Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:27:18.123Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Being socially uninterested versus not having social prediction skills: The impact of multisensory integration deficits on social skills in autism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2019

Giuseppe Riva
Affiliation:
Centro Studi e Ricerche di Psicologia della Comunicazione, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy. [email protected]@gmail.com Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Laboratory, Istituto Auxologico Italiano (IRCCS), 20100 Milan, Italy
Daniele Di Lernia
Affiliation:
Centro Studi e Ricerche di Psicologia della Comunicazione, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy. [email protected]@gmail.com
Antonios Dakanalis
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine and Surgery, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy. [email protected] Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, 6-27100 Pavia, Italy.

Abstract

Jaswal & Akhtar in their target article convincingly argue that subjects with autism do not have diminished social motivation. However, they still recognize that autistic people behave socially in an unusual way. Why? Here we suggest that these behaviours are the results of a multisensory integration deficit. Viewed from this perspective, the assumption that autistic people's unusual behaviours indicate diminished social motivation has to be replaced by the one that they have diminished social prediction skills.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Caballero, C., Mistry, S., Vero, J. & Torres, E. B. (2018) Characterization of noise signatures of involuntary head motion in the autism brain imaging data exchange repository. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 12:7. doi:10.3389/fnint.2018.00007.Google Scholar
Curti, R., Serret, S. & Askenasy, F. (2015) Impact of multisensory integration deficits on social cognition in children with autism spectrum disorders. European Psychiatry 30:1211. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0924-9338(15)30952-4.Google Scholar
Foxe, J. J., Molholm, S., Del Bene, V. A., Frey, H.-P., Russo, N. N., Blanco, D., Saint-Amour, D. & Ross, L. A. (2015) Severe multisensory speech integration deficits in high-functioning school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their resolution during early adolescence. Cerebral Cortex 25(2):298312. doi:10.1093/cercor/bht213.Google Scholar
Hatfield, T. R., Brown, R. F., Giummarra, M. J. & Lenggenhager, B. (2019) Autism spectrum disorder and interoception: Abnormalities in global integration? Autism 23(1):212–22. doi:10.1177/1362361317738392.Google Scholar
Maranesi, M., Bonini, L. & Fogassi, L. (2014) Cortical processing of object affordances for self and others’ action. Frontiers in Psychology 5:538. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00538.Google Scholar
Mul, C.-L., Stagg, S. D., Herbelin, B. & Aspell, J. E. (2018) The feeling of me feeling for you: Interoception, alexithymia and empathy in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 48(9):2953–67. doi:10.1007/s10803-018-3564-3.Google Scholar
Murphy, J., Catmur, C. & Bird, G. (2018) Alexithymia is associated with a multidomain, multidimensional failure of interoception: Evidence from novel tests. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 147(3):398408. doi:10.1037/xge0000366.Google Scholar
Noel, J.-P., Cascio, C. J., Wallace, M. T. & Park, S. (2017) The spatial self in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. Schizophrenia Research 179:812. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2016.09.021.Google Scholar
Noel, J.-P., Lytle, M., Cascio, C. & Wallace, M. T. (2018) Disrupted integration of exteroceptive and interoceptive signaling in autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research 11(1):194205. doi:doi:10.1002/aur.1880.Google Scholar
Riva, G. (2018) The neuroscience of body memory: From the self through the space to the others. Cortex 104:241–60. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2017.07.013.Google Scholar
Riva, G., Serino, S., Di Lernia, D., Pavone, E. F. & Dakanalis, A. (2017) Embodied medicine: Mens sana in corpore virtuale sano. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 11:120. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00120.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R. A., Baum, S. H., Segers, M., Ferber, S., Barense, M. D. & Wallace, M. T. (2017) Multisensory speech perception in autism spectrum disorder: From phoneme to whole-word perception. Autism Research 10(7):1280–90. doi:10.1002/aur.1776.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R. A., Segers, M., Ferber, S., Barense, M. D. & Wallace, M. T. (2014a) The impact of multisensory integration deficits on speech perception in children with autism spectrum disorders. Frontiers in Psychology 5:379. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00379.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R. A., Siemann, J. K., Schneider, B. C., Eberly, H. E., Woynaroski, T. G., Camarata, S. M. & Wallace, M. T. (2014b) Multisensory temporal integration in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Neuroscience 34(3):691–97. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3615-13.2014.Google Scholar
Torres, E. B., Brincker, M., Isenhower, R. W., Yanovich, P., Stigler, K. A., Nurnberger, J. I., Metaxas, D. N. & Jose, J. V. (2013) Autism: The micro-movement perspective. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 7:32. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2013.00032.Google Scholar
Torres, E. B. & Denisova, K. (2016) Motor noise is rich signal in autism research and pharmacological treatments. Scientific Reports 6:37422. doi:10.1038/srep37422.Google Scholar