Emulation and Mimicry in School Students with Typical Development and with High Functioning Autism

Two samples of participants with typical development (TD) and high functioning autism performed an imitation task where the goal was of high or low salience, and where the modeled action complied with or was contrary to the end-state comfort (ESC) effect. Imitation was affected by the ESC effect in both groups, and participants with autism reproduced high salient goals as frequently as did participants with TD, but they reproduced less of the low salient goals. Participants with autism showed a reduced tendency to reproduce those actions which were relatively inefficient to reach the goals. The results are discussed in terms of either a relative imbalance between emulation and mimicry in autism, or a reduced tendency to overimitate.