Influence of Emotional Imagery on Risk Perception and Decision Making in Autism Spectrum Disorder

We investigated the effect of emotions evoked while imagination of the risk consequences in certain life situations on the risk perception and subsequent behavioral reactions in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The participants (20 ASD and 20 typically developing, TD, subjects) were asked to imagine the consequences of a given risky scenario (the consequences could be either negative or positive) and then mark their risk assessment and reactions on a rating scale. During this process, EEG activities were traced by recording from the parietal (P3, P4), occipital (O1, O2), and frontal (F3, F4) lobes. During imagery, EEG spectral power and imagery alpha index (IAI) values were statistically evaluated, while the approximate entropy (ApEn) reflected the presence of emotions, as well as differentiation between imagery and general involvement in the task. The lower IAI and higher theta power values at both positive and negative consequences of the imaged situations reflected the risk-taking attitude of ASD individuals. The insignificant performance difference of both consequences suggests that the decisions are independent of the risk outcomes in ASD subjects relative to TD individuals. Moreover, the lower negative correlation value suggests that risk knowledge is poorly built in ASD persons and thus leads to impulsive risk taking. The higher imagery ApEn values relative to a neutral state in both ASD and TD individuals indicated intense engagement in the imagery rather than general involvement. However, the lower ApEn in ASDs relative to TDs reflected the poor influence of emotions on the risk sense and subsequent reactions of the former individuals. Thus, it can be concluded that the attenuated emotional imagery of the risk consequences is poorly associated with the risk perception and subsequent decisions in ASD subjects.