Newsletter: Summer 2019
Welcome to the ninth edition of the autism@icn newsletter! At the end of June we finished this year’s set of research studies - thank you to everyone who came to the ICN to take part. See ‘Latest Findings’ to read about some of the results.
As many of you will be aware, there have been some significant changes in the law concerning how organisations deal with people’s data. Please read our new Privacy Notice. It describes why and how we collect and use personal data and provides information about your rights.
To hear more about the latest news from autism@icn, follow us on Twitter.
What do you think?
If you have any comments on the newsletter, for example, what is good about it or what can be improved, please email your feedback to [email protected].
The autism@icn newsletter aims to highlight events related to autism that are taking place (or have taken place). If you have anything you want to include in the next newsletter, please email [email protected].
Latest findings
Why do we copy irrational actions?
As many of you will be aware, there have been some significant changes in the law concerning how organisations deal with people’s data. Please read our new Privacy Notice. It describes why and how we collect and use personal data and provides information about your rights.
To hear more about the latest news from autism@icn, follow us on Twitter.
What do you think?
If you have any comments on the newsletter, for example, what is good about it or what can be improved, please email your feedback to [email protected].
The autism@icn newsletter aims to highlight events related to autism that are taking place (or have taken place). If you have anything you want to include in the next newsletter, please email [email protected].
Latest findings
Why do we copy irrational actions?
When we are interacting with other people, we tend to copy or imitate each other's actions. For instance, we unconsciously change our voice or postures to match those of the person we are talking to. Sometimes we also copy actions that are unnecessary. For example, we may copy the way someone cooks an omelette although this may not be the most efficient way to do it. This copying of irrational actions is what researchers call “overimitation".
Researchers are currently debating why people overimitate. It could be to learn new skills or it could be to send a social signal to other people, for example, to signal “I am like you" or just “I like you". Suze (right), a PhD student in the group, has been studying overimitation. She asked participants to watch a demonstrator move some blocks and then move the blocks themselves. Two critical factors were manipulated. First, the demonstrator sometimes made a simple ordinary action, or sometimes made an irrational action. Second, the demonstrator sometimes watched the participant move the blocks, and other times she closed her eyes. If people overimitate in order to communicate with others, they should only copy when the demonstrator is watching. Moreover, participants were wearing an fNIRS headset, which allows to record brain activity during social interactions.
Suze found that participants overimitated when they were being watched, and that they engaged two particular brain systems (inferior frontal gyrus and right temporo-parietal junction) during the task. These results were the same for people with and without autism. This means that all participants in this study were using imitation as a way to send signals to other people.
“An interesting question is whether autistic participants use compensation strategies when overimitating. For this we will need to take a closer look at the patterns of brain activity while performing an irrational action", said Suze.
Spotlight on...
The autism@icn team is a diverse group of researchers interested in understanding autism. In each newsletter we highlight the role of one of our team members. In this issue, it’s Antonia Hamilton.
Suze found that participants overimitated when they were being watched, and that they engaged two particular brain systems (inferior frontal gyrus and right temporo-parietal junction) during the task. These results were the same for people with and without autism. This means that all participants in this study were using imitation as a way to send signals to other people.
“An interesting question is whether autistic participants use compensation strategies when overimitating. For this we will need to take a closer look at the patterns of brain activity while performing an irrational action", said Suze.
Spotlight on...
The autism@icn team is a diverse group of researchers interested in understanding autism. In each newsletter we highlight the role of one of our team members. In this issue, it’s Antonia Hamilton.
Antonia (left) is a Professor in Social Neuroscience and the leader of the Social Neuroscience group at the ICN. Her current research interests include how and why people imitate each other, how social skills differ in autism, and the neural mechanisms of social interaction.
Fun fact: Antonia is currently growing broccoli and raspberries in her garden.
For more information about the autism@icn team, please click here.
Fun fact: Antonia is currently growing broccoli and raspberries in her garden.
For more information about the autism@icn team, please click here.
Events
New autism research coordinator: Ishita Chowdhury
Roser Cañigueral, who has been the autism research coordinator for this past year, is finishing her PhD and leaving autism@icn in October. Ishita Chowdhury (left) will be taking over the role of autism research coordinator. Ishita is a PhD student in Sarah White’s group, and you may have met her in previous years during the research day. She will be in touch with future newsletters.
New autism research coordinator: Ishita Chowdhury
Roser Cañigueral, who has been the autism research coordinator for this past year, is finishing her PhD and leaving autism@icn in October. Ishita Chowdhury (left) will be taking over the role of autism research coordinator. Ishita is a PhD student in Sarah White’s group, and you may have met her in previous years during the research day. She will be in touch with future newsletters.
