Recognition of non-emotional bodily states in the self and others: A novel investigation in autism and eating disorders

许多患有精神疾病的人（例如自闭症谱系障碍，饮食失调，抑郁症，精神分裂症等）努力感知来自身体内部的信号（例如感觉心跳和呼吸，感知温度，肌肉疼痛，疼痛，疾病和饥饿）。当人们无法识别自己的情绪（例如厌恶，快乐和愤怒）时，他们也很难识别其他人的情绪，例如从他们的面部表情。这个项目将调查个人识别他人非情绪身体状态的能力。当人们努力识别自己的非情绪身体状态（如饥饿、呼吸、疾病等）时，他们也会发现很难识别其他人的非情绪性身体状态。如果有人努力识别另一个人是累了，饿了，病了，冷了，或在痛苦中，这将影响他们对那个人的行为;他们可能不会提供一杯水给感到口渴的人，或者提供给感到寒冷的人打开暖气。这些有效的行为有助于我们建立友谊和关系，因此，未能以适当的方式行事可能会对一个人的社交生活产生负面影响，从而影响他们的心理健康。更重要的是，如果我们有一个照顾的角色，例如，如果我们是父母，照顾老人或残疾人，或在医疗专业工作，认识到这些身体状态是很重要的。我们需要能够认识到我们所照顾的人的感受，以便我们能够为他们提供正确的护理。由于患有精神疾病的人往往难以识别自己的非情绪身体状态，他们也可能难以识别他人的非情绪身体状态。这可能会对他们的社交生活以及他们照顾他人的能力产生负面影响。该项目将调查三组人识别自己和他人非情绪身体状态的能力：自闭症谱系障碍患者，饮食障碍（神经性厌食症）患者，以及过去或现在没有精神疾病或医疗状况的对照组。该项目将研究识别不同类型的信息，包括照片，运动，和演员的声音构成的非情绪身体状态，以传达感情给他人，和录像的人谁是真正经历的身体状态。这项研究计划的结果将帮助我们知道我们如何理解我们自己的非-情绪化的身体状态与我们在他人身上识别这些状态的能力有关。这些知识将使我们有可能创造干预措施，帮助那些发现识别自己和他人的非情绪身体状态困难的人。这些干预措施可能有助于自闭症谱系障碍或饮食失调患者，以及那些患有其他精神疾病的人，他们努力感知自己和他人的身体状态（例如抑郁症，焦虑症和成瘾症）。

Many people with psychiatric conditions (e.g. Autism Spectrum Disorder, Eating Disorders, depression, schizophrenia, etc.) struggle to perceive signals from inside their body (such as feeling their heartbeat and their breathing, and sensing temperature, muscle ache, pain, sickness, and hunger). When people are unable to recognise their own emotions (e.g. disgust, happiness, and anger), they also struggle to recognise other people's emotions, for example from their facial expressions. This project will investigate individuals' ability to recognise others' non-emotional bodily states. It is likely that when people struggle to recognise their own non-emotional bodily states (like hunger, breathing, sickness, etc.), they will also find it difficult to recognise other people's non-emotional bodily states.If somebody struggles to recognise that another person is tired, hungry, sick, cold, or in pain, this will affect how they behave towards that person; they may not offer a drink of water to someone who feels thirsty, or offer to turn up the heating for someone who feels cold. These effective behaviours help us to form friendships and relationships, so failing to behave in an appropriate way can have a negative effect on one's social life, and therefore their psychological wellbeing. More importantly, it is important to recognise these bodily states in other people if we have a caring role, for example if we are parents, caring for elderly people or those with disabilities, or work in the medical profession. We need to be able to recognise how the person we are caring for is feeling so that we can provide the right type of care for them. As people with psychiatric conditions/mental illnesses often struggle to recognise their own non-emotional bodily states, they may also struggle to recognise others' non-emotional bodily states. This could have a negative impact on their social life, as well as their ability to care for other people.This project will investigate the ability to recognise one's own and others' non-emotional bodily states in three groups of people: people with Autism Spectrum Disorder, people with Eating Disorders (anorexia nervosa), and a control group who have no past or present mental illness or medical condition. The project will investigate recognition of different types of information, including photographs, movement, and voices of actors posing the non-emotional bodily states in order to communicate feelings to others, and video recordings of people who are genuinely experiencing the bodily states.The results of this research programme will help us to know how our understanding of our own non-emotional bodily states is linked to our ability to recognise these states in others. This knowledge will make it possible to create interventions that could help those who find recognition of their own and others' non-emotional bodily states difficult. These interventions are likely to be helpful to those with Autism Spectrum Disorder or Eating Disorders, as well as those with other psychiatric conditions who struggle to perceive their own and other people's body states (e.g. those with depression, anxiety, and addiction disorders).