Comparative Analysis of Social Cognitive Performance Across Autism Spectrum and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Poster Session B - Sunday, April 14, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Ayesha Rashidi^1,2 (ayesha.rashidi@mail.utoronto.ca), Lindsay Oliver¹, Colin Hawco^1,2, George Foussias^1,2, Peter Szatmari¹, Robert Buchanan³, Anil Malhotra^4,5,6, Meng-chuan Lai^1,2,7,8,9, Aristotle Voineskos^1,2, Stephanie Ameis^1,2,7; ¹Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, ²University of Toronto, ³University of Maryland, ⁴The Zucker Hillside Hospital, ⁵The Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, ⁶The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, ⁷The Hospital for Sick Children, ⁸University of Cambridge, ⁹National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine

Social cognitive deficits, notably in low-level emotion processing and high-level mental state attribution, are central to both autism spectrum disorder (autism) and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). Research in this area is marked by heterogeneity and small sample sizes, limiting a comprehensive understanding of these overlapping impairments. This transdiagnostic study evaluated social cognitive performance in 100 individuals with autism (16-35 years), 276 with SSDs, and 209 typically developing controls (16-55 years). Assessments included an established battery of low-level (Penn Emotion Recognition Test, ER-40; Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, RMET) and high-level (The Awareness of Social Inference Test, TASIT; Empathic Accuracy Task, EA) social cognitive measures. Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn’s tests with FDR corrections were employed for between-group comparisons. Significant between-group differences were noted in all tasks (all p<0.001). SSDs consistently scored lower than controls (all p<0.001), whereas autistic-control differences were found for TASIT-1, TASIT-2-Simple/Paradoxical-Sarcasm and TASIT-3-Lies (all p<0.01), and ER-40 (p<0.01). Autistic individuals outperformed those with SSDs on most tasks (all p<0.001), except TASIT-1, TASIT-3-Lies, and ER-40. Different social cognitive patterns emerged among the groups. Compared to controls, SSDs showed broad impairments, aligning with prior findings of low and high-level social cognitive impairment, while autism exhibited more selective impairments on specific emotion recognition and mental-state attribution tasks. This research highlights shared, and disorder-specific patterns related to social cognitive challenges in our transdiagnostic sample, suggesting the potential efficacy of similar interventions across both disorders. Further research is needed to explore factors contributing to these differences, such as IQ and neurocognitive performance.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Other