Newsletter: Winter 2019
Welcome to the eighth edition of the autism@icn newsletter! The autism@icn team has had a busy term preparing for this year’s set of studies (see ‘Research Day 2019’) and writing articles (see ‘Publication Highlight’). See also ‘Latest findings’ to read about our most recent 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].
Research Day 2019
If you are registered on the autism@icn database, Roser Cañigueral, the autism research coordinator, may be contacting you in the next few months to invite you to take part in the 2019 autism@icn Research Day (from end of March until end of June). This will be very similar to last year: participants will come to the ICN for a day of studies and will be reimbursed for their time as well as for their lunch and reasonable travel expenses.
If you know anyone with or without a diagnosis of autism who may be interested in taking part in the Research Day, please email Roser via [email protected].
Latest findings
How do you perceive laughter?
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].
Research Day 2019
If you are registered on the autism@icn database, Roser Cañigueral, the autism research coordinator, may be contacting you in the next few months to invite you to take part in the 2019 autism@icn Research Day (from end of March until end of June). This will be very similar to last year: participants will come to the ICN for a day of studies and will be reimbursed for their time as well as for their lunch and reasonable travel expenses.
If you know anyone with or without a diagnosis of autism who may be interested in taking part in the Research Day, please email Roser via [email protected].
Latest findings
How do you perceive laughter?
Imagine you are with a group of people and someone tells a joke. You don’t quite get the joke, but everybody else seems to find it funny and is laughing. Would you join them in laughing or not? Now imagine someone is tickling you: do you think you could even stop laughing?
The first type of laughter, called social laughter, is a ‘fake’ laughter that happens when we want to show that we like other people and we want to be part of their group. Instead, the second type of laughter is intuitive and genuine, and expresses that we feel happy and cheerful: researchers call it spontaneous laughter.
The first type of laughter, called social laughter, is a ‘fake’ laughter that happens when we want to show that we like other people and we want to be part of their group. Instead, the second type of laughter is intuitive and genuine, and expresses that we feel happy and cheerful: researchers call it spontaneous laughter.
Ceci (Cai Qing, right), a PhD student working with Sophie Scott, wanted to investigate how we perceive these two kinds of laughter. In her study, participants listened to some recordings of pun jokes followed by a social laughter, spontaneous laughter, or no laughter. Then, participants had to rate how funny each joke was.
She found that jokes paired with some type of laughter were perceived as funnier than jokes with no laughter. When comparing both types of laughter, she found that jokes with spontaneous laughter were perceived as funnier than jokes with social laughter. Moreover, there was no difference in laughter perception between typical and autistic participants.
These results suggest that we perceive social and spontaneous laughter in different ways. However, Ceci highlighted that there are some limitations to this study. “In general, the ratings for the jokes are very low, which suggests that they are not funny enough for the participants. Moreover, the sense of humour is very subjective. We hope to address these issues in future studies”, she said. She also plans to investigate which brain areas are involved in the perception of each type of laughter.
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 Jo Moss.
She found that jokes paired with some type of laughter were perceived as funnier than jokes with no laughter. When comparing both types of laughter, she found that jokes with spontaneous laughter were perceived as funnier than jokes with social laughter. Moreover, there was no difference in laughter perception between typical and autistic participants.
These results suggest that we perceive social and spontaneous laughter in different ways. However, Ceci highlighted that there are some limitations to this study. “In general, the ratings for the jokes are very low, which suggests that they are not funny enough for the participants. Moreover, the sense of humour is very subjective. We hope to address these issues in future studies”, she said. She also plans to investigate which brain areas are involved in the perception of each type of laughter.
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 Jo Moss.
Jo (left) is a research fellow at the Cerebra Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders (School of Psychology, University of Birmingham) and she is also an honorary senior research associate at the ICN. Jo is interested in the behavioural and cognitive features of autism in individuals with intellectual disability and genetic syndromes.
Fun fact: Jo loves travelling. She once spent three months living on a Kibbutz in Israel packing peppers and spring onions in a packing factory.
For more information about the autism@icn team, please click here.
Fun fact: Jo loves travelling. She once spent three months living on a Kibbutz in Israel packing peppers and spring onions in a packing factory.
For more information about the autism@icn team, please click here.
Events
Paul Forbes awarded PhD
Congratulations to Paul Forbes (left) for passing his PhD viva last November! During his PhD, supervised by Antonia Hamilton, Paul investigated how mimicry (copying other people’s actions and movements without realising) can be measured and modulated during social interactions, both in neurotypical and autistic individuals. He has now moved to University of Vienna, where he is investigating how stress impacts social behaviour. We thank Paul for all his work as the Autism Research Coordinator during the past four years, and wish him all the best for the future!
Paul Forbes awarded PhD
Congratulations to Paul Forbes (left) for passing his PhD viva last November! During his PhD, supervised by Antonia Hamilton, Paul investigated how mimicry (copying other people’s actions and movements without realising) can be measured and modulated during social interactions, both in neurotypical and autistic individuals. He has now moved to University of Vienna, where he is investigating how stress impacts social behaviour. We thank Paul for all his work as the Autism Research Coordinator during the past four years, and wish him all the best for the future!
