Touch_com_asd

analysis scripts and data for study Touch communication in ASD

Scripts

Data files

• Data/primary These are almost raw data files, with minimal processing to remove invalid data and to remove potentially identifying personal information.

• "online_valid-anon-data.csv" : data were extracted from qualtrics, and minimally processed with "0_online_validate-and-anonymise.R" to remove invalid responses (e.g. spam, met exclusion criteria). An explanation of the variables can be found in "/Data/reports/online_qualtrics-variable-names.csv"

Data/processed

These are processed data files that have been given more useful names and labels, and have been re-organised to facilitate analysis.

• "comm-data.csv" : data from both online and in-person/live studies, relating to the communication task. Participants felt or watched videos of standardized touch expressions and tried to guess what the toucher was trying to communicate. There is one row for each touch/video + response. There were 6 unique touch expressions. For the online study, there are 6 rows per participant. For the live study, each touch was repeated 10 times, making 60 rows per participant.

  • experiment: text. "felt touch" or "viewed touch", indicating the live or online study.
  • PID: text. Unique participant ID. For the online study, this was generated by qualtrics.
  • group: text, "Control" or "ASD". Indicates which group the participant belongs to.
  • task: text, "forced choice" or "free text". Indicates which task condition the participant was randomly assigned to. Only online study participants could be assigned to the "free text" task.
  • Experimenter: integer 1-3, a code indicating which of three trained experimenters delivered the touch expressions.
  • trial: integer, 1-60. Indicates the trial order, the order in which the touches/videos were presented to each participant. Max 6 when experiment is "viewed touch"
  • cued: text, "attention", "happiness", "love", "calming", "sadness" or "gratitude". Indicates which standardized touch expression / video was presented.
  • response: text. When task is "forced choice", this variable can take the values "attention", "happiness", "love", "calming", "sadness", "gratitude" or "other". When task is "free text" it can take any value. Indicates the participant's response to this stimulus.

• "pleas-data.csv" : data from both online and in-person/live studies, relating to the pleasantness ratings. Participants felt or watched videos of standardized touch expressions and rated how pleasant the touch was /would be. There is one row for each touch/video + response. There were 6 unique touch expressions, making 6 rows per participant.

  • experiment: text. "felt touch" or "viewed touch", indicating the live or online study.
  • PID: text. Unique participant ID. For the online study, this was generated by qualtrics.
  • group: text, "Control" or "ASD". Indicates which group the participant belongs to.
  • task: text, "forced choice" or "free text". Indicates which task condition the participant was randomly assigned to in the touch communication task. Only online study participants could be assigned to the "free text" task.
  • Experimenter: integer 1-3, a code indicating which of three trained experimenters delivered the touch expressions.
  • trial: integer, 1-60. Indicates the trial order, the order in which the touches/videos were presented to each participant. Max 6 when experiment is "viewed touch"
  • cued: text, "attention", "happiness", "love", "calming", "sadness" or "gratitude". Indicates which standardized touch expression / video was presented.
  • response: numeric, ranging from -10 to 10. Reflects the location on a visual analog scale (VAS) where the participant clicked to indicate pleasantness of the touch. The ends of the line were labelled "unpleasant" on the left end (coded as -10), and "pleasant" on the right end (coded as 10). No other marks were present on the line.

• "demog-data.csv" : data from both online and in-person/live studies, relating to participant demographics. One row per participant.

  • experiment: text. "felt touch" or "viewed touch", indicating the live or online study.
  • PID: text. Unique participant ID. For the online study, this was generated by qualtrics.
  • group: text, "Control" or "ASD". Indicates which group the participant belongs to.
  • Experimenter: integer 1-3, a code indicating which of three trained experimenters delivered the touch expressions.
  • task: text, "forced choice" or "free text". Indicates which task condition the participant was randomly assigned to in the touch communication task. Only online study participants could be assigned to the "free text" task.
  • Language: text, "Swedish", "English" or "Mixed". Indicates the language that the participant chose to use. "Mixed" indicates that some parts were conducted in Swedish and other parts in English.
  • Country of Residence: text. All participants in the live study lived in Sweden, but the online study could be completed from anywhere.
  • Gender: text, "Female", "Male" or "Other". The participant's selected gender.
  • Age Group: text, label indicating the age group: "16 - 20", "21 - 25", "26 - 30", "31 - 35", "36 - 40". Age was given in years and collapsed into age groups.
  • Age Cohort: text, label indicating the age cohort: "Youth (16 - 17)", "Adult (18 - 40)". Age was given in years and collapsed into age cohorts.

• "questionnaire-data.csv" : data from both online and in-person/live studies, relating to questionnaire responses. One row per participant.

  • experiment: text. "felt touch" or "viewed touch", indicating the live or online study.
  • PID: text. Unique participant ID. For the online study, this was generated by qualtrics.
  • group: text, "Control" or "ASD". Indicates which group the participant belongs to.
  • Experimenter: integer 1-3, a code indicating which of three trained experimenters delivered the touch expressions.
  • task: text, "forced choice" or "free text". Indicates which task condition the participant was randomly assigned to in the touch communication task.
  • AQ_* variables relating to the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). S. Baron-Cohen, S. Wheelwright, R. Skinner, J. Martin and E. Clubley, (2001) The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) : Evidence from Asperger Syndrome/High Functioning Autism, Males and Females, Scientists and Mathematicians Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 31:5-17
  • BAPQ_* variables relating to the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ). Hurley, R. S., M. Losh, M. Parlier, J. S. Reznick and J. Piven (2007). "The broad autism phenotype questionnaire." J Autism Dev Disord 37(9): 1679-1690.
  • STQ_* variables relating to the Social Touch Questionnaire (STQ). Wilhelm, F. H., Kochar, A. S., Roth, W. T., & Gross, J. J. (2001). Social anxiety and response to touch: incongruence between self-evaluative and physiological reactions. Biological psychology, 58(3), 181-202.
  • TAS_* variables relating to the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS). Bagby, R. M., Parker, J. D., & Taylor, G. J. (1994). The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale—I. Item selection and cross-validation of the factor structure. Journal of psychosomatic research, 38(1), 23-32.
  • *_total: integer, ranges: AQ 0-50; BAPQ 36-216; STQ 0-80; TAS 20-100. Takes the value NA if some or all items were not answered, meaning the score could not be calculated. The total questionnaire score calculated according to published guidelines, including reverse-coding.
  • *_n_missing: integer, ranges: AQ 0-50; BAPQ 0-36; STQ 0-20; TAS 0-20. Indicates the number of items not answered by the participant.
  • *_sub_*: integer, ranges: BAPQ_sub_* 12-72; TAS_sub_IdFeelings 7-35; TAS_sub_DescFeelings 5-25; TAS_sub_ExtThinking 8-40. Takes the value NA if some or all items were not answered, meaning the score could not be calculated. Indicates the score for various questionnaire sub-scales, calculated according to published guidelines.