Emotional descriptions increase accidental harm punishment and its cortico-limbic signatures during moral judgment in autism.

This brain imaging study looked at how people with autism make moral decisions when reading emotional versus factual descriptions of harmful events. When stories about accidental harm used emotional language, autistic adults were much harsher in their punishment decisions and showed different brain activity patterns. However, their judgments of intentional harm weren't affected by emotional language. This suggests people with autism may struggle to separate their emotional reactions from logical decision-making in unclear moral situations.

This neuroimaging study examined how emotional language affects moral judgment in 30 adults with autism compared to 27 neurotypical controls. Participants read scenarios describing accidental or intentional harm using either graphic (emotional) or plain language, then rated how much punishment the protagonist deserved. Results showed that in autism, emotional descriptions significantly increased punishment ratings for accidental harm, associated with heightened activity in emotion-processing brain regions and reduced connectivity in mentalizing networks. However, emotional language did not affect judgment of intentional harm in the autism group.

The findings suggest individuals with autism may rely more heavily on emotional responses when making moral decisions in ambiguous situations lacking clear intentionality cues.

Results suggest interventions focusing on emotional regulation and perspective-taking skills may help autistic individuals make more balanced moral judgments in ambiguous social situations. Training to recognize when emotions may bias decision-making could be beneficial.

Small sample size limits generalizability. Low ecological validity of the task may not reflect real-world moral decision-making. Study design and statistical power considerations not fully detailed in abstract.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present difficulties in integrating mental state information in complex moral tasks. Yet, ASD research has not examined whether this process is influenced by emotions, let alone while capturing its neural bases. We investigated how language-induced emotions modulate intent-based moral judgment in ASD. In a fMRI task, 30 adults with ASD and 27 neurotypical controls read vignettes whose protagonists commit harm either accidentally or intentionally, and then decided how much punishment the protagonist deserved.

Emotional content was manipulated across scenarios through the use of graphic language (designed to trigger arousing negative responses) vs. plain (just-the-facts, emotionless) language. Off-line functional connectivity correlates of task performance were also analyzed. In ASD, emotional (graphic) descriptions amplified punishment ratings of accidental harms, associated with increased activity in fronto-temporo-limbic, precentral, and postcentral/supramarginal regions (critical for emotional and empathic processes), and reduced connectivity among the orbitofrontal cortex and the angular gyrus (involved in mentalizing). Language manipulation did not influence intentional harm processing in ASD.

In conclusion, in arousing and ambiguous social situations that lack intentionality clues (i.e. graphic accidental harm scenarios), individuals with ASD would misuse their emotional responses as the main source of information to guide their moral decisions. Conversely, in face of explicit harmful intentions, they would be able to compensate their socioemotional alterations and assign punishment through non-emotional pathways. Despite limitations, such as the small sample size and low ecological validity of the task, results of the present study proved reliable and have relevant theoretical and translational implications.