Milne, E. orcid.org/0000-0003-0127-0718, Dickinson, A. and Smith, R. (2017) Adults with autism spectrum conditions experience increased levels of anomalous perception. PLoS One, 12 (5). e0177804. ISSN 1932-6203
Abstract
Autism spectrum condition (ASC) is characterised by differences in social interaction and behavioural inflexibility. In addition to these core symptoms, atypical sensory responses are prevalent in the ASC phenotype. Here we investigated anomalous perception, i.e. hallucinatory and/or out of body experiences in adults with ASC. Thirty participants with an ASC diagnosis and thirty neurotypical controls completed the Cardiff Anomalous Perception Scale (CAPS) and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2). The CAPS is a 32-item questionnaire that asks participants to indicate whether or not they experience a range of anomalous and out of body experiences, and to rate how intrusive and distressing these experiences are. The SRS-2 asks participants to rate the extent to which they identify with a series of 65 statements that describe behaviours associated with the autism phenotype. We found that total CAPS score was significantly higher in the participants with ASC (mean = 14.8, S.D. = 7.9) than the participants without ASC (mean = 3.6, S.D. = 4.1). In addition, the frequency of anomalous perception, the level of distraction and the level of distress associated with the experience were significantly increased in participants with ASC. Importantly, both the frequency of anomalous perceptual experiences and the level of distress caused by anomalous perception in this sample of adults with ASC were very similar to that reported previously in a sample of non-autistic participants who were being treated in hospital for a current psychotic episode. These data indicate that anomalous perceptual experiences are common in adults with ASC and are associated with a high level of distress. The origins of anomalous perception in ASC and the implication of this phenomenon are considered.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Milne et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Autism; Sensory perception; Psychological attitudes; Psychoses; Temporal lobe; Behavior; Questionnaires; Schizophrenia |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 31 May 2017 09:19 |
Last Modified: | 31 Jul 2023 14:50 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0177804 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:117044 |