Deconstructing the Dream
For the last few years, autism@icn has collaborated with Flute Theatre, an innovative theatre company who work to bring Shakespeare to children and young people with autism. Last May, Flute Theatre and autism@icn went on stage together to showcase a new performance called “Deconstructing the Dream”. This performance brought together actors and neuroscientists to explore the neuroscience of imagination through Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream".
For the last few years, autism@icn has collaborated with Flute Theatre, an innovative theatre company who work to bring Shakespeare to children and young people with autism. Last May, Flute Theatre and autism@icn went on stage together to showcase a new performance called “Deconstructing the Dream”. This performance brought together actors and neuroscientists to explore the neuroscience of imagination through Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream".
During the performance, we recorded brain activity patterns from the actors as they performed (see image on the right) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). This is the first time that neuroscientists have ever been able to study the brains of actors performing on stage. Prof. Antonia Hamilton (leader of the neuroscience team) also shared some preliminary results from the data collected during the rehearsal: “We have found that, when two actors perform different but tightly coordinated actions, their brain activity patterns are remarkably similar. We have also found that hearing your own name (a compelling social signal) engages specific brain regions (medial prefrontal cortex) both when actors are acting and not acting". These findings bring new insight into the neural mechanisms of social interactions and sense of self in a much more interactive environment than a lab booth.
The performance builds on work that Kelly Hunter, director of Flute Theatre, has done over the last 10 years to bring Shakespeare to children with autism in the form of sensory games. These games focus on the four most repeated words in Shakespeare's plays: eyes, mind, reason and love. “Through focusing on moments in Shakespeare where characters emerge through seeing, thinking and feeling, my games offer people on the spectrum an opportunity to express themselves by exploring eye contact, language skills, spatial awareness, facial expressions and imaginative play", Kelly said.
Read a review of the performance here.
For more information about Deconstructing the Dream, click here.
For more information about Flute Theatre, click here.
The performance builds on work that Kelly Hunter, director of Flute Theatre, has done over the last 10 years to bring Shakespeare to children with autism in the form of sensory games. These games focus on the four most repeated words in Shakespeare's plays: eyes, mind, reason and love. “Through focusing on moments in Shakespeare where characters emerge through seeing, thinking and feeling, my games offer people on the spectrum an opportunity to express themselves by exploring eye contact, language skills, spatial awareness, facial expressions and imaginative play", Kelly said.
Read a review of the performance here.
For more information about Deconstructing the Dream, click here.
For more information about Flute Theatre, click here.
Publication highlight
Many of the research projects conducted within the autism@icn team are published in scientific journals. In each issue we will highlight a publication of particular interest.
Synchronisation on stage
Many social activities need people to move together, for example, dancing or singing in a choir. This is called interpersonal synchronisation. Some studies suggest that children with autism find it hard to synchronise, but it has not been easy to study this.
Many of the research projects conducted within the autism@icn team are published in scientific journals. In each issue we will highlight a publication of particular interest.
Synchronisation on stage
Many social activities need people to move together, for example, dancing or singing in a choir. This is called interpersonal synchronisation. Some studies suggest that children with autism find it hard to synchronise, but it has not been easy to study this.
In this project, Jamie Ward (left), Antonia Hamilton and Flute theatre worked together to investigate how autistic children synchronise with actors’ movements during an interactive performance of Shakespeare. To measure the children and actors’ movement Jamie used sensors on a wrist band, similar to a FitBit, which record how fast you move. By measuring many people at the same time, Jamie could calculate how much the people coordinate. For instance, Jamie found that some autistic children moved in synchrony with the actors, although they were not doing the same kind of movements. Other children moved in synchrony with actors that were playing an instrument, although they did not interact physically.
“Wearable sensing provides an opportunity to take research on interpersonal synchrony and autism out of the lab and into ‘the wild’. Moreover, it is possible to highlight subtle moments of social coordination that might otherwise be lost”, says Jamie. “One future application of this methodology could be as a diagnosis aid, whereby groups of children wear sensors for a few hours (or longer) during their early play sessions to help identify those who might be struggling with certain social interactions”.
Here is a link to a report of the paper.
Here is a link to the original paper.
The paper is:
Ward, J. A., Richardson, D., Orgs, D., Hunter, K. & Hamilton, A. (2018). Sensing interpersonal synchrony between actors and autistic children in theatre using wrist-worn accelerometers. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 148-155.
For a complete list of publications from the autism@icn group, click here
If you would like a copy of any of these publications please email [email protected]
Here is a link to a report of the paper.
Here is a link to the original paper.
The paper is:
Ward, J. A., Richardson, D., Orgs, D., Hunter, K. & Hamilton, A. (2018). Sensing interpersonal synchrony between actors and autistic children in theatre using wrist-worn accelerometers. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 148-155.
For a complete list of publications from the autism@icn group, click here
If you would like a copy of any of these publications please email [email protected]