Coralie Chevallier

The social motivation theory of autism

The idea that social motivation deficits play a central role in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has recently gained increased interest. This constitutes a shift in autism research, which has traditionally focused more intensely on cognitive impairments, such as theory-of-mind deficits or executive dysfunction, and has granted comparatively less attention to motivational factors. This review delineates the concept of social motivation and capitalizes on recent findings in several research areas to provide an integrated account of social motivation at the behavioral, biological and evolutionary levels. We conclude that ASD can be construed as an extreme case of diminished social motivation and, as such, provides a powerful model to understand humans intrinsic drive to seek acceptance and avoid rejection.

Seventeen-month-olds appeal to false beliefs to interpret others' referential communication

Recent studies have demonstrated infants pragmatic abilities for resolving the referential ambiguity of non-verbal communicative gestures, and for inferring the intended meaning of a communicators utterances. These abilities are difficult to reconcile with the view that it is not until around 4 years that children can reason about the internal mental states of others. In the current study, we tested whether 17-month-old infants are able to track the status of a communicators epistemic state and use this to infer what she intends to refer to. Our results show that manipulating whether or not a communicator has a false belief leads infants to different interpretations of the same communicative act, and demonstrate early mental state attribution in a pragmatic context.

Social ‘wanting’ dysfunction in autism: neurobiological underpinnings and treatment implications

Most behavioral training regimens in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) rely on reward-based reinforcement strategies. Although proven to significantly increase both cognitive and social outcomes and successfully reduce aberrant behaviors, this approach fails to benefit a substantial number of affected individuals. Given the enormous amount of clinical and financial resources devoted to behavioral interventions, there is a surprisingly large gap in our knowledge of the basic reward mechanisms of learning in ASD. Understanding the mechanisms for reward responsiveness and reinforcement-based learning is urgently needed to better inform modifications that might improve current treatments. The fundamental goal of this review is to present a fine-grained literature analysis of reward function in ASD with reference to a validated neurobiological model of reward: the ‘wanting’/’liking’ framework. Despite some inconsistencies within the available literature, the evaluation across three converging sets of neurobiological data (neuroimaging, electrophysiological recordings, and neurochemical measures) reveals good evidence for disrupted reward-seeking tendencies in ASD, particularly in social contexts. This is most likely caused by dysfunction of the dopaminergic–oxytocinergic ‘wanting’ circuitry, including the ventral striatum, amygdala, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Such a conclusion is consistent with predictions derived from diagnostic criteria concerning the core social phenotype of ASD, which emphasize difficulties with spontaneous self-initiated seeking of social encounters (that is, social motivation). Existing studies suggest that social ‘wanting’ tendencies vary considerably between individuals with ASD, and that the degree of social motivation is both malleable and predictive of intervention response. Although the topic of reward responsiveness in ASD is very new, with much research still needed, the current data clearly point towards problems with incentive-based motivation and learning, with clear and important implications for treatment. Given the reliance of behavioral interventions on reinforcement-based learning principles, we believe that a systematic focus on the integrity of the reward system in ASD promises to yield many important clues, both to the underlying mechanisms causing ASD and to enhancing the efficacy of existing and new interventions.

Preschoolers are able to take merit into account when distributing goods.

Classic studies in developmental psychology demonstrate a relatively late development of equity, with children as old as 6 or even 8-10 years failing to follow the logic of merit--that is, giving more to those who contributed more. Following Piaget (1932), these studies have been taken to indicate that judgments of justice develop slowly and follow a stagelike progression, starting off with simple rules (e.g., equality: everyone receives the same) and only later on in development evolving into more complex ones (e.g., equity: distributions match contributions). Here, we report 2 experiments with 3- and 4-year-old children (N = 195) that contradict this constructivist account. Our results demonstrate that children as young as 3 years old are able to take merit into account by distributing tokens according to individual contributions but that this ability may be hidden by a preference for equality.

Sensitivity to communicative relevance tells young children what to imitate

How do children decide which elements of an action demonstration are important to reproduce in the context of an imitation game? We tested whether selective imitation of a demonstrators actions may be based on the same search for relevance that drives adult interpretation of ostensive communication. Three groups of 18-month-old infants were shown a toy animal either hopping or sliding (action style) into a toy house (action outcome), but the communicative relevance of the action style differed depending on the group. For the no prior information group, all the information in the demonstration was new and so equally relevant. However, for infants in the ostensive prior information group, the potential action outcome was already communicated to the infant prior to the main demonstration, rendering the action style more relevant. Infants in the ostensive prior information group imitated the action style significantly more than infants in the no prior information group, suggesting that the relevance manipulation modulated their interpretation of the action demonstration. A further condition (non-ostensive prior information) confirmed that this sensitivity to new information is only present when the old information had been communicated, and not when infants discovered this information for themselves. These results indicate that, like adults, human infants expect communication to contain relevant content, and imitate action elements that, relative to their current knowledge state or to the common ground with the demonstrator, is identified as most relevant.

What's in a voice? Prosody as a test case for the Theory of Mind account of autism.

The human voice conveys a variety of information about peoples feelings, emotions and mental states. Some of this information relies on sophisticated Theory of Mind (ToM) skills, whilst others are simpler and do not require ToM. This variety provides an interesting test case for the ToM account of autism, which would predict greater impairment as ToM requirements increase. In this paper, we draw on psychological and pragmatic theories to classify vocal cues according to the amount of mindreading required to identify them. Children with a high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder and matched controls were tested in three experiments where the speakers state had to be extracted from their vocalizations. Although our results confirm that people with autism have subtle difficulties dealing with vocal cues, they show a pattern of performance that is inconsistent with the view that atypical recognition of vocal cues is caused by impaired ToM.

Brief Report: Selective Social Anhedonia in High Functioning Autism

Diminished social motivation is one of the most striking features in autism. Yet, few studies have directly assessed the value people with an ASD place on social interactions, or how rewarding they report it to be. In the present study, we directly measure social motivation by looking at responses to a questionnaire assessing self-reported pleasure in social and non social situations. Twenty-nine adolescents with ASD and matched controls took part in the study. Our results reveal that children with an ASD differ from the controls with respect to social enjoyment, but not with respect to physical and other sources of hedonism. Further analyses demonstrate that the degree of social anhedonia correlates with autism severity.

Making disjunctions exclusive

This work examines how people interpret the sentential connective “or”, which can be viewed either inclusively (A or B or both) or exclusively (A or B but not both). Following up on prior work concerning quantifiers (Bott & Noveck, 2004; Noveck, 2001; Noveck & Posada, 2003), which shows that the common pragmatic interpretation of “some”, some but not all, is conveyed as part of an effortful step, we investigate how extra effort applied to disjunctive statements leads to a pragmatic interpretation of “or”, or but not both. Experiment 1 compelled participants to wait for three seconds before answering, hence giving them the opportunity to process the utterance more deeply. Experiments 2 and 3 emphasized “or”, either by visual means (“OR”) or by prosodic means (contrastive stress) as another way to encourage participants to apply more effort. Following a relevance-theoretic line of argument, we hypothesized that conditions encouraging more processing effort would give rise to more pragmatic inferences and hence to more exclusive interpretations of the disjunction. This prediction was confirmed in the three experiments.

Measuring social attention and motivation in Autism Spectrum Disorder using eye-tracking: Stimulus type matters

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by social impairments that have been related to deficits in social attention, including diminished gaze to faces. Eye‐tracking studies are commonly used to examine social attention and social motivation in ASD, but they vary in sensitivity. In this study, we hypothesized that the ecological nature of the social stimuli would affect participants social attention, with gaze behavior during more naturalistic scenes being most predictive of ASD vs. typical development. Eighty‐one children with and without ASD participated in three eye‐tracking tasks that differed in the ecological relevance of the social stimuli. In the “Static Visual Exploration” task, static images of objects and people were presented; in the “Dynamic Visual Exploration” task, video clips of individual faces and objects were presented side‐by‐side; in the “Interactive Visual Exploration” task, video clips of children playing with objects in a naturalistic context were presented. Our analyses uncovered a three‐way interaction between Task, Social vs. Object Stimuli, and Diagnosis. This interaction was driven by group differences on one task only—the Interactive task. Bayesian analyses confirmed that the other two tasks were insensitive to group membership. In addition, receiver operating characteristic analyses demonstrated that, unlike the other two tasks, the Interactive task had significant classification power. The ecological relevance of social stimuli is an important factor to consider for eye‐tracking studies aiming to measure social attention and motivation in ASD. Autism Res 2015, 8: 620–628.

A direct amygdala‐motor pathway for emotional displays to influence action: A diffusion tensor imaging study

An important evolutionary function of emotions is to prime individuals for action. Although functional neuroimaging has provided evidence for such a relationship, little is known about the anatomical substrates allowing the limbic system to influence cortical motor‐related areas. Using diffusion‐weighted magnetic resonance imaging and probabilistic tractography on a cohort of 40 participants, we provide evidence of a structural connection between the amygdala and motor‐related areas (lateral and medial precentral, motor cingulate and primary motor cortices, and postcentral gyrus) in humans. We then compare this connection with the connections of the amygdala with emotion‐related brain areas (superior temporal sulcus, fusiform gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, and lateral inferior frontal gyrus) and determine which amygdala nuclei are at the origin of these projections. Beyond the well‐known subcortical influences over automatic and stereotypical emotional behaviors, a direct amygdala‐motor pathway might provide a mechanism by which the amygdala can influence more complex motor behaviors. Hum Brain Mapp 35:5974–5983, 2014.