Assessing Moral Cognitive Skills in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorders

NCT ID: NCT05551260

Last Updated: 2024-03-07

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 60 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2023-05-02
• Study Completion Date: 2025-04-01

Brief Summary

In the international literature, it is currently accepted that, relative to neurotypicals, people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) present patterns of moral judgments marked by a minimization of intentionality and a strong condemnation of agents responsible for accidents. However, until now, all studies are based on declarative paradigms, and no one has proposed to examine the relationship of people with ASD to moral transgressions (i.e. to a bad action done deliberately or to a good deed deliberately omitted) in an implicit paradigm, that is, when the answer is made on the assignment of an expressive face to these moral offenses. Furthermore, no study has investigated whether diminished sensitivity to intention and intransigence of incidental judgment occur in both automatic (implicit) and deliberative (explicit) settings.

Investigators planned to study how people with ASD without intellectual disability process emotions expressed by others in response to different forms of moral offense and to examine whether patterns potentially contrast in degree and/or kind with those of neurotypicals.

Detailed Description

In the CoMorA project, participants will participate to two independent tasks: an explicit one of deciding whether or not an emotion expressed on the face of a third person would be an appropriate emotional reaction to the offense, and an implicit one in which the subjects will have to determine the fastest sex to which the face expressing such or such an emotion belongs. This procedure initiates an implicit processing of the facial expression.

The theoretical hypotheses of the CoMorA project are the following:

• In the explicit response condition, people with ASD will show different emotional assignment patterns than controls do, depending on the nature of the offense (accidental transgression, attempted harm, and intentional harm).
• In the implicit response condition, people with ASD will exhibit emotion processing patterns identical to those of controls.
• The differences in responses of controls and people with ASD in the explicit condition will be underpinned by executive functions and social cognitive performances.

Conditions

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

People with ASD

30 people with ASD without IDD

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Neuropsychological assessments (tests allowing to measures attentional, executive and emotional performances) and experimental protocol assessing moral cognition

Intervention Type: OTHER

Day 0: sending of the information notice

Day 1 : signing the consent form + neuropsychological tests assessing reasoning and abstraction abilities, attentional processes, executive functions (including inhibition and mental flexibility) and social cognitive functions, including facial emotion recognition, theory of mind and perception and social knowledge (duration 1h30-2h). Experimental protocol: vignettes of moral offenses manipulating variables of intention and consequence. This systematic manipulation, commonly used in the field of moral judgment, usually leads to 3 combinations of variables: intentional harm (present intention; present consequence); attempted harm (intent present; consequence absent); accidental harm (intention absent; consequence present). Another form of accidental harm will also be constructed (positive intention; present consequence) (duration : 1h)

Between day 1 and day 21 : second part of the Day 1 tests

Neurotypicals

30 neurotypicals

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Neuropsychological assessments (tests allowing to measures attentional, executive and emotional performances) and experimental protocol assessing moral cognition

Intervention Type: OTHER

Day 0: sending of the information notice

Day 1 : signing the consent form + neuropsychological tests assessing reasoning and abstraction abilities, attentional processes, executive functions (including inhibition and mental flexibility) and social cognitive functions, including facial emotion recognition, theory of mind and perception and social knowledge (duration 1h30-2h). Experimental protocol: vignettes of moral offenses manipulating variables of intention and consequence. This systematic manipulation, commonly used in the field of moral judgment, usually leads to 3 combinations of variables: intentional harm (present intention; present consequence); attempted harm (intent present; consequence absent); accidental harm (intention absent; consequence present). Another form of accidental harm will also be constructed (positive intention; present consequence) (duration : 1h)

Between day 1 and day 21 : second part of the Day 1 tests

Interventions

Neuropsychological assessments (tests allowing to measures attentional, executive and emotional performances) and experimental protocol assessing moral cognition

Day 0: sending of the information notice

Day 1 : signing the consent form + neuropsychological tests assessing reasoning and abstraction abilities, attentional processes, executive functions (including inhibition and mental flexibility) and social cognitive functions, including facial emotion recognition, theory of mind and perception and social knowledge (duration 1h30-2h). Experimental protocol: vignettes of moral offenses manipulating variables of intention and consequence. This systematic manipulation, commonly used in the field of moral judgment, usually leads to 3 combinations of variables: intentional harm (present intention; present consequence); attempted harm (intent present; consequence absent); accidental harm (intention absent; consequence present). Another form of accidental harm will also be constructed (positive intention; present consequence) (duration : 1h)

Between day 1 and day 21 : second part of the Day 1 tests

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

ASD group:

• Diagnosis of ASD according to DSM-5 criteria
• Age between 18 and 40 years old
• Francophone
• Affiliated to social security
• Having given their consent to participate in the study
• Patient under guardianship and curatorship

Neurotypical group:

• Age between 18 and 40 years old
• Francophone
• Affiliated to a social security scheme
• Having given their consent to participate in the study

Exclusion Criteria

ASD group:

• Diagnosis of intellectual development disorder established according to DSM-5 criteria
• Language, sensory or motor impairments hindering participation in the study

Control group:

• Neurodevelopmental pathology (declarative)
• Neurological pathology
• Language, sensory or motor impairments hindering participation in the study

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 40 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Hôpital le Vinatier

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Elodie PEYROUX

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Centre Hospitalier le Vinatier

Locations

centre de réhabilitation - Hôpital le Vinatier

Lyon, Rhône, France

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

France

Central Contacts

Elodie PEYROUX, PhD

Role: CONTACT

elodie.peyroux@ch-le-vinatier.fr

04.37.91.51.63 ext. +33

Lydie SARTELET

Role: CONTACT

lydie.sartelet@ch-le-vinatier.fr

04.37.91.55.31 ext. +33

Facility Contacts

Franck Nicolas, PUPH

Role: primary

nicolas.franck@ch-le-vinatier.fr

+33 (0)4 26 23 76 11

Gaudelus Baptiste

Role: backup

baptiste.gaudelus@ch-le-vinatier.fr

+33 (0)4 26 23 76 11

Other Identifiers

2022-A01040-43

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id