Autism
People adapt their actions to different social contexts, for example using gentle actions in positive contexts or rude actions in negative contexts. Vitality Forms (VFs) describe how our affective state influences the expression of our actions. Moreover, in daily life VFs expression allows us to understand the intentions and behaviors of others. So far, few studies have investigated the role of VFs in the autism spectrum condition (ASC) , characterized by some difficulties in social interaction and communication. Generally, from these few studies we know that ASC children can recognize and express VFs, but in a different way from neurotypicals (NT).
Here are some of our main results: In 2017, Di Cesare and colleagues conducted a study showing a significant difference between ASD children and children with a typical development (TD) in vitality forms recognition. ASD children had more difficulty in recognizing actions with a more blurred VF, such as ‘neutral’ or ‘very gentle’ actions. These results could explain the difficulties in everyday interactions, often performed with a blurred VF.
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Recently, another study of Di Cesare and colleagues (2024) investigated how ASC children express VF, compared with NT children. The results indicated that ASC are able to express VF, but in a different way from NT children. They differ significantly in some motor parameters, such as speed, being slower in execution. Furthermore, the differences between the groups increased when the children were in a social context, compared to a non-social one. In fact, ASC children did not modulate the VF of the action appropriately to the social context.
These are some of the actions recorded in the 2024 study by Di Cesare and colleagues. In particular, the video shows the social condition in which ASD and TD children had to perform an action in a rude or gentle manner towards a person (a member of the research team). It is quite clear that TD children modulate their action, differentiating the kinematics of the rude action from the gentle one. On the other hand, the actions of ASD children are very similar in the two conditions and a greater impediment in execution can sometimes be observed. This may reflect a difficulty in modulating VF in the social context for ASD children.
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We are currently conducting further research to expand our understanding of vitality forms in autism spectrum condition. Our next step will be to study what happens in a real social interaction, with another child or with a humanoid agent. This would open the door to designing more sophisticated interventions.
Di Cesare, G., Bruschetta, R., Vitale, A., Pelosi, A., Leonardi, E., Famà, F. I., ... & Ruta, L. (2024). Exploring divergent kinematics in autism across social and non-social vitality forms. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 24164.
Di Cesare, G., Sparaci, L., Pelosi, A., Mazzone, L., Giovagnoli, G., Menghini, D., ... & Vicari, S. (2017). Differences in action style recognition in children with autism spectrum disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1456.