attend to emotional stimuli has been extensively researched. Previous studies have found that there are individual differences in attentional preference towards emotional stimuli. For...Show moreHow humans attend to emotional stimuli has been extensively researched. Previous studies have found that there are individual differences in attentional preference towards emotional stimuli. For example, some individuals attend more towards positive information, whereas some towards negative stimuli. Individual’s anxiety level has often been linked to cause attentional preference towards threatening stimuli. Less is known about the other possible factors modulating attentional processing of emotional stimuli. Socioemotional Selectivity theory presents that with age adult start to prefer activities and information that is meaningful and positive and avoid things that are negative. The theory also implies that younger people are often more drawn to negative aspects in their life. Thus, this study aimed to investigate, whether this age-related preference towards emotional stimuli is also seen in attentional functions. Moreover, some preliminary studies have found there to be gender differences in how humans attend to emotional stimuli. Thus, the study aimed to bring more clarity to the possible gender-related attentional preference towards emotions. To test this the participants (N = 102, males = 29, women = 73) completed a dot-probe task. The dot-probe task allows to calculate how much attention individual showed on certain type of facial expressions. The study found that age was non-significant predictor of attentional processes toward angry and happy faces. Moreover, no gender differences were found on attentional bias towards happy faces, but small directional evidence for women allocating more attention to angry faces than men. These findings imply that age and gender are not strong predictors for attentional preferences towards emotions.Show less
While a general emotion recognition impairment in autistic individuals has been suggested in the past, more recent findings propose that alexithymia plays a major role in this relationship....Show moreWhile a general emotion recognition impairment in autistic individuals has been suggested in the past, more recent findings propose that alexithymia plays a major role in this relationship. Interoception has been theorized to be a factor explaining interindividual differences in emotion recognition and possibly mediating the relationship between alexithymia and emotion recognition. Both alexithymia and autism, have been found to be negatively related to measures of interoception. Therefore, we investigated whether alexithymia, not autism, would be a significant predictor of emotion recognition performance and hypothesized that trait levels of autism and alexithymia would be negatively related to measures of interoception. Additionally, we explored whether interoception mediates the expected negative relationship between trait levels and emotion recognition. A total of 100 participants completed a naturalistic emotion recognition task, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Cambridge Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), the Interoceptive Accuracy Scale (IAS), and the Body Perception Questionnaire (BPQ) in an online environment. Our hypotheses regarding the relationship between trait levels and emotion recognition, as well as interoception as a mediator, were not supported. However, in line with our expectations, we did observe a marginally significant effect indicating a negative relationship between interoception and alexithymia. Overall, our findings endorse research that links interoception with alexithymia and hence, provide an indication of why alexithymia, not autism, could be a mechanism in emotion recognition impairments. However, to understand the interplay between all factors more thoroughly, further research is necessary. We discuss how an improved understanding could have important implications for the conceptualization of autism.Show less
The ability to detect one’s own physiological state has been defined as interoception, and can vary greatly among individuals. In case of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), misattribution of internal...Show moreThe ability to detect one’s own physiological state has been defined as interoception, and can vary greatly among individuals. In case of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), misattribution of internal cues has been commonly observed, often resulting in an overestimation of bodily arousal. Additionally, when experiencing social anxiety, individuals were found to process social information, such as emotional expressions, with a bias towards threat. The anxiety of possible negative evaluation within this mental health condition may elicit a persistent fear or avoidance of social situations. As research on interrelations between social anxiety, interoception and emotional processing appeared to be sparse, this online study aimed to explore possible relationships in a non-clinical population. Participants (N = 98) performed an emotion recognition task and filled out several self-report questionnaires including those addressing their subjective beliefs regarding interoceptive abilities (accuracy and attention) and trait levels of social anxiety. Unexpectedly, hypotheses regarding positive relationships between interoceptive abilities and social anxiety, as well as social anxiety and emotion intensity could not be confirmed. A significant relationship between social anxiety, interoceptive attention and emotion accuracy was also not observed. As previous research did suggest the presence of a relationship between the aforementioned variables, our study may not have been sensitive enough. For future research, it is advised to make use of a larger sample size, which overcomes limitations of the obligated conduct of online research. Ultimately, a better understanding of interrelations between social anxiety, emotion recognition and interoception can contribute to improve tailoring of interventions concerning individuals with SAD.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Socially anxious individuals are known to avoid many forms of social interaction. Since understanding emotions is essential for smooth social interaction, alterations in emotion recognition were...Show moreSocially anxious individuals are known to avoid many forms of social interaction. Since understanding emotions is essential for smooth social interaction, alterations in emotion recognition were previously assumed as one potential reason for this avoidance. Furthermore, this altered emotion recognition might be mediated by altered facial mimicry. However, metacognitive perspectives became more popular in psychopathology and might also be related to confidence in emotions recognition. In this study, we aimed to differentiate between alterations in emotion recognition (behavioral model) and alterations in self-evaluation (metacognitive model) in high socially anxious individuals compared to low socially anxious individuals. Participants completed both a facial mimicry and emotion recognition task with the addition of a confidence rating to measure self-evaluation. We hypothesized that, according to the behavioral model, high socially anxious individuals show altered emotion recognition and facial mimicry performance. In contrast, according to our metacognitive model, there should be no differences in emotion recognition and facial mimicry performance between groups, but high socially anxious individuals should score lower on confidence. The current study found support for the metacognitive model, namely that social anxiety does not seem to affect the ability to recognize and mimic emotions accurately. However, high socially anxious individuals feel less confident about this ability than less socially anxious individuals. Thus, lowered confidence in socially anxious individuals might affect the fear for social situations and therefore play an important role in the avoidance of social interactions.Show less
