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Biological motion processing in individuals with high autistic traits

  

  1. Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University;Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders;Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Hefei 230032, China
  • Online:2017-10-18 Published:2017-10-18

Abstract: To explore biological motion perception in individuals with autistic traits, we screened 35 individuals with high autistic traits by AQ as autistic traits (AT) group. Another 35 individuals with low autistic traits were included as controls. All subjects took the time lag judgment task to test their abilities of biological motion perception. As results, in biological motion task with social cues, there was a significant difference between the control group and AT group (-0.095±0.336 vs 0.104±0.252, t=-2.796, P<0.05) regarding the PSE values. The PSE value of the AT group was positive. Compared with "0", the difference was statistically significant (t=2.434, P<0.05), which means a "time distance" compression effect. In biological motion task without social cues, there was no significant difference between control group and AT group (-0.079±0.250 vs -0.083±0.306, t=0.061, P=0.951) regarding the PSE values. In conclusion, the individuals with high AT have deficit in perceiving biological motion with social cues. These results implicate that autistic traits can affect the ability to perceive biological motion.

Key words: ASD(Autism spectrum disorders), autistic trait, biological motion, time lag judgment task, PSE