High autistic traits linked with reduced performance on affective task switching: An ERP study

Few studies have investigated affective flexibility in individuals with high autistic traits. In the present study, we employed affective task-switching paradigm combined with event related potential (ERP) technology to explore affective flexibility in individuals with high autistic traits. Participants were instructed to switch between identifying the gender (gender task) and emotion (emotion task) of presented faces. Two groups of participants were recruited based on the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores: a High Autistic Group (HAG) and a Low Autistic Group (LAG). The results confirmed that the HAG exhibited greater behavioral emotion switch costs and increased N2 and decreased P3 components when switching to the emotion task. Additionally, we identified an affective asymmetric switch cost in the HAG, where the switch cost for the emotion task was larger than for the gender task at both behavioral and electrophysiological levels. In contrast, a symmetrical switch cost was observed in the LAG. These findings indicate that the HAG experiences difficulties with affective flexibility, particularly in tasks involving emotional processing. The patterns of affective asymmetric switch costs observed in both groups differed from previous results in autistic children and the general population, suggesting that the relative dominance of gender and emotion tasks may vary between the two groups. We propose that the dominance of emotion tasks declines as autistic traits increase.