Enhanced rationality in autism spectrum disorder
2021; Elsevier BV; Volume: 25; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/j.tics.2021.05.004
ISSN1879-307X
AutoresLiron Rozenkrantz, Anila M. D’Mello, John D. E. Gabrieli,
Tópico(s)Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
ResumoMost research into autism spectrum disorder (ASD) focuses on difficulties and challenges, potentially overlooking intact and even enhanced abilities.Empirical evidence strongly suggests that individuals with ASD display enhanced rationality: judgments that are more objective and decision-making that is less biased than that of neurotypical individuals.Enhanced rationality may confer distinct strengths to individuals with ASD and may provide insights into the mechanism or ‘irrationality’ in neurotypical individuals. Challenges in social cognition and communication are core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but in some domains, individuals with ASD may display typical abilities and even outperform their neurotypical counterparts. These enhanced abilities are notable in the domains of reasoning, judgment and decision-making, in which individuals with ASD often show ‘enhanced rationality’ by exhibiting more rational and bias-free decision-making than do neurotypical individuals. We review evidence for enhanced rationality in ASD, how it relates to theoretical frameworks of information processing in ASD, its implications for basic research about human irrationality, and what it may mean for the ASD community. Challenges in social cognition and communication are core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but in some domains, individuals with ASD may display typical abilities and even outperform their neurotypical counterparts. These enhanced abilities are notable in the domains of reasoning, judgment and decision-making, in which individuals with ASD often show ‘enhanced rationality’ by exhibiting more rational and bias-free decision-making than do neurotypical individuals. We review evidence for enhanced rationality in ASD, how it relates to theoretical frameworks of information processing in ASD, its implications for basic research about human irrationality, and what it may mean for the ASD community. The seminal idea of irrationality (see Glossary) refers to the tendency of humans to process information in a biased manner, often leading to suboptimal reasoning and decision-making and a variety of cognitive biases. For example, people tend to favor information that confirms their existing beliefs and make decisions based on the way choices are presented rather than their objective content. This way of thought has been considered so fundamental that humans have been characterized as ‘predictably irrational.’ In the past several years, however, a growing literature suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display reduced susceptibility to cognitive biases and exhibit more rational and bias-free processing of information, outperforming their neurotypical counterparts (Table 1). These discoveries reveal that irrationality is not inevitable and offers the opportunity to specify the psychological and brain mechanisms that underlie both rational and irrational reasoning and decision-making. Here we review the evidence for enhanced rationality in ASD and consider the sources of potential variation in information processing that may mediate enhanced rationality. Enhanced rationality in ASD also has valuable implications for the understanding of human rationality and of neurodiversity, as consideration of areas of strength may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of ASD. {Although we use person-first language in this paper (‘people with autism’) following guidelines issued by the American Psychological Association and conventions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) [1.American Psychological Association Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.6th ed. American Psychiatric Association, 2009Google Scholar], we acknowledge that many people on the spectrum prefer identity-first language (i.e., ‘autistic people’).}Table 1Summary of evidence for enhanced rationality in autism spectrum disorderPhenomena/cognitive bias testedFindingsPopulationRefsReliance on intuitionASD group displayed reduced intuitive reasoning; more autistic traits associated with less intuitive and more deliberative reasoningClinical and nonclinical samples[13.Brosnan M. et al.Reasoning on the autism spectrum: a dual process theory account.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2016; 46: 2115-2125Crossref PubMed Scopus (50) Google Scholar,23.Brosnan M. et al.Brief report: intuitive and reflective reasoning in autism spectrum disorder.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2017; 47: 2595-2601Crossref PubMed Scopus (17) Google Scholar,24.Levin I.P. et al.Extending decision-making competence to special populations: a pilot study of persons on the autism spectrum.Front. Psychol. 2015; 6: 539Crossref PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar]Conjunction fallacyIndividuals with ASD less susceptible to influence of representative information regarding either people or itemsASD group versus a neurotypical control group[19.Morsanyi K. et al.Decontextualised minds: adolescents with autism are less susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than typically developing adolescents.