title: Mirror me: Imitative responses in adults with autism.
abstract: Dysfunctions of the human mirror neuron system have been postulated to underlie some deficits in autism spectrum disorders including poor imitative performance and impaired social skills. Using three reaction time experiments addressing mirror neuron system functions under simple and complex conditions, we examined 20 adult autism spectrum disorder participants and 20 healthy controls matched for age, gender and education. Participants performed simple finger-lifting movements in response to (1) biological finger and non-biological dot movement stimuli, (2) acoustic stimuli and (3) combined visual-acoustic stimuli with different contextual (compatible/incompatible) and temporal (simultaneous/asynchronous) relation. Mixed model analyses revealed slower reaction times in autism spectrum disorder. Both groups responded faster to biological compared to non-biological stimuli (Experiment 1) implying intact processing advantage for biological stimuli in autism spectrum disorder. In Experiment 3, both groups had similar 'interference effects' when stimuli were presented simultaneously. However, autism spectrum disorder participants had abnormally slow responses particularly when incompatible stimuli were presented consecutively. Our results suggest imitative control deficits rather than global imitative system impairments.
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany o.schunke@uke.de.
authors.forename: Odette
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Schunke
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schöttle
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Eik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vettorazzi
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany University of Lübeck, Germany.
authors.forename: Valerie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Brandt
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Ursula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Kahl
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany University of Lübeck, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bäumer
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ganos
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: David
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Ina
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Peiker
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Engel
authors.affiliation: Ghent University, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brass
authors.affiliation: University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf, Germany University of Lübeck, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Münchau
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology
keywords: autism; imitation; interference; mirror neurons; reaction times