Scientific Blackpill: Difference between revisions

Sasson et al. (2017) conducted a series of studies with a similar methodology consisting of groups of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and NT (Neurotypical) peers in various modes of social interaction consisting of 'thin slices'. The study discussed here consisted of forty adult (20 ASD; 20 NT;17 males each group) participants.  

The participants were comparable in IQ as measured by the WASI test ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Adult_Intelligence_Scale#WASI-II Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence]) and age. The participants were made to record a 60 second mock audition for a fictional reality television program, which were edited into five presentation modalities: (1) audio-only (2) visual-only (3) audio-visual (4) static image and (5) transcript of speech content.  

This allowed the researchers to examine which elements of the participants presentation styles contributed to the first impressions of observers.

The participants were then rated by a group of volunteers (who weren't informed of the clinical diagnoses of the ASD participants) in the form of an online survey.  Each stimulus was rated one at a time on ten items using a four-point scale (0–3), on a number of socially desirable traits that are accurately assessed at first acquaintance: attractiveness, awkwardness, intelligence, likeability, trustworthiness, and dominance.  

It was found that ASD participants were perceived more negatively on a number of the socially desirable traits examined, including attractiveness, likability, and dominance.

A later study (Alkhaldi, Sheppard & Mitchell, 2019) partially replicated the findings of the previous study and helped to further elucidate the possible casual factors behind this negative evaluation of ASD individuals. Using the pre-recorded video responses of autistic and NT participants (N = 40, 20 ASD and 20 NT) to various stimuli of them interacting with researchers (compliment, joke, story, waiting), which were then evaluated by 31 typically developing perceivers (10 males and 21 females), it was found that ASD individuals were perceived less favorably on a number of dimensions. A second study was also performed, replicating the results of the previous study, but the participants were informed which scenario each of the participants in the study were experiencing, in the aims of helping the participants contexualize the behavior they were observing.

Perceiver ratings were also utilized to calculate a "readability" score (how easy it was to perceive the participants emotional and affective states), and it was found that over the course of two studies, the readability score correlated moderately to strongly (r = 0.58 for the first study and  0.63 for the second) with the negative or positive evaluations of the target's characteristics. Thus the negative perceptions of autistic individuals are possibly mediated by the observers difficulty in reading their emotions or intentions. The researchers stated this could either be because this unreadability was associated with perceptions of lower trustworthiness or simply because this unreadability is associated with behaving in a manner that is perceived as eccentric or "out of the ordinary", which therefore results in the greater negative perceptions of them.

Trevisan et al. (2018) conducted a meta analysis on facial expressiveness in autists. They found autists have little difficulties producing simple expressions such as smiles, frowns and expressions of disgusts. But autists tend to have inappropriate expressions at times and do not copy other's facial expressions subconsciously, giving the impression of being absent-minded and of low (affective) empathy. They also have more difficulties to spontaneously produce facial expressions and less difficulties when they are prompted to produce a particular facial expression. High IQ autists can compensate for their lack of facial expressiveness to some extent, especially at higher age.

This finding also brings into question the often touted claim that autists fail socially primarily because they can't read social cues and accidentally offend people, especially since autists do not score lower in some components of empathy, in some even higher than [[neurotypical]]s (Song 2019).

Emotional expressiveness may have evolved due to the necessity for social organization in groups of humans. Impaired expressiveness implies difficulties ascending and navigating social hierarchies, hence there is selection pressure for sexual preferences to avoid non-[[neurotypical]] individuals. Such non-neurotypicals may also tend to be ineffective coalition partners. Further, atypical behavior may have been indicative of a neurodegenerative infectious disease in the past often enough that humans evolved a natural aversion.

An alternative or additional explanation may be sexual selection: Geoffrey Miller's [[Fisherian runaway#Behavior|''mating mind'' hypothesis]] of human intelligence suggests that higher cognition and much of human behavior may have evolved as "cognitive ornament" though [[Fisherian runaway|positive-feedback processes]] in sexual selection. Such runaway selection predicts not only exaggerated ornament, but also highly narrowed and exaggerated preference for such ornament. This may suggest the struggles high-functioning autists face may in part be rooted in social exclusion based on sexually selected preferences for highly specific modes of facial and emotional expressiveness in similar manner as humans and other animals superficially but strongly judge based on subtle cues of physical appearance despite them being largely unrelated to health and ability, i.e. this may be evidence of a ''few millimeters of emotional expressiveness'' and [[charisma]] in analogy to [[a few millimeters of bone]] that contribute to social and sexual exclusion.

The natural aversion to subtle differences in emotional expressiveness, may also be a driver of racism as each race may be finely attuned to particular cognitive ornament specific to their race. For example, Albert Einstein perceived the Northeast Asians as [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/12/einsteins-travel-diaries-reveal-shocking-xenophobia obtuse] in one of his travel diaries.

* ''However, negative impressions did not occur for all evaluated traits, with the two groups not differing on ratings of perceived intelligence or trustworthiness''

* ''If being unreadable is associated with being rated socially unfavorable, as suggested by our findings, it could in turn have very negative consequences for the development of autistic individuals. This follows if being perceived unfavorably is a barrier to inclusion in the social world, where autistic people, who are in the population minority, instead are condemned to isolation.'' (Alkhaldi et al. 2019)