Individuals with autism spectrum disorders do not use social stereotypes in irony comprehension

PLoS One. 2014 Apr 18;9(4):e95568. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095568. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Social and communication impairments are part of the essential diagnostic criteria used to define Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Difficulties in appreciating non-literal speech, such as irony in ASDs have been explained as due to impairments in social understanding and in recognizing the speaker's communicative intention. It has been shown that social-interactional factors, such as a listener's beliefs about the speaker's attitudinal propensities (e.g., a tendency to use sarcasm, to be mocking, less sincere and more prone to criticism), as conveyed by an occupational stereotype, do influence a listener's interpretation of potentially ironic remarks. We investigate the effect of occupational stereotype on irony detection in adults with High Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome (HFA/AS) and a comparison group of typically developed adults. We used a series of verbally presented stories containing ironic or literal utterances produced by a speaker having either a "sarcastic" or a "non-sarcastic" occupation. Although individuals with HFA/AS were able to recognize ironic intent and occupational stereotypes when the latter are made salient, stereotype information enhanced irony detection and modulated its social meaning (i.e., mockery and politeness) only in comparison participants. We concluded that when stereotype knowledge is not made salient, it does not automatically affect pragmatic communicative processes in individuals with HFA/AS.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / psychology*
  • Comprehension*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Intelligence Tests
  • Judgment
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Stereotyped Behavior*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This research was supported by Fondation FondaMental and Fondation Orange to TZ and ML, and by a “Ville de Paris” research grant to FE, and by a Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec grant and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche grant (ANR-11-BSH2-006-01) to MC-L. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.