Invited speaker: Louisa Thomas
In the beginning of February, Louisa Thomas (right) was invited to give a talk at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Louisa is a PhD student at Royal Holloway University of London, and her research focuses on individual differences in autism during the processing of rewards and social influence. Louisa will be running a study over the next few months and she is looking for participants to take part in her study: please see the section ‘Take part in research at Royal Holloway’ for more information on her study and how to take part.
Flute Theatre: Deconstructing the Dream
Flute Theatre and autism@icn will be collaborating on a new performance called “Deconstructing the Dream”. The event will take place at the Bloomsbury Theatre in May. Tickets will be on sale soon, so stay tuned!
For more information about Flute Theatre, click here.
For more information about Bloomsbury Theatre, click here.
In the beginning of February, Louisa Thomas (right) was invited to give a talk at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Louisa is a PhD student at Royal Holloway University of London, and her research focuses on individual differences in autism during the processing of rewards and social influence. Louisa will be running a study over the next few months and she is looking for participants to take part in her study: please see the section ‘Take part in research at Royal Holloway’ for more information on her study and how to take part.
Flute Theatre: Deconstructing the Dream
Flute Theatre and autism@icn will be collaborating on a new performance called “Deconstructing the Dream”. The event will take place at the Bloomsbury Theatre in May. Tickets will be on sale soon, so stay tuned!
For more information about Flute Theatre, click here.
For more information about Bloomsbury 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.
Who do you prefer to see?
Every day we see lots of people in magazines, movies, browsing the internet or, of course, real people around us. However, there is an important difference between seeing someone in a movie and seeing a real person: the person in the movie cannot see around her, or see us back, whereas the real person can. So, how much do we prefer one or the other? Roser Cañigueral (right) and her supervisor Antonia Hamilton were interested in exploring this question.
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.
Who do you prefer to see?
Every day we see lots of people in magazines, movies, browsing the internet or, of course, real people around us. However, there is an important difference between seeing someone in a movie and seeing a real person: the person in the movie cannot see around her, or see us back, whereas the real person can. So, how much do we prefer one or the other? Roser Cañigueral (right) and her supervisor Antonia Hamilton were interested in exploring this question.
To test this in the lab, participants first got familiar with video-clips of an actress wearing different types of glasses (see sample screenshot on the left). Depending on the type of glasses, the eyes of the actress were visible or not, and participants knew if the actress could see around her or not. Then, participants played a game where they had to unlock the video-clips to see the actress with the glasses. The amount of times participants decided to unlock each type of video-clip was then used as a measure of preference for someone who has visible eyes or not, and who can see around or not.
Roser found that there were different patterns of preferences in typical and autistic participants: while the typical group preferred videos where the actress can see around and has visible eyes, the autistic group showed no preference for this type of video-clips. These findings suggest that autistic individuals might not find eye gaze as rewarding as typical individuals do.
“The next step is to investigate how much we seek others in real face-to-face interactions, where the actress can really see the participants”, said Roser. “This will also give us a better understanding of how we integrate different types of social cues, such as eye gaze, speech, gestures or facial expressions”.
Here is a link to the original paper.
The paper is:
Cañigueral, R. & Hamilton, A. (2019). Do Beliefs About Whether Others Can See Modulate Social Seeking in Autism? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49: 335-48.
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]
Take part in research at Royal Holloway
Researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London are conducting a study investigating economic choices and are looking for male and female participants with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum condition, aged between 16 and 30.
The study involves three tasks: two economic choice games, and one block of questionnaires. During the choice games, you will make choices for yourself and on behalf of two previous participants, so that you can learn about their choices.
This will take around 45 minutes, and will take place either in central London (Bedford Square, Bloomsbury), or Egham (Surrey, 40 minutes from London Waterloo). You will be paid £8 for your time, plus travel expenses, and will have the opportunity to enter into a prize draw to win an Amazon voucher.
If you are interested in taking part, or would like to find out more about the study, please contact the lead researcher Louisa Thomas by email at [email protected].
Roser found that there were different patterns of preferences in typical and autistic participants: while the typical group preferred videos where the actress can see around and has visible eyes, the autistic group showed no preference for this type of video-clips. These findings suggest that autistic individuals might not find eye gaze as rewarding as typical individuals do.
“The next step is to investigate how much we seek others in real face-to-face interactions, where the actress can really see the participants”, said Roser. “This will also give us a better understanding of how we integrate different types of social cues, such as eye gaze, speech, gestures or facial expressions”.
Here is a link to the original paper.
The paper is:
Cañigueral, R. & Hamilton, A. (2019). Do Beliefs About Whether Others Can See Modulate Social Seeking in Autism? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49: 335-48.
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]
Take part in research at Royal Holloway
Researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London are conducting a study investigating economic choices and are looking for male and female participants with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum condition, aged between 16 and 30.
The study involves three tasks: two economic choice games, and one block of questionnaires. During the choice games, you will make choices for yourself and on behalf of two previous participants, so that you can learn about their choices.
This will take around 45 minutes, and will take place either in central London (Bedford Square, Bloomsbury), or Egham (Surrey, 40 minutes from London Waterloo). You will be paid £8 for your time, plus travel expenses, and will have the opportunity to enter into a prize draw to win an Amazon voucher.
If you are interested in taking part, or would like to find out more about the study, please contact the lead researcher Louisa Thomas by email at [email protected].