Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Dec 23:15:1514682.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1514682. eCollection 2024.

Not on the same wavelength? How autistic traits influence cooperation: evidence from fNIRS hyperscanning

Kaiyun Li #  1 , Bang Du #  1 , Xue Guan #  1 , Liu Chen  1 , Mingxue Wang  1 , Gongxiang Chen  1 , Fanlu Jia  1 , Xiaoqing Jiang  2
Affiliations

Not on the same wavelength? How autistic traits influence cooperation: evidence from fNIRS hyperscanning

Kaiyun Li et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: Individuals with high autistic traits exhibit characteristics like those of individuals with autism, including impairments in sociability and communication skills. Whether individuals with high autistic traits exhibit less cooperation remains debated.

Methods: This study employed the prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) to measure cooperation in 56 dyads, including 27 with high-low (HL) autistic traits and 29 with low-low (LL) autistic traits, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning technique. Cognitive and emotional empathy were also measured.

Results: Individuals with high autistic traits had a lower unilateral cooperation rate than did those with low autistic traits; The HL autistic dyads exhibited a lower mutual cooperation rate and reduced interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) in the right inferior parietal lobule (r-IPL) and right temporoparietal junction (r-TPJ) compared with the LL autistic dyads; Individuals with high autistic traits had significantly lower cognitive empathy scores than did those with low autistic traits, and the cognitive empathy scores had a marginally significant positive correlation with the unilateral cooperation rate and a marginally significant negative correlation with the activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus (r-IFG); Emotional empathy scores did not significantly differ between the high and low autistic groups, and there was a significant positive correlation between emotional empathy scores and the activation of the r-IFG in individuals with high autistic traits.

Conclusion: This study revealed abnormal cooperation in individuals with high autistic traits from unilateral and mutual behavior neural perspectives, potentially linked to a disability of cognitive empathy.

Keywords: autistic traits; cooperation; empathy; fNIRS; interpersonal brain synchronization.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental setting. (A) Procedure for the prisoner’s dilemma game task. (B) Illustration of the fNIRS hyperscanning experimental setup. (C) Procedure for the cognitive empathy task. (D) Procedure for the emotional empathy task. (E) Positions of the fNIRS channels. (F) Wavelet transform coherence (WTC) estimating IBS
Figure 2
Figure 2
Individual behavioral results of high and low autistic traits groups during. (A) Unilateral cooperation/defection rates. (B) Different decision pattern rates. Error bars represent standard errors. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Individual brain activation results. (A) The main effect of decision outcome in channel 16 (r-IFG). (B) The main effect of autistic traits in channel 19 (r-IFG). Error bars represent standard errors. *** p < 0.001.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mutual cooperation/defection rates. Error bars represent standard errors. ** p < 0.01.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Results of IBS. (A) The interaction effect in channel 13 (r-IPL). (B) The main effect of group in channel 17 (r-TPJ). Error bars represent standard errors. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Correlation analysis of IBS in channels 13/17 with the mutual cooperation/defection rates in each group.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Empathy results. (A) Cognitive empathy accuracy. (B) Cognitive empathy response times. (C) Emotional empathy response times. Error bars represent standard errors. *** p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. American Psychiatric Association . Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 5th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; (2013). doi: 10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596 - DOI
    1. Lugo-Marin J, Magan-Maganto M, Rivero-Santana A, Cuellar-Pompa L, Alviani M, Jenaro-Rio C, et al. . Prevalence of psychiatric disorders in adults with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Res Autism Spectr Disord. (2019) 59:22–33. doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2018.12.004 - DOI
    1. Gökçen E, Petrides KV, Hudry K, Frederickson N, Smillie LD. Sub-threshold autism traits: The role of trait emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility. Br J Psychol. (2014) 105:187–99. doi: 10.1111/bjop.12033 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Takahashi J, Tamaki K, Yamawaki N. Autism spectrum, attachment styles, and social skills in university student. Creative Education. (2013) 4:514–20. doi: 10.4236/ce.2013.48075 - DOI
    1. Hao WJ, Hu YH. The implications of deep cooperation strategy for the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. Appl Math Comput. (2024) 470:18. doi: 10.1016/j.amc.2024.128578 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources