Mark Jaime, Ph.D., Director of IUPUC’s Social Neuroscience Lab, shared his latest findings on the relationship between human movement perception and features of autism in the undiagnosed population on April 7 at the Purdue Autism Research Center Scientific Conference.

Jaime was one of nine leading scholars who presented at the event for researchers, practitioners, and students. It was hosted by the Purdue Autism Research Center, with sponsorship from the Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience.

In IUPUC’s Social Neuroscience Lab, Jaime and colleague’s research explores how differences in the way people make and perceive human social movements may predict autistic traits in individuals. 

“We use biological motion videos to study how movement information is interpreted,” he said. “We hope that by studying these perceptual biases we can ultimately better understand the role of movement in human social communication in autism.”

So far, the study has revealed that people who have more traits of autism (but not an autism diagnosis) are better at perceiving states of arousal and valence (positivity/negativity) exclusively from movement information. While this conclusion may be surprising, he noted that it coincides with other research that shows people with more autism spectrum disorder (ASD) traits tend to be more systematic thinkers, which means they tend to notice details that global thinkers don’t.

“This research really planted a seed in uncharted territory for how we understand movement in relation to ASD,” Jaime said. At the Purdue Autism Research Center Scientific Conference, he presented these findings as part of a panel on mechanisms of social and cognitive functioning in ASD.

In addition, his research on movement continues to grow and include additional investigations. For example, he and his colleagues in IUPUC’s Social Neuroscience Lab are developing a study to monitor brain activity in relation to movement. In the fall, Jaime goes on sabbatical where he’ll explore potential applications for his research using machine learning and computer vision, working with collaborators in IU Bloomington’s Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering.

He also started a new class at IUPUC this semester, Introduction to Autism, which incorporates his 20 years of ASD research experience. He plans to continue offering this course each spring.

“Ultimately, I hope this work can add to better understanding autism, the broader autism phenotype, and their relation to movement sociability,” Jaime explained.