Newsletter: Winter 2024
Welcome to the tenth edition of the autism@icn newsletter! After a break due to the pandemic, coordinated research days are returning to the ICN in spring 2024. The new autism database coordinator, Gillian Hughes, will be sending out information about the research days in the next couple of months (see ‘Research Day 2024’ for more information).
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 Days 2024
If you are registered on the autism@icn database, you may receive an email from Gillian, the autism database coordinator, in the next few months inviting you to take part in the 2024 autism@icn Research Days (beginning in May). This will be very similar to research days that have taken place in previous years: 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. More information about the studies that will be included and how long the research day will take will be sent out in the coming months.
If you are interested in participating in the 2024 Research Days and/or you would like to register on the database, you are welcome to email Gillian at [email protected] to express your interest. We look forward to hearing from you!
Latest findings
How do you judge genuine vs posed smiles?
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 Days 2024
If you are registered on the autism@icn database, you may receive an email from Gillian, the autism database coordinator, in the next few months inviting you to take part in the 2024 autism@icn Research Days (beginning in May). This will be very similar to research days that have taken place in previous years: 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. More information about the studies that will be included and how long the research day will take will be sent out in the coming months.
If you are interested in participating in the 2024 Research Days and/or you would like to register on the database, you are welcome to email Gillian at [email protected] to express your interest. We look forward to hearing from you!
Latest findings
How do you judge genuine vs posed smiles?
For years, researchers have been exploring the differences between two types of smiles – genuine smiles and posed smiles – and their roles within social communication. As implied in the name, genuine smiles are considered to reflect positive emotions, while posed smiles are not necessarily related to positivity but can sometimes mean someone is hiding their true feelings. Genuine and posed smiles are also physically different. In genuine smiles (but not posed smiles), people involuntarily activate the small muscles around their eyes, forming the look of “crow’s feet”.
Intergroup bias refers to the finding that people tend to favour those who are more similar to themselves (their ‘ingroup’) over those who are less similar to themselves (their ‘outgroup’). There are widespread findings supporting the existence of intergroup bias in a variety of different contexts, including how people judge the authenticity of smiles. Researchers have also shown that intergroup bias can have an effect even when the groups are completely arbitrary and people are randomly assigned to one of two mutually exclusive groups. These situations are referred to as minimal group settings.
Intergroup bias refers to the finding that people tend to favour those who are more similar to themselves (their ‘ingroup’) over those who are less similar to themselves (their ‘outgroup’). There are widespread findings supporting the existence of intergroup bias in a variety of different contexts, including how people judge the authenticity of smiles. Researchers have also shown that intergroup bias can have an effect even when the groups are completely arbitrary and people are randomly assigned to one of two mutually exclusive groups. These situations are referred to as minimal group settings.
Ruihan Wu (left), a PhD student at the ICN, has been studying smile discrimination in autistic and non-autistic people and the potential role of intergroup bias in a minimal group setting. Participants were randomly categorised into two groups (green and yellow) and watched a series short videos of people making genuine and posed smiles. Actors in the videos wore a coloured badge to indicate which group they were a part of, green or yellow. Participants were then asked to rate on a 7-point scale how genuine they thought each smile was, from “not genuine” to ‘extremely genuine” (see image below).
Even in this minimal group setting, Ruihan found ingroup favouritism in both the autistic and non-autistic participants – both groups rated ingroup smiles as more genuine than outgroup smiles. This suggests that autistic people, when it comes to judging smiles, are just as susceptible to the effects of intergroup bias as non-autistic people.
Smile discrimination task and authenticity judgement:
Even in this minimal group setting, Ruihan found ingroup favouritism in both the autistic and non-autistic participants – both groups rated ingroup smiles as more genuine than outgroup smiles. This suggests that autistic people, when it comes to judging smiles, are just as susceptible to the effects of intergroup bias as non-autistic people.
Smile discrimination task and authenticity judgement:
The paper is:
Wu, R., Hamilton, A. F. de C., & White, S. J. (2024). Can group membership modulate the social abilities of autistic people? An intergroup bias in smile perception. Cortex. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.12.018
Wu, R., Hamilton, A. F. de C., & White, S. J. (2024). Can group membership modulate the social abilities of autistic people? An intergroup bias in smile perception. Cortex. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.12.018
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 Ceci Qing Cai.
Congratulations is in order for Ceci (left), who was awarded her PhD in February 2023! During her PhD, supervised by Prof Sophie Scott and Dr Sarah White, she investigated the socio-emotional essence of vocal communication in autistic and non-autistic adults. Her work incorporated self-report questionnaires, behavioural experiments, and neuroimaging (fMRI).
Ceci continues her research at the ICN as a postdoctoral research fellow – in 2023, she received a UCL Fellowship Incubation Award, enabling her to further study face-to-face social interaction from a neurodiversity perspective.
Fun fact: Ceci co-founded the largest foreign bookstore in Central China, which boasted a vast collection from Penguin Books. She's an avid birdwatcher and has recently taken her passion digital, enjoying cyber bird-watching through an app called Tori Note.