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2010; 40: 1378-1388Crossref PubMed Scopus (24) Google Scholar]Attraction effectIndividuals with ASD and non-ASD individuals with high degrees of autistic traits show enhanced consistency in their choicesClinical and nonclinical samples[14.Farmer G.D. et al.People with autism spectrum conditions make more consistent decisions.Psychol. Sci. 2017; 28: 1067-1076Crossref PubMed Scopus (33) Google Scholar]Sunk-cost biasDecisions of individuals with ASD are not influenced by costs that have been incurred and cannot be recoveredASD group versus a neurotypical control group[15.Fujino J. et al.Sunk cost effect in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2019; 49: 1-10Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar,27.Fujino J. et al.Impact of past experiences on decision-making in autism spectrum disorder.Eur. Arch. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 2020; 270: 1063-1071Crossref PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar]Framing effectIndividuals with ASD display reduced effect of framing of options on choice selectionASD group versus a neurotypical control group[18.Martino B.D. et al.Explaining enhanced logical consistency during decision-making in autism.J. Neurosci. 2008; 28: 10746-10750Crossref PubMed Scopus (135) Google Scholar,20.Shah P. et al.Emotional decision-making in autism spectrum disorder: the roles of interoception and alexithymia.Mol. Autism. 2016; 7: 43Crossref PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar]Optimistic biasIndividuals with ASD learn equally from desirable and undesirable informationASD group versus a neurotypical control group[17.Kuzmanovic B. et al.Brief report: reduced optimism bias in self-referential belief updating in high-functioning autism.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2019; 49: 2990-2998Crossref PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar]Ultimatum gameIndividuals with ASD likely to accept offers that are considered ‘unfair’ but economically beneficialASD group versus a neurotypical control group[34.Jin P. et al.The fair decision-making of children and adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder from the perspective of dual-process theories.BMC Psychiatry. 2020; 20: 152Crossref PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar, 35.Tei S. et al.Inflexible daily behaviour is associated with the ability to control an automatic reaction in autism spectrum disorder.Sci. Rep. 2018; 8: 8082Crossref PubMed Scopus (15) Google Scholar, 36.Wang Y. et al.Exploring the relationship between fairness and ‘brain types’ in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder.Prog. Neuro-Psychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry. 2019; 88: 151-158Crossref PubMed Scopus (5) Google Scholar]Abbreviation: ASD, autism spectrum disorder. Open table in a new tab Abbreviation: ASD, autism spectrum disorder. A well-known tension exists between traditional economic models of rationality and more contemporary investigations of human decision-making behaviors. According to traditional economic models, a rational agent should consider all relevant information when reasoning, reaching a decision or making a judgment. However, actual human decision-making behavior and the context in which it occurs are complex, and the ability to process all relevant information is constrained by memory capacity, processing speed, and other cognitive factors [2.Simon H.A. Theories of decision-making in economics and behavioral science.Am. Econ. Rev. 1959; 49: 253-283Google Scholar, 3.Becker G.S. Irrational behavior and economic theory.J. Polit. Econ. 1962; 70: 1-13Crossref Google Scholar, 4.Thaler R.H. Anomalies: saving, fungibility, and mental accounts.J. Econ. Perspect. 1990; 4: 193-205Crossref Google Scholar]. Therefore, observed human behavior often does not reflect the predictions put forward by traditional economic models. In order to account for these discrepancies, Tversky and Kahneman posited that humans use cognitive shortcuts, or heuristics, to ease cognitive load when making judgments or decisions [5.Tversky A. Kahneman D. Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases.Science. 1974; 185: 1124-1131Crossref PubMed Scopus (17401) Google Scholar]. Heuristics allow people to reach decisions rapidly based on a rule of thumb, an educated guess, or an intuitive judgment, without fully processing every bit of available information algorithmically. Heuristics can be adaptive, allowing quick and effortless decision-making [6.Gigerenzer G. Goldstein D. Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality.Psychol. Rev. 1996; 103: 650-669Crossref PubMed Scopus (1932) Google Scholar] or ‘thinking fast’ [7.Kahneman D. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Macmillan, 2011Google Scholar], but they can also lead to seemingly irrational behaviors [8.Kahneman D. Tversky A. On the psychology of prediction.Psychol. Rev. 1973; 80: 237-251Crossref Scopus (3128) Google Scholar, 9.Tversky A. Kahneman D. The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice.Science. 1981; 211: 453-458Crossref PubMed Scopus (9381) Google Scholar, 10.Tversky A. Kahneman D. Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: the conjunction fallacy in probability judgment.Psychol. Rev. 1983; 90: 293-315Crossref Scopus (2162) Google Scholar, 11.Tversky A. Kahneman D. Loss aversion in riskless choice: a reference-dependent model.Q. J. Econ. 1991; 106: 1039-1061Crossref Google Scholar]. As heuristics are sensitive to context, motivations, emotions, and aversions, they can lead to more bias-prone reasoning, suboptimal decision-making [4.Thaler R.H. Anomalies: saving, fungibility, and mental accounts.J. Econ. Perspect. 1990; 4: 193-205Crossref Google Scholar,5.Tversky A. Kahneman D. Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases.Science. 