Physiological reactivity in children with high callous-unemotional and autistic traits: investigating unique and interac
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ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION
Physiological reactivity in children with high callous‑unemotional and autistic traits: investigating unique and interactive effects Giorgos Georgiou1 · Kostas A. Fanti2 Received: 2 January 2020 / Accepted: 5 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Empathy deficits are a hallmark sign of both callous-unemotional (CU) and autistic traits. Despite these similarities, prior work did not investigate how these traits relate to physiological reactivity (heart rate and skin conductance) in response to emotional or empathy-eliciting stimuli. Understanding the physiological mechanisms associated with emotional processing deficits among individuals with autistic or CU traits is a critical step for improving both assessment and interventions. The current study was designed to investigate the unique and interactive contributions of CU and autistic traits in predicting physiological reactivity. Heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) activity in response to sad, fearful and happy emotional videos were collected form young children. Participants for the current study (n = 163; Mage = 7.30, SD= 1.42; 44.2% girls) were recruited from a larger community sample of 1652 children and were selected based on their levels of empathy. Regression analysis revealed that boys, but not girls, with high levels of CU traits exhibited low SC reactivity during sad and fearful stimuli. No significant associations were revealed for autistic traits. Finally, an interesting interaction effect suggested that CU traits were associated with stronger HR reactivity to fear stimuli only when autistic traits were low. The identified differences in physiological reactivity can inform etiological hypothesis by providing evidence for the underlying physiological mechanisms related to emotional processing among children high in CU traits but not in autistic traits. Keywords Autistic traits · Callous-unemotional traits · Pre-school children · Heart rate · Skin conductance
Introduction Both callous-unemotional (CU: e.g., lack of remorse, callous use of others, and shallow or deficient affect) and autistic traits relate to empathy deficits [27, 33], which have been used to explain difficulties in social interaction or engagement in antisocial behaviors [5, 29]. In addition to empathy deficits, prior work highlighted the role of physiological systems in dysfunctional emotional processing among individuals with high levels of autistic and CU traits [10, 19]. For example, in a recent review, Fanti [19] proposed that fearlessness and insensitivity to emotional stimuli characterizing individuals high on CU traits relate with physiological hypo-arousal, as indicated by low heart rate (HR) and skin
* Giorgos Georgiou [email protected] 1
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, European University of Cyprus, P.O. Box 22006, 1516 Nicosia, Cyprus
University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
2
conductance (SC) reactivity to aversive stimuli. On the other hand, Bons [10] provided evidence t
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