Children and youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been shown to react abnormally to social stimuli, especially to human faces. Children and youth with ASD show less interest in social stimuli, and may even avoid looking at or interact with such stimuli. It has been proposed that social stimuli elicit reactions like fear and stress in individuals with ASD, and this explains the lack of interest and avoidance. The present project investigates this hypothesis.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
60
The participants will be exposed to pictures of faces and non-facial stimuli presented on a PC screen.
Startle will be elicited by 95 dB noise, presented at different times after picture onset.
Department of Psychology, University of Tromso
Tromsø, Troms, Norway
The eyeblink of the Startle reflex is measured.
The startle reflex is potentiated when participants are influenced by negative emotions. Accordingly, startle will be measured in relation to picture presentation to gauge the emotional effect of the pictures. It is expected that the ASD group will show fear potentiated startle to pictures of human faces.
Time frame: The startle reflex will be measured in relation to picture presentations during the experiment (e.g. day 1).
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