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The neural prerequisites of reading
Symposia Abstracts / International Journal of Psychophysiology 85 (2012) 291–360
are a physiological marker of the orienting response. Overall, the present study supports the suggestion of empathic deficits and disruptions to the amygdala in Asperger's. Results will also be discussed in relation to facial mimicry, a commonly used index of empathy.
321
Symposium C: The complexity of reading shown by neuroscientific methods Symposium Chair: Valéria Csépe (Hungary) and Ferenc Honbolygó (Hungary)
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.06.085 The neural prerequisites of reading Hoarding, excessive responsibility and pathological guilt: Symptoms of empathy in overdrive? A. Whittona, Julie D. Henryb, Jessica R. Grishama, Peter G. Rendellc a School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Australia b University of Queensland, Australia c Australian Catholic University, Australia Empathy plays a critical role in social interactions and is a key determinant of social functioning. Deficits in empathic ability have been found in a number of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and psychopathy. Most notably, however, deficits in empathy have been consistently found in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with the most pronounced impairment being in the ability to adopt the perspective of others. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder commonly associated with ASD. OCD occurs in as many as 25% of adults with ASD, while autistic traits are evident in up to 20% of individuals with OCD. Despite the overlap, very little research as examined empathic ability in OCD. Given the high co-occurrence of OC symptoms in individuals with ASD, it is possible that OCD is associated with similar deficits in empathy. However, there is evidence to the contrary, with some research suggesting that OCD may instead be associated with a form of empathic overdrive. Individuals with OCD often display a hyperattachment to things in their environment, such as family members, pets, divine entities and even inanimate objects. This is particularly evident in individuals with compulsive hoarding, where strong attachments to seemingly worthless items are formed, and where intense feelings of personal violation and grief are experienced when belongings are used or discarded by others. Support for increased empathic concern in OCD comes from research examining associations between empathy and OCD symptom dimensions. Using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index as a measure of empathy, Fontenelle et al. (2009) found that individuals with OCD showed significantly higher levels of affective empathy compared to community controls. Heightened affective empathy was found to be associated not only with hoarding symptoms, but also extended to ordering, checking and washing symptoms. This association was attributable to elevated levels of anxiety and depression in the clinical group, and the authors suggest that mechanisms linking anxiety and depression to enhanced empathic concern in OCD may be pathological responsibility and guilt. While the results of this study provide preliminary evidence of enhanced empathy in OCD, Fontenelle et al. (2009) relied solely on self-report measures of empathic ability — measures that don't always accurately predict empathic behaviour. Therefore, the current study examined empathic ability in OCD using psychophysiological indices of empathic responding. It was predicted that individuals with OCD would show greater psychophysiological responses to stimuli depicting distress in others, compared to anxious and community controls. Individuals with OCD (n =25), non-OCD anxiety disorders (n= 25) and healthy community controls (n =25) had their galvanic skin responses and facial muscle activity monitored while engaging in a series of tasks designed to measure perceptions of distress in others. Patterns of empathic ability and psychophysiological responses unique to individuals with OCD will be outlined. The impact of autistic traits on empathic concern in OCD will also be discussed.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.06.086
V. Csépea, F. Honbolygóa, H.T. Paavoa, P.H.T. Leppänenb ProRead and Neurodys teams a Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Center of Natural Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, Hungary b Finnish Center of Excellence in Learning and Motivation Research, Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland The role of various risk factors contributing to the emergence of developmental reading disorder, dyslexia, has been debated and thoroughly studied during the last two decades. Although anomalies present in the phonological processing and the contributing brain processes under maturation are widely acknowledged, a still unresolved question is how this core deficit modifies the occurrence of dyslexia in different languages. In two large scale studies (ProRead and NeuroDys, EU FP6 projects) the core deficits as well as the neurocognitive correlates of long term speech sound representations underlying phonological skills were studied. One way to study the developmental complexity of reading development is a large scale study using a big arsenal of traditional and new tasks (done both in ProRead and Neurodys WP2). The other way is to develop common tasks for event-related brain potential (ERP) studies designed for studying the effect of native language on categorical speech perception having a particular role in reading development. In the Neurodys study ERPs to different exemplars of speech sounds (vowels) were recorded and analyzed in four laboratories in order to follow the delicate changes assumed to occur in these sounds' categorical representation by investigating brain responses to native and non-native speech sounds from the same category. The event-related potentials (ERPs) to speech stimuli in dyslexic and typically developing children were measured. ERPs of 393 school-aged children at grades 2–4 (196 with dyslexia and 197 typical readers) were measured in four countries (Finland, Germany, Hungary, France) using the same mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm. Three /y/-vowels from different language contexts (Finnish/Hungarian, French, and German) varying in prototypicality/goodness as native vowels were presented as rare deviant stimuli (18%) and were embedded among a common standard European /i/-vowel (82%) in separate blocks. All participants differentiated /i/- and /y/-vowels as shown by differences in ERPs to these stimuli. While several differences were observed between the typical and dyslexic readers, showing processing of native vs. non-native /y/-/i/ difference as reflected by the MMN, the general weakness of dyslexic in showing difference in processing speech or non-speech sound was different in the Hungarians. While the observed differences in brain responses to cross-linguistic stimuli suggest a marked developmental trajectory in the modulatory role of top–down processes related to long term speech sound representations, these processes occur on different levels in dyslexics. It seems that an underspecified phonetic representation and thus problems in phonological processing in dyslexic children is a reliable correlate of reading difficulties, the different entropy of the Hungarian as compared to other languages may accentuate the differentiation for ‘speechness’. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.06.087
are a physiological marker of the orienting response. Overall, the present study supports the suggestion of empathic deficits and disruptions to the amygdala in Asperger's. Results will also be discussed in relation to facial mimicry, a commonly used index of empathy.