1974; 185: 1124-1131Crossref PubMed Scopus (17401) Google Scholar], and a host of cognitive biases. The idea that humans act ‘irrationally’ has influenced research and thought in psychology, economics, and other fields. Human irrationality is thought to reflect the boundaries of human information-processing capacity [2.Simon H.A. Theories of decision-making in economics and behavioral science.Am. Econ. Rev. 1959; 49: 253-283Google Scholar,12.Bazerman M.H. Neale M.A. Heuristics in Negotiation: Limitations to Effective Dispute Resolution. Cambridge University Press, 1986Google Scholar] and therefore provides insights into the human brain and mind. However, in the past several years, multiple studies have independently reported that individuals with ASD frequently display judgments that are more objective and decision-making that is less biased than that of neurotypical individuals [13.Brosnan M. et al.Reasoning on the autism spectrum: a dual process theory account.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2016; 46: 2115-2125Crossref PubMed Scopus (50) Google Scholar, 14.Farmer G.D. et al.People with autism spectrum conditions make more consistent decisions.Psychol. Sci. 2017; 28: 1067-1076Crossref PubMed Scopus (33) Google Scholar, 15.Fujino J. et al.Sunk cost effect in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2019; 49: 1-10Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar, 16.Gosling C.J. Moutier S. Brief report: risk-aversion and rationality in autism spectrum disorders.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2018; 48: 3623-3628Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar, 17.Kuzmanovic B. et al.Brief report: reduced optimism bias in self-referential belief updating in high-functioning autism.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2019; 49: 2990-2998Crossref PubMed Scopus (7) Google Scholar, 18.Martino B.D. et al.Explaining enhanced logical consistency during decision-making in autism.J. Neurosci. 2008; 28: 10746-10750Crossref PubMed Scopus (135) Google Scholar, 19.Morsanyi K. et al.Decontextualised minds: adolescents with autism are less susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than typically developing adolescents.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2010; 40: 1378-1388Crossref PubMed Scopus (24) Google Scholar, 20.Shah P. et al.Emotional decision-making in autism spectrum disorder: the roles of interoception and alexithymia.Mol. Autism. 2016; 7: 43Crossref PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar, 21.South M. et al.Enhanced decision-making and risk avoidance in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder.Neuropsychology. 2014; 28: 222-228Crossref PubMed Scopus (49) Google Scholar] (Table 1). In this sense, the behavior of individuals with ASD might better reflect classic economic models of rationality than does the behavior of neurotypical individuals. This enhanced rationality in individuals with ASD is noted across domains and study designs. In particular, enhanced rationality in ASD seems to arise from reduced susceptibility to factors that typically confound rational thought and behavior, such as overreliance on intuition, overweighting of representative or irrelevant information, attraction to reward, and aversion to negative information. Reasoning is a necessary prequel to rational decision-making. Importantly, reasoning can often be confounded by intuition. For instance, imagine you are presented with the following information: a coffee and pastry cost $1.10. The coffee costs $1 more than the pastry. How much does the pastry cost? An intuitive, and (surprisingly) wrong, response would be ‘$0.10’; the deliberative (and correct) answer is $0.05. For most people, the intuitive, or heuristic, response immediately ‘jumps to mind’ [22.Frederick S. Cognitive reflection and decision-making.J. Econ. Perspect. 2005; 19: 25-42Crossref Scopus (2157) Google Scholar]. However, when asked questions such as the one above, individuals with ASD and neurotypical individuals with high autistic traits (Box 1) answer correctly more often than most neurotypical individuals [13.Brosnan M. et al.Reasoning on the autism spectrum: a dual process theory account.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2016; 46: 2115-2125Crossref PubMed Scopus (50) Google Scholar]. This aligns well with the subjective experiences of individuals with ASD, who self-report a tendency to use intuition less when reasoning ([23.Brosnan M. et al.Brief report: intuitive and reflective reasoning in autism spectrum disorder.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2017; 47: 2595-2601Crossref PubMed Scopus (17) Google Scholar,24.Levin I.P. et al.Extending decision-making competence to special populations: a pilot study of persons on the autism spectrum.Front. Psychol. 2015; 6: 539Crossref PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar], and see [13.Brosnan M. et al.Reasoning on the autism spectrum: a dual process theory account.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2016; 46: 2115-2125Crossref PubMed Scopus (50) Google Scholar] for findings of both enhanced deliberation and decreased intuition). The association between autistic traits and reduced reliance on intuition may be one factor underlying enhanced rationality. As autistic traits typically measure challenges in social communication (Box 1), it is striking that they may also be associated with more rational reasoning patterns.Box 1Autistic traits‘Autistic traits’ refer to characteristics of autism that are continuously distributed across the population. Individuals with a diagnosis of autism would mostly cluster at the extreme end of this distribution, but there is continuous variance across the general population [81.Ruzich E. et al.Measuring autistic traits in the general population: a systematic review of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) in a nonclinical population sample of 6,900 typical adult males and females.Mol. Autism. 