Sex modulation of faces prediction error in the autistic brain.

Recent research suggests that autistic females may have superior socio-cognitive abilities compared to autistic males, potentially contributing to underdiagnosis in females. However, it remains unclear whether these differences arise from distinct neurophysiological functioning in autistic males and females. This study addresses this question by presenting 41 autistic and 48 non-autistic adults with a spatially filtered faces oddball paradigm. Analysis of event-related potentials from scalp electroencephalography reveal a neurophysiological profile in autistic females that fell between those of autistic males and non-autistic females, highlighting sex differences in autism from the initial stages of face processing. This finding underscores the urgent need to explore neurophysiological sex differences in autism and encourages efforts toward a better comprehension of compensation mechanism and a clearer definition of what is meant by camouflaging.

Special considerations for assessing and caring for autism in girls and women.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: As the specificities of autistic women are increasingly recognized, this review aims to highlight emerging areas of research. These areas primarily focus on measurement bias of diagnostic tools, the physical and mental health of autistic women, and the unique aspects of the lives of autistic women, both personally and professionally across all life stages. RECENT FINDINGS: Conventional diagnostic tools struggle to capture the specificities of autism in females, but more sensitive instruments like the GQ-ASC (Girls' Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Conditions), later also referred to as Q-ASC (Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Conditions) in the scientific literature, show better performances. Autistic women face particular challenges, including an increased risk of physical and mental health problems throughout their lives as women (puberty, motherhood, menopause). Autistic women also encounter specific difficulties in their employment that require greater consideration. SUMMARY: The findings of this review identify research areas that need to be developed to better understand and support autistic girls and women and to enhance clinical practice for them.

High spatial frequencies disrupt conscious visual recognition: evidence from an attentional blink paradigm.

In this article, we tested the respective importance of low spatial frequencies (LSF) and high spatial frequencies (HSF) for conscious visual recognition of emotional stimuli by using an attentional blink paradigm. Thirty-eight participants were asked to identify and report two targets (happy faces) embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation of distractors (angry faces). During attentional blink, conscious perception of the second target (T2) is usually altered when the lag between the two targets is short (200-500 ms) but is restored at longer lags. The distractors between T1 and T2 were either non-filtered (broad spatial frequencies, BSF), low-pass filtered (LSF), or high-pass filtered (HSF). Assuming that prediction abilities could be at the root of conscious visual recognition, we expected that LSF distractors could result in a greater disturbance of T2 reporting than HSF distractors. Results showed that both LSF and HSF play a role in the emergence of exogenous consciousness in the visual system. Furthermore, HSF distractors strongly affected T1 and T2 reporting irrespective of the lag between targets, suggesting their role for facial emotion processing. We discuss these results with regards to other models of visual recognition. .

Does heart rate variability predict better executive functioning? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The recent focus on the bidirectional heart-brain interactions in psychoneurophysiological research has led to a variety of findings suggesting vagal activity is associated with cognition and, possibly, specifically with executive functioning. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to provide a better understanding of the association between vagally-mediated heart rate variability (HRV) and executive functioning. We included 13 correlational studies. We found a small positive association between vagally-mediated HRV and executive functioning (r = .19, 95% CI .15 to .23, p < .0001) using a quantitative synthesis of existing studies with random-effect models. Conducting meta-regression analyses, we found that vagally-mediated HRV predicts cognitive inhibition and cognitive flexibility more than working memory. In addition to the specific executive function measured, this relationship is moderated by the HRV measurement used, and age. After proposing a theoretical interpretation of the results, we emphasized the need for further research in light of the methodological issues identified in the included studies, and we outline several aspects to consider in future studies.

The Predictive Role of Low Spatial Frequencies in Automatic Face Processing: A Visual Mismatch Negativity Investigation.

Visual processing is thought to function in a coarse-to-fine manner. Low spatial frequencies (LSF), conveying coarse information, would be processed early to generate predictions. These LSF-based predictions would facilitate the further integration of high spatial frequencies (HSF), conveying fine details. The predictive role of LSF might be crucial in automatic face processing, where high performance could be explained by an accurate selection of clues in early processing. In the present study, we used a visual Mismatch Negativity (vMMN) paradigm by presenting an unfiltered face as standard stimulus, and the same face filtered in LSF or HSF as deviant, to investigate the predictive role of LSF vs. HSF during automatic face processing. If LSF are critical for predictions, we hypothesize that LSF deviants would elicit less prediction error (i.e., reduced mismatch responses) than HSF deviants. Results show that both LSF and HSF deviants elicited a mismatch response compared with their equivalent in an equiprobable sequence. However, in line with our hypothesis, LSF deviants evoke significantly reduced mismatch responses compared to HSF deviants, particularly at later stages. The difference in mismatch between HSF and LSF conditions involves posterior areas and right fusiform gyrus. Overall, our findings suggest a predictive role of LSF during automatic face processing and a critical involvement of HSF in the fusiform during the conscious detection of changes in faces.

Flexibility in autism during unpredictable shifts of socio-emotional stimuli: Investigation of group and sex differences.

LAY ABSTRACT: Flexibility difficulties in autism might be particularly common in complex situations, when shifts (i.e. the switch of attentional resources or strategy according to the situation) are unpredictable, implicit (i.e. not guided by explicit rules) and the stimuli are complex. We analyzed the data of 101 autistic and 145 non-autistic adults, without intellectual deficiency, on two flexibility tasks performed online. The first task involved unpredictable and non-explicit shifts of complex socio-emotional stimuli, whereas the second task involved predictable and explicit shifts of character stimuli. Considering the discrepancies between laboratory results and the real-life flexibility-related challenges faced by autistic individuals, we need to determine which factor could be of particular importance in flexibility difficulties. We point out that the switch cost (i.e. the difference between shift and non-shift condition) was larger for autistic than for non-autistic participants on the complex flexibility task with unpredictable and non-explicit shifts of socio-emotional stimuli, whereas this was not the case when shifts were predictable, explicit and involved less complex stimuli. We also highlight sex differences, suggesting that autistic females have better social skills than autistic males and that they also have a specific cognitive profile, which could contribute to social camouflaging. The findings of this work help us understand which factors could influence flexibility difficulties in autism and are important for designing future studies. They also add to the literature on sex differences in autism which underpin better social skills, executive function, and camouflaging in autistic females.

High spatial frequency filtered primes hastens happy faces categorization in autistic adults.

Coarse information of a visual stimulus is conveyed by Low Spatial Frequencies (LSF) and is thought to be rapidly extracted to generate predictions. This may guide fast recognition with the subsequent integration of fine information, conveyed by High Spatial Frequencies (HSF). In autism, emotional face recognition is challenging, and might be related to alterations in LSF predictive processes. We analyzed the data of 27 autistic and 34 non autistic (NA) adults on an emotional Stroop task (i.e., emotional face with congruent or incongruent emotional word) with spatially filtered primes (HSF vs.LSF). We hypothesized that LSF primes would generate predictions leading to faster categorization of the target face compared to HSF primes, in the NA group but not in autism. Surprisingly, HSF primes led to faster categorization than LSF primes in both groups. Moreover, the advantage of HSF vs.LSF primes was stronger for angry than happy faces in NA, but was stronger for happy than angry faces in autistic participants. Drift diffusion modelling confirmed HSF advantage and showed a longer non-decision time (e.g., encoding) in autism. Despite LSF predictive impairments in autism was not corroborated, our analyses suggest low level processing specificities in autism.