321
Symposium C: The complexity of reading shown by neuroscientific methods Symposium Chair: Valéria Csépe (Hungary) and Ferenc Honbolygó (Hungary)
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.06.085 The neural prerequisites of reading Hoarding, excessive responsibility and pathological guilt: Symptoms of empathy in overdrive? A. Whittona, Julie D. Henryb, Jessica R. Grishama, Peter G. Rendellc a School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Australia b University of Queensland, Australia c Australian Catholic University, Australia Empathy plays a critical role in social interactions and is a key determinant of social functioning. Deficits in empathic ability have been found in a number of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and psychopathy. Most notably, however, deficits in empathy have been consistently found in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with the most pronounced impairment being in the ability to adopt the perspective of others. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder commonly associated with ASD. OCD occurs in as many as 25% of adults with ASD, while autistic traits are evident in up to 20% of individuals with OCD. Despite the overlap, very little research as examined empathic ability in OCD. Given the high co-occurrence of OC symptoms in individuals with ASD, it is possible that OCD is associated with similar deficits in empathy. However, there is evidence to the contrary, with some research suggesting that OCD may instead be associated with a form of empathic overdrive. Individuals with OCD often display a hyperattachment to things in their environment, such as family members, pets, divine entities and even inanimate objects. This is particularly evident in individuals with compulsive hoarding, where strong attachments to seemingly worthless items are formed, and where intense feelings of personal violation and grief are experienced when belongings are used or discarded by others. Support for increased empathic concern in OCD comes from research examining associations between empathy and OCD symptom dimensions. Using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index as a measure of empathy, Fontenelle et al. (2009) found that individuals with OCD showed significantly higher levels of affective empathy compared to community controls. Heightened affective empathy was found to be associated not only with hoarding symptoms, but also extended to ordering, checking and washing symptoms. This association was attributable to elevated levels of anxiety and depression in the clinical group, and the authors suggest that mechanisms linking anxiety and depression to enhanced empathic concern in OCD may be pathological responsibility and guilt. While the results of this study provide preliminary evidence of enhanced empathy in OCD, Fontenelle et al. (2009) relied solely on self-report measures of empathic ability — measures that don't always accurately predict empathic behaviour. Therefore, the current study examined empathic ability in OCD using psychophysiological indices of empathic responding. It was predicted that individuals with OCD would show greater psychophysiological responses to stimuli depicting distress in others, compared to anxious and community controls. Individuals with OCD (n =25), non-OCD anxiety disorders (n= 25) and healthy community controls (n =25) had their galvanic skin responses and facial muscle activity monitored while engaging in a series of tasks designed to measure perceptions of distress in others. Patterns of empathic ability and psychophysiological responses unique to individuals with OCD will be outlined. The impact of autistic traits on empathic concern in OCD will also be discussed.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.06.086
V. Csépea, F. Honbolygóa, H.T. Paavoa, P.H.T. Leppänenb ProRead and Neurodys teams a Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Center of Natural Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, Hungary b Finnish Center of Excellence in Learning and Motivation Research, Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland The role of various risk factors contributing to the emergence of developmental reading disorder, dyslexia, has been debated and thoroughly studied during the last two decades. Although anomalies present in the phonological processing and the contributing brain processes under maturation are widely acknowledged, a still unresolved question is how this core deficit modifies the occurrence of dyslexia in different languages. In two large scale studies (ProRead and NeuroDys, EU FP6 projects) the core deficits as well as the neurocognitive correlates of long term speech sound representations underlying phonological skills were studied. One way to study the developmental complexity of reading development is a large scale study using a big arsenal of traditional and new tasks (done both in ProRead and Neurodys WP2). The other way is to develop common tasks for event-related brain potential (ERP) studies designed for studying the effect of native language on categorical speech perception having a particular role in reading development. In the Neurodys study ERPs to different exemplars of speech sounds (vowels) were recorded and analyzed in four laboratories in order to follow the delicate changes assumed to occur in these sounds' categorical representation by investigating brain responses to native and non-native speech sounds from the same category. The event-related potentials (ERPs) to speech stimuli in dyslexic and typically developing children were measured. ERPs of 393 school-aged children at grades 2–4 (196 with dyslexia and 197 typical readers) were measured in four countries (Finland, Germany, Hungary, France) using the same mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm. Three /y/-vowels from different language contexts (Finnish/Hungarian, French, and German) varying in prototypicality/goodness as native vowels were presented as rare deviant stimuli (18%) and were embedded among a common standard European /i/-vowel (82%) in separate blocks. All participants differentiated /i/- and /y/-vowels as shown by differences in ERPs to these stimuli. While several differences were observed between the typical and dyslexic readers, showing processing of native vs. non-native /y/-/i/ difference as reflected by the MMN, the general weakness of dyslexic in showing difference in processing speech or non-speech sound was different in the Hungarians. While the observed differences in brain responses to cross-linguistic stimuli suggest a marked developmental trajectory in the modulatory role of top–down processes related to long term speech sound representations, these processes occur on different levels in dyslexics. It seems that an underspecified phonetic representation and thus problems in phonological processing in dyslexic children is a reliable correlate of reading difficulties, the different entropy of the Hungarian as compared to other languages may accentuate the differentiation for ‘speechness’. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.06.087