Neural basis of irony comprehension in children with autism: the role of prosody and context - PubMed (original) (raw)

Neural basis of irony comprehension in children with autism: the role of prosody and context

A Ting Wang et al. Brain. 2006 Apr.

Abstract

While individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are typically impaired in interpreting the communicative intent of others, little is known about the neural bases of higher-level pragmatic impairments. Here, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to examine the neural circuitry underlying deficits in understanding irony in high-functioning children with ASD. Participants listened to short scenarios and decided whether the speaker was sincere or ironic. Three types of scenarios were used in which we varied the information available to guide this decision. Scenarios included (i) both knowledge of the event outcome and strong prosodic cues (sincere or sarcastic intonation), (ii) prosodic cues only or (iii) knowledge of the event outcome only. Although children with ASD performed well above chance, they were less accurate than typically developing (TD) children at interpreting the communicative intent behind a potentially ironic remark, particularly with regard to taking advantage of available contextual information. In contrast to prior research showing hypoactivation of regions involved in understanding the mental states of others, children with ASD showed significantly greater activity than TD children in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) as well as in bilateral temporal regions. Increased activity in the ASD group fell within the network recruited in the TD group and may reflect more effortful processing needed to interpret the intended meaning of an utterance. These results confirm that children with ASD have difficulty interpreting the communicative intent of others and suggest that these individuals can recruit regions activated as part of the normative neural circuitry when task demands require explicit attention to socially relevant cues.

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Figures

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Brain activity during potentially ironic scenarios relative to rest. Reliable activity was observed in the MPFC in the TD group but not in the ASD group across all conditions. Although both groups engaged the IFG in the left hemisphere, only children with ASD showed reliable prefrontal activity in the right hemisphere. In addition, the ASD group showed reliable activity in the left pre- and post-central gyrus, which probably reflects increased sensory and motor responsiveness to the response pad in the right hand. Figures are thresholded at t > 2.58, corrected for multiple comparisons at the cluster level, P < 0.05.

Fig. 2

Fig. 2

Brain regions more strongly activated in children with ASD relative to TD children. The ASD group showed significantly greater activity than the TD group in the right IFG as well as the STS bilaterally across all conditions relative to rest. Figures are thresholded at t > 1.80, corrected for multiple comparisons at the cluster level, P < 0.05.

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