TY - THES A1 - Blum, Franziska T1 - I see you smile, you must be happy! Social-emotional gains and usability evaluation of the new training tool E.V.A.: A pilot study N2 - Emotions are a complex concept and they are present in our everyday life. Persons on the autism spectrum are said to have difficulties in social interactions, showing deficits in emotion recognition in comparison to neurotypically developed persons. But social-emotional skills are believed to be positively augmented by training. A new adaptive social cognition training tool “E.V.A.” is introduced which teaches emotion recognition from face, voice and body language. One cross-sectional and one longitudinal study with adult neurotypical and autistic participants were conducted. The aim of the cross-sectional study was to characterize the two groups and see if differences in their social-emotional skills exist. The longitudinal study, on the other hand, aimed for detecting possible training effects following training with the new training tool. In addition, in both studies usability assessments were conducted to investigate the perceived usability of the new tool for neurotypical as well as autistic participants. Differences were found between autistic and neurotypical participants in their social-emotional and emotion recognition abilities. Training effects for neurotypical participants in an emotion recognition task were found after two weeks of home training. Similar perceived usability was found for the neurotypical and autistic participants. The current findings suggest that persons with ASC do not have a general deficit in emotion recognition, but are in need for more time to correctly recognize emotions. In addition, findings suggest that training emotion recognition abilities is possible. Further studies are needed to verify if the training effects found for neurotypical participants also manifest in a larger ASC sample. N2 - Emotionen sind ein komplexes Konzept und sie sind Teil unseres alltäglichen Lebens. Personen mit einer Autismus-Spektrum-Störung wird nachgesagt, dass sie Schwierigkeiten mit sozialen Interaktionen und Defizite in der Erkennung von Emotionen haben, im Vergleich zu neurotypischen Menschen. Allerdings glaubt man, dass sich sozio-emotionale Fähigkeiten mittels Training positiv beeinflussen lassen. Ein neues adaptives Trainingstool ”E.V.A.“ wird vorgestellt, welches Emotionserkennung von Gesicht, Stimme und Körpersprache lehrt. Eine Querschnitts- und eine Längsschnittstudie mit erwachsenen neurotypischen und autistischen Teilnehmern wurden durchgeführt. Das Ziel der Querschnittsstudie war die Charakterisierung der zwei Stichproben, sowie die Aufdeckung von möglichen Unterschieden in deren sozio-emotionalen Fähigkeiten. Die Längsschnittstudie, zum anderen, zielte auf die Entdeckung von möglichen Trainingseffekten ab, die auf das Training mit dem neuen Tool folgen. Zusätzlich wurde in beiden Studien die wahrgenommene Benutzerfreundlichkeit von neurotypischen und autistischen Teilnehmern erfasst und untersucht. Zwischen den neurotypischen und autistischen Teilnehmern wurden Unterschiede in deren sozio-emotionalen Fähigkeiten sowie deren Fähigkeit Emotionen zu erkennen gefunden. Neurotypische Teilnehmer zeigten Trainingseffekte nach einer zwei-wöchigen Nutzung des Trainingstools zu Hause. Die Benutzerfreundlichkeit wurde von den neurotypischen und den autistischen Teilnehmern ähnlich empfunden. Die vorliegenden Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Autisten kein generelles Defizit in der Erkennung von Emotionen haben, sie aber mehr Zeit dafür benötigen. Zusätzlich weisen die Ergebnisse auf die Möglichkeit des Trainings der Fähigkeit Emotionen zu erkennen hin. Weiterführende Studien sind notwendig um zu verifizieren ob sich die Trainingseffekte auch in einer größeren Stichprobe von Autisten zeigen. KW - autism KW - emotion recognition KW - social cognition training KW - Autismus KW - Emotionserkennung KW - Training Sozialer Kognition Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-505509 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brenner, Leon S. T1 - The autistic mirror in the real BT - Autism in Lacan’s mirror stage JF - Theory & psychology N2 - The mirror stage is one of Jacques Lacan's most well-received metapsychological models in the English-speaking world. In its many renditions Lacan elucidates the different forms of identification that lead to the construction of the Freudian ego. This article utilizes Lacan's mirror stage to provide a novel perspective on autistic embodiment. It develops an integrative model that accounts for the progression of four distinct forms of autistic identification in the mirror stage; these forms provide the basis for the development of four different clinical trajectories in the treatment of autism. This model is posed as an alternative to the clinical and diagnostic framework associated with the autistic spectrum disorder. KW - autism KW - Lacan KW - mirror stage KW - psychoanalysis KW - theory Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543211034569 SN - 0959-3543 SN - 1461-7447 VL - 31 IS - 6 SP - 950 EP - 972 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schneider, Jan Niklas A1 - Brick, Timothy R. A1 - Dziobek, Isabel T1 - Distance to the neutral face predicts arousal ratings of dynamic facial expressions in individuals with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Arousal is one of the dimensions of core affect and frequently used to describe experienced or observed emotional states. While arousal ratings of facial expressions are collected in many studies it is not well understood how arousal is displayed in or interpreted from facial expressions. In the context of socioemotional disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, this poses the question of a differential use of facial information for arousal perception. In this study, we demonstrate how automated face-tracking tools can be used to extract predictors of arousal judgments. We find moderate to strong correlations among all measures of static information on one hand and all measures of dynamic information on the other. Based on these results, we tested two measures, average distance to the neutral face and average facial movement speed, within and between neurotypical individuals (N = 401) and individuals with autism (N = 19). Distance to the neutral face was predictive of arousal in both groups. Lower mean arousal ratings were found for the autistic group, but no difference in correlation of the measures and arousal ratings could be found between groups. Results were replicated in an high autistic traits group. The findings suggest a qualitatively similar perception of arousal for individuals with and without autism. No correlations between valence ratings and any of the measures could be found, emphasizing the specificity of our tested measures. Distance and speed predictors share variability and thus speed should not be discarded as a predictor of arousal ratings. KW - arousal KW - face tracking KW - facial expression KW - autism KW - perception KW - perception differences KW - measure development Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.577494 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER -