Abstract
Two samples of participants with typical development (TD) and high functioning autism performed an imitation task where the goal was of high or low salience, and where the modeled action complied with or was contrary to the end-state comfort (ESC) effect. Imitation was affected by the ESC effect in both groups, and participants with autism reproduced high salient goals as frequently as did participants with TD, but they reproduced less of the low salient goals. Participants with autism showed a reduced tendency to reproduce those actions which were relatively inefficient to reach the goals. The results are discussed in terms of either a relative imbalance between emulation and mimicry in autism, or a reduced tendency to overimitate.
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Acknowledgments
This research was financially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and by the Xunta de Galicia with research grants to Luis Jiménez (PSI2009-10823 and INCITE09211132PR). The authors wish to thank children, parents and teachers from CEIP Raiña Fabiola and IES Rosalía de Castro, as well as from ASPERGA and BATA Associations, for their collaboration in this research. We thank Beatriz Permuy, Sergio Recio, Amavia Méndez, Santiago Viéitez, and Fernando Sánchez for their assistance in data collection.
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Jiménez, L., Lorda, M.J. & Méndez, C. Emulation and Mimicry in School Students with Typical Development and with High Functioning Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 1597–1608 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-2027-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-2027-0