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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Biol Psychol. 2019 Apr 30;145:174–184. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.04.009

Figure 1. Experimental design.

Figure 1.

(A) FMRI task. Pictures were shown for 5 s each in six random permutations of the eight images. A blank screen with a white crosshair in the middle was shown between images (inter-stimulus time interval, λ = 14s). Inset: vmPFC ROI determined from a previous study examining valuation responses and choice behavior McClure et al., Neuron 2004 [39]. We hypothesized that this ROI would show diminished valuation responses to images of favorite person in children with ASD. (B) Sample image set for ‘Favorites’ Task. The images were categorized into social (i.e. faces, top row) and non-social (i.e. objects, bottom row) groups and further classified as ‘favorites’, pleasant, neutral and unpleasant. Pleasant, neutral and unpleasant valence categories are based on previously published IAPS ratings. (C,D) Post-scan Behavioral Tasks. After the fMRI task, participants answered two computer-based assays to determine their subjective preferences, a self-paced forced-choice task (C) and a modified Self-Assessment Manikin (D; Bradley & Lang, 1994).