UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Autistic adults perceive and experience laughter differently to non-autistic adults

Cai, Ceci Q; White, Sarah J; Chen, Sinead HY; Mueller, Marie AE; Scott, Sophie K; (2024) Autistic adults perceive and experience laughter differently to non-autistic adults. Scientific Reports , 14 (1) , Article 11590. 10.1038/s41598-024-56903-8. Green open access

[thumbnail of Autistic adults perceive and experience laughter differently to non-autistic adults.pdf]
Preview
Text
Autistic adults perceive and experience laughter differently to non-autistic adults.pdf - Accepted Version

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Human interaction is immersed in laughter; though genuine and posed laughter are acoustically distinct, they are both crucial socio-emotional signals. In this novel study, autistic and non-autistic adults explicitly rated the affective properties of genuine and posed laughter. Additionally, we explored whether their self-reported everyday experiences with laughter differ. Both groups could differentiate between these two types of laughter. However, autistic adults rated posed laughter as more authentic and emotionally arousing than non-autistic adults, perceiving it to be similar to genuine laughter. Autistic adults reported laughing less, deriving less enjoyment from laughter, and experiencing difficulty in understanding the social meaning of other people’s laughter compared to non-autistic people. Despite these differences, autistic adults reported using laughter socially as often as non-autistic adults, leveraging it to mediate social contexts. Our findings suggest that autistic adults show subtle differences in their perception of laughter, which may be associated with their struggles in comprehending the social meaning of laughter, as well as their diminished frequency and enjoyment of laughter in everyday scenarios. By combining experimental evidence with first-person experiences, this study suggests that autistic adults likely employ different strategies to understand laughter in everyday contexts, potentially leaving them socially vulnerable in communication.

Type: Article
Title: Autistic adults perceive and experience laughter differently to non-autistic adults
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-56903-8
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-56903-8
Language: English
Additional information: Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Science & Technology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Science & Technology - Other Topics, FUNCTIONING AUTISM, SPECTRUM QUOTIENT, SOCIAL LAUGHTER, HUMOR, CHILDREN, AUTHENTICITY, PERCEPTION, CONTAGION, EVOLUTION, FEATURES
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry > Epidemiology and Applied Clinical Research
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10193905
Downloads since deposit
29Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item