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It has been argued that metacognition and mindreading rely on the same cognitive processes (Carruthers in The opacity of mind: an integrative theory of self-knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011). It is widely accepted that mindreading is diminished among individuals diagnosed with autism (Brunsdon and Happé in Autism 18(1):17-30, 2014), however, little is known about metacognition. This study examined metacognition in relation to mindreading and autism using post-decision wagering. Results from a student sample showed negative associations between autism traits and metacognitive accuracy, and metacognitive reaction times and mindreading. These findings were replicated in a general population sample, providing evidence of a reliable association between metacognition, mindreading and autism traits. However, adults diagnosed with autism showed equivalent levels of metacognitive accuracy to age- and IQ-matched comparison participants, albeit only with an overall increase in meta-level processing time.

Interoception (the ability to sense what's going on inside one's body) is considered integral to many higher-order cognitive processes. Some have speculated that impaired interoception may underpin some features of ASD. Yet, in Experiment 1, we found no evidence of a between-group difference in either cardiac or respiratory interoceptive accuracy among 21 adults with ASD and 21 matched controls. Bayesian analyses suggested the data strongly supported the null hypothesis. In Experiment 2, we measured cardiac interoceptive accuracy in 21 "children" with ASD and 21 matched controls. Here interoceptve accuracy "was" significantly diminished in the ASD group and was associated with a moderate-to-large effect size. Results suggest early interoception difficulties are resolved or compensated for by adulthood in people with ASD.

Social difficulties in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may originate from a reduced top-down modulation of sensory information that prevents the spontaneous attribution of intentions to observed behaviour. However, although people with autism are able to explicitly reason about others' mental states, the effect of abstract intention information on perceptual processes has remained untested. ASD participants (n = 23) and a neurotypical (NT) control group (n = 23) observed a hand either reaching for an object or withdrawing from it. Prior to action onset, the participant either instructed the actor to "Take it" or "Leave it", or heard the actor state "I'll take it" or "I'll leave it", which provided an explicit intention that was equally likely to be congruent or incongruent with the subsequent action. The hand disappeared before completion of the action, and participants reported the last seen position of the tip of the index finger by touching the screen. NT participants exhibited a predictive bias in response to action direction (reaches perceived nearer the object, withdrawals perceived farther away), and in response to prior knowledge of the actor's intentions (nearer the object after "Take it", farther away after "Leave it"). However, ASD participants exhibited a predictive perceptual bias only in response to the explicit intentions, but not in response to the motion of the action itself. Perception in ASD is not immune from top-down modulation. However, the information must be explicitly presented independently from the stimulus itself, and not inferred from cues inherent in the stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experiments investigated the extent to which (a) individuals with autism show a self-reference effect (i.e., better memory for self-relevant information), and (b) the size of the self-reference effect is associated with autism traits. Participants studied trait adjectives in relation to their own name (self-referent) or a celebrity's name (other-referent) under explicit and incidental/implicit encoding conditions. Explicit encoding involved judging whether the adjectives applied to self or other (denoted by proper names). Implicit encoding involved judging whether the adjectives were presented to the right or left of one's own or a celebrity's name. Recognition memory for the adjectives was tested using a yes/no procedure. Experiment 1 (individual differences; N = 257 neurotypical adults) employed the Autism-spectrum Quotient as a measure of autistic traits. Experiments 2 (n = 60) and 3 (n = 52) involved case-control designs with closely matched groups of autistic and neurotypical adults and children/adolescents, respectively. Autistic traits were measured using the Autism-spectrum Quotient and Social Responsiveness Scale, respectively. In all experiments, a significant self-reference effect was observed in both explicit and implicit encoding conditions. Most importantly, however, there was (a) no significant relation between size of the self-reference effect and number of autistic traits (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), and (b) no significant difference in the size of the self-reference effect between autistic and neurotypical participants (Experiments 2 and 3). In these respects, Bayesian analyses consistently suggested that the data supported the null hypothesis. These results challenge the notion that subjective or objective self-awareness are impaired in autism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]