How do people understand the thoughts and words of others? How does this differ between neurotypical, autistic, and socially anxious people? And does it matter if experiments test what communication entails in a more naturalistic way? These questions were investigated in this dissertation using various methods, such as fMRI, EEG, and pupil measurements. When we looked at brain activity during “mentalizing,” thinking about other people's thoughts and beliefs, we saw that this did not differ anywhere in the brain between neurotypical and autistic people. In socially anxious people, however, we did see a less active brain area that is normally associated with processing emotions and social information. The results of the brain scans also indicate a specific but consistent way of processing social information in autism, while socially anxious people process social interactions in a more unique way. We also looked at how autistic people understand sentences because of the common language delays in autism. This experiment showed that brain waves were equally strong in both groups and did not tend to be stronger in one hemisphere of the brain. In summary, these insights indicate that using experiments and tasks that realistically approximate communication is a promising way to learn more about how neurodivergent people understand language and communication.
Margot Mangnus obtained her bachelor's degree in Linguistics and her research master's degree in Cognitive Neuroscience at Radboud University. She then combined her affinity for these subjects in her PhD research in the research group of Prof. Peter Hagoort at the Donders Institute. In this research, she focused on brain function during language and communication in neurotypical, autistic, and socially anxious people. During her PhD program, in addition to her research, she spent more than three years as a member of the PhD Council working on workshops and initiatives to improve the mental well-being of PhD students.