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Understanding the relationship between imitation, empathy and autism: using quantitative measurements of imitation accuracy.| old_uid | 15386 |
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| title | Understanding the relationship between imitation, empathy and autism: using quantitative measurements of imitation accuracy. |
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| start_date | 2015/03/26 |
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| schedule | 13h30 |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | Ampère |
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| summary | Despite more than 60 years of research which has consistently demonstrated an imitation impairment in autism spectrum disorders in many studies, the significance of imitation in social cognitive development remains poorly understood. It remains debated as to whether impairment in autism stems from an imitation-specific mechanism or is just epiphenomena of impaired social motivation, memory, attention or motor skills. Furthermore, the mechanism by which imitation might support empathic development is not known. To address these questions, we have developed two experimental paradigms to obtain quantitative measures of imitation accuracy. In the first paradigm, we obtain measures of imitation fidelity by comparing the movement parameters of actions between a model and a participant as they both draw shapes on a tablet computer. Participants either imitate a video of a model or copy the end point of the model’s movement, which is manifest by a dot that moves about the screen, generated from recordings of the stylus interaction with the tablet. The second paradigm is designed to measure the accuracy with which people can imitate emotional facial expressions. Two sets of morphed facial expressions are generated. In each, 3 stereotypical emotional expressions are blended in systematically varying amounts, such that each facial stimulus differs from the others to variable degrees, from being closely similar to markedly different. Imitation ability is measured by the accuracy with which blind raters can match an image of an attempt at imitation to the correct model. In the first experiment, a significant interaction for error measures of drawing size demonstrated a greater impairment specific to imitation relative to emulation in a group of young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In a second study with a different group of adolescents, principal component s analysis was used to extract an overall index of imitation ability which again showed greater error in the ASD group compared to controls. Studies with facial imitation error have revealed that accuracy in imitating facial expressions is correlated with Empathic Quotient, a finding that we have replicated twice in adults and also in children. In a brain imaging experiment, this correlates with activity in the mirror neuron system and lately we have shown that a population of young people with ASD perform with greater error than controls. In a recent and exciting development, we have used computer vision technology to automate our measure of accuracy, showing an even more robust correlation between facial imitation error and empathic quotient that is independent of observer variance. In discussion, I will argue that a traditional model relating imitation to empathy based on the representation of intention, needs to give way to one based on accurate perception and re-enactment. Our findings can be understood within the context of embodied cognition theory, such that the level of an individual’s empathic traits are strongly determined by the degree to which his or her sensorimotor mechanisms are engaged when perceiving and re-enacting social behaviour. |
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| responsibles | Hueber |
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