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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Investigating Neural Mechanisms Associated With The Double Empathy Problem Using Fnirs Hyperscanning, Kate E. Turner Aug 2023

Investigating Neural Mechanisms Associated With The Double Empathy Problem Using Fnirs Hyperscanning, Kate E. Turner

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Double Empathy Problem posits that autistic social difficulties are due to differences in communication styles rather than an autistic deficit in theory of mind (ToM). We used fNIRS hyperscanning to examine whether neural synchrony in pairs with varying levels of autistic traits during social interactions supports the Double Empathy Problem. Participants with low and high autistic trait expression were paired creating High-High, Low-High, and Low-Low groups. Pairs completed two trials where they 1) listened to and 2) discussed stories that contained or lacked theory of mind elements, while brain activity was recorded within the ToM network. During conversation, High-High …


Behavioral And Eye-Movement Correlates Of Item-Specific And Relational Memory In Autism, Greta Nicole Minor Aug 2023

Behavioral And Eye-Movement Correlates Of Item-Specific And Relational Memory In Autism, Greta Nicole Minor

Theses and Dissertations

Recent work has challenged past findings that documented relational memory impairments in autism. Previous studies have often relied solely on explicit behavioral responses to assess relational memory integrity, but successful performance on behavioral tasks may rely on other cognitive abilities (e.g., executive functioning) that are impaired in some autistic individuals. Eye-tracking tasks do not require explicit behavioral responses, and, further, eye movements provide an indirect measure of memory. The current study examined whether memory-specific viewing patterns toward scenes differ between autistic and non-autistic individuals. Using a long-term memory paradigm that equated for complexity between item and relational memory tasks, participants …