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 Ceci Qing Cai.
Congratulations is in order for Ceci (left), who was awarded her PhD in February 2023! During her PhD, supervised by Prof Sophie Scott and Dr Sarah White, she investigated the socio-emotional essence of vocal communication in autistic and non-autistic adults. Her work incorporated self-report questionnaires, behavioural experiments, and neuroimaging (fMRI).
Ceci continues her research at the ICN as a postdoctoral research fellow – in 2023, she received a UCL Fellowship Incubation Award, enabling her to further study face-to-face social interaction from a neurodiversity perspective.
Fun fact: Ceci co-founded the largest foreign bookstore in Central China, which boasted a vast collection from Penguin Books. She's an avid birdwatcher and has recently taken her passion digital, enjoying cyber bird-watching through an app called Tori Note.
Events
Ishita Chowdhury awarded PhD
Congratulations to Ishita (left) for passing her PhD viva in 2023! During her time as a PhD student, supervised by Sarah White, she studied how deception detection abilities change throughout development and if this might be an area of difficulty for autistic individuals. She also explored how these abilities might be related to mentalizing, bullying, and mental health. Ishita is now a Lecturer at University of Surrey, but she continues to collaborate with the Development Diversity Lab at UCL.
Ishita Chowdhury awarded PhD
Congratulations to Ishita (left) for passing her PhD viva in 2023! During her time as a PhD student, supervised by Sarah White, she studied how deception detection abilities change throughout development and if this might be an area of difficulty for autistic individuals. She also explored how these abilities might be related to mentalizing, bullying, and mental health. Ishita is now a Lecturer at University of Surrey, but she continues to collaborate with the Development Diversity Lab at UCL.
New autism research coordinator: Gillian Hughes
Maryna Nosyk, who was the previous autism research coordinator, has started her PhD at the University of Oxford. Gillian Hughes (right) will be taking over the role of autism research coordinator. Gillian is a research assistant in the Development Diversity Lab, Sarah White’s group at the ICN. You will be hearing from her over the next few months regarding the upcoming research days in Spring 2024.
Maryna Nosyk, who was the previous autism research coordinator, has started her PhD at the University of Oxford. Gillian Hughes (right) will be taking over the role of autism research coordinator. Gillian is a research assistant in the Development Diversity Lab, Sarah White’s group at the ICN. You will be hearing from her over the next few months regarding the upcoming research days in Spring 2024.
Publication highlight
With the fast rise in online learning over the past few years, researchers have begun to explore what social contexts best support learning across various populations. A recently published study led by Sara de Felice and Antonia Hamilton at UCL found that social interaction does in fact boost learning for non-autistic individuals in online contexts. However, it remains unclear if the same benefits of social interaction on learning are seen in autistic people.
To answer this question, Sara and collaborators at UCL investigated whether a live online session improved learning in autistic adults compared to either a pre-recorded video of a previous interaction or a pre-recorded video of a teacher alone (see image below). Participants learned about various exotic foods, animals, and musicals instruments, and were given a multiple-choice quiz after the session to assess how well they learned the material. Participants were given the quiz immediately after the learning session and one week later.
With the fast rise in online learning over the past few years, researchers have begun to explore what social contexts best support learning across various populations. A recently published study led by Sara de Felice and Antonia Hamilton at UCL found that social interaction does in fact boost learning for non-autistic individuals in online contexts. However, it remains unclear if the same benefits of social interaction on learning are seen in autistic people.
To answer this question, Sara and collaborators at UCL investigated whether a live online session improved learning in autistic adults compared to either a pre-recorded video of a previous interaction or a pre-recorded video of a teacher alone (see image below). Participants learned about various exotic foods, animals, and musicals instruments, and were given a multiple-choice quiz after the session to assess how well they learned the material. Participants were given the quiz immediately after the learning session and one week later.
Both non-autistic and autistic adults showed better immediate and long-term learning in the live video-call condition compared to both pre-recorded video conditions. This suggests that autistic people benefit from social interaction when learning non-social information as much as non-autistic people do. While previous research has suggested that autistic people struggle to learn about social information, it seems that they do benefit from learning about non-social information via social interaction. This is often referred to as the “about-the-social versus via-the-social” hypothesis. Unlike the current study, previous research may have neglected to disentangle the two ideas.
Here is a link to the original paper.
The paper is:
De Felice, S., Hatilova, A., Trojan, F., Tsui, I., & Hamilton, A. F. de C. (2023). Autistic adults benefit from and enjoy learning via social interaction as much as neurotypical adults do. Molecular Autism, 14(1), 33. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-023-00561-6
For a complete list of publications from the autism@icn group, click here.
Here is a link to the original paper.
The paper is:
De Felice, S., Hatilova, A., Trojan, F., Tsui, I., & Hamilton, A. F. de C. (2023). Autistic adults benefit from and enjoy learning via social interaction as much as neurotypical adults do. Molecular Autism, 14(1), 33. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-023-00561-6
For a complete list of publications from the autism@icn group, click here.