2015; 6: 2Crossref PubMed Scopus (192) Google Scholar]. Several questionnaires are used to quantify such autistic traits. These questionnaires are not used for diagnostic purposes, because they are designed to quantify continuous variance in traits across all people rather than to delineate a clinical category.The Autism Quotient (AQ)AQ is a 50-item self-report questionnaire that quantifies autistic traits in children and adults [82.Baron-Cohen S. et al.The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ): evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2001; 31: 5-17Crossref PubMed Scopus (3463) Google Scholar]. Statements span different domains and include social preferences (‘I prefer to do things with others rather than on my own’), imagination abilities (‘If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind’), communication (‘Other people frequently tell me that what I’ve said is impolite, even though I think it is polite’), local-over-global processing (‘I notice patterns in things all the time’), sensory sensitivities (‘I often notice small sounds when others do not’), special or strong interests (‘I tend to have very strong interests, which I get upset about if I can’t pursue’), and ability to break a routine (‘I prefer to do things the same way over and over again’). Participants indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with these statements on a 4-point Likert scale. One overall score is used to measure general autistic traits.The Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2)Similar to the AQ, the SRS is a 65-item self-report questionnaire in which participants rate on a 4-point Likert scale how much each statement describes their behavior [83.Constantino J.N. Gruber C.P. Social Responsiveness Scale: SRS-2. Western Psychological Services, 2012Google Scholar]. The SRS-2, however, is more focused on capacities associated with social abilities. In addition to a total score, the SRS-2 provides separate scores for the following subscales: Social Awareness (‘I am usually aware of how others are feeling’), Social Cognition (‘I do not recognize when others are trying to take advantage of me’), Social Communication (‘I am able to communicate my feelings to others’), Social Motivation (‘I would rather be alone than with others’), and Restricted Interests and Repetitive Behavior (‘When under stress, I engage in rigid or inflexible patterns of behavior that seem odd to people’). ‘Autistic traits’ refer to characteristics of autism that are continuously distributed across the population. Individuals with a diagnosis of autism would mostly cluster at the extreme end of this distribution, but there is continuous variance across the general population [81.Ruzich E. et al.Measuring autistic traits in the general population: a systematic review of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) in a nonclinical population sample of 6,900 typical adult males and females.Mol. Autism. 2015; 6: 2Crossref PubMed Scopus (192) Google Scholar]. Several questionnaires are used to quantify such autistic traits. These questionnaires are not used for diagnostic purposes, because they are designed to quantify continuous variance in traits across all people rather than to delineate a clinical category. The Autism Quotient (AQ) AQ is a 50-item self-report questionnaire that quantifies autistic traits in children and adults [82.Baron-Cohen S. et al.The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ): evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2001; 31: 5-17Crossref PubMed Scopus (3463) Google Scholar]. Statements span different domains and include social preferences (‘I prefer to do things with others rather than on my own’), imagination abilities (‘If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind’), communication (‘Other people frequently tell me that what I’ve said is impolite, even though I think it is polite’), local-over-global processing (‘I notice patterns in things all the time’), sensory sensitivities (‘I often notice small sounds when others do not’), special or strong interests (‘I tend to have very strong interests, which I get upset about if I can’t pursue’), and ability to break a routine (‘I prefer to do things the same way over and over again’). Participants indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with these statements on a 4-point Likert scale. One overall score is used to measure general autistic traits. The Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2) Similar to the AQ, the SRS is a 65-item self-report questionnaire in which participants rate on a 4-point Likert scale how much each statement describes their behavior [83.Constantino J.N. Gruber C.P. Social Responsiveness Scale: SRS-2. Western Psychological Services, 2012Google Scholar]. The SRS-2, however, is more focused on capacities associated with social abilities. In addition to a total score, the SRS-2 provides separate scores for the following subscales: Social Awareness (‘I am usually aware of how others are feeling’), Social Cognition (‘I do not recognize when others are trying to take advantage of me’), Social Communication (‘I am able to communicate my feelings to others’), Social Motivation (‘I would rather be alone than with others’), and Restricted Interests and Repetitive Behavior (‘When under stress, I engage in rigid or inflexible patterns of behavior that seem odd to people’). Reasoning and decision-making can be influenced by both information that is salient and seemingly relevant and information that is irrelevant. For instance, when making judgments, neurotypical individuals may incorrectly favor improbable explanations over more probable explanations due to the presence of highly representative information. This is evident in tasks examining the conjunction fallacy [10.Tversky A. Kahneman D. Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: the conjunction fallacy in probability judgment.Psychol. Rev. 1983; 90: 293-315Crossref Scopus (2162) Google Scholar], wherein participants may be asked, for example, to read a description of ‘Jerry,’ a hardworking man who sits at a desk, makes telephone calls, and owns stocks. Participants then rank order the probability of multiple statements that describe Jerry’s profession, one of which is a conjunction of two statements: ‘Jerry is a broker,’ ‘Jerry is a plumber,’ ‘Jerry is a broker and a plumber,’ ‘Jerry is a zookeeper.’ Strikingly, neurotypical individuals rank the conjunction of two statements (‘Jerry is a broker and a plumber’) as more likely than the less representative single statement (‘Jerry is a plumber’), even though the probability of Jerry to have two jobs is mathematically smaller than having any one job. Individuals with ASD are less susceptible to the influence of representative information and consistently, and more correctly, rank the conjunction as less probable than the two independent elements of the conjunction [19.Morsanyi K. et al.Decontextualised minds: adolescents with autism are less susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than typically developing adolescents.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2010; 40: 1378-1388Crossref PubMed Scopus (24) Google Scholar]. Critically, individuals with ASD also show enhanced rationality when asked about situations with no social or person-specific context (i.e., descriptions of items rather than people), suggesting that well-documented difficulties in social cognition in ASD do not drive reduced susceptibility to representative information [19.Morsanyi K. et al.Decontextualised minds: adolescents with autism are less susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than typically developing adolescents.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2010; 40: 1378-1388Crossref PubMed Scopus (24) Google Scholar]. However, when tested on conjunctions that do not include salient or representative information (e.g., ‘Jerry is a broker,’ ‘Jerry is a plumber,’ ‘Jerry is a zookeeper and a plumber,’ ‘Jerry is a zookeeper’), individuals with ASD rank conjunctions as more probable than they actually are, similar to neurotypical individuals [19.Morsanyi K. et al.Decontextualised minds: adolescents with autism are less susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than typically developing adolescents.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2010; 40: 1378-1388Crossref PubMed Scopus (24) Google Scholar]. Since according to the rules of probability, conjunctions are always the least likely descriptors when compared with single descriptors, this suggests that enhanced rationality in ASD in this domain is not driven by a better understanding of the rules of probability per se, but rather by less bias in the face of highly salient information. Irrelevant information can also bias preferences and choices. For example, when individuals are asked about their preference between two competitive choices (e.g., ice cream or french fries) adding a third, clearly inferior, option (a decoy; e.g., a cracker), should not change one’s original preference. However, neurotypical individuals’ preferences are heavily influenced by expansion of the choice set with information that should not affect their preference and is therefore irrelevant. Changing the decoy can shift their preference toward the item that is most similar to the decoy ([25.Huber J. et al.Adding asymmetrically dominated alternatives: violations of regularity and the similarity hypothesis.J. Consum. Res. 1982; 9: 90-98Crossref Google Scholar]; attraction effect). In effect, because french fries and crackers are in a more similar food group, a person who may have otherwise chosen ice cream is likely to change their preference to the french fries. Individuals with ASD and neurotypical individuals with high degrees of autistic traits show consistent preferences for the same item, regardless of an added decoy [14.Farmer G.D. et al.People with autism spectrum conditions make more consistent decisions.Psychol. Sci. 2017; 28: 1067-1076Crossref PubMed Scopus (33) Google Scholar]. The propensity to integrate irrelevant information into the decision-making process when establishing preferences or choices is also expressed in the sunk cost bias, wherein decisions are irrationally influenced by costs that have been incurred, even if they cannot be recovered [26.Arkes H.R. Blumer C. The psychology of sunk cost.Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 1985; 35: 124-140Crossref Scopus (1327) Google Scholar] (e.g., which trip to cancel if one costs more than the other but neither ticket can be reimbursed). Unlike their neurotypical counterparts, individuals with ASD are less susceptible to the influence of irrelevant information (e.g., are equally likely to cancel either trip regardless of cost) [15.Fujino J. et al.Sunk cost effect in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.J. Autism Dev. Disord. 2019; 49: 1-10Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar,27.Fujino J. et al.Impact of past experiences on decision-making in autism spectrum disorder.Eur. Arch. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 2020; 270: 1063-1071Crossref PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar]. In sum, information processing seems to differ in individuals with ASD who may be better than neurotypical at distinguishing relevant and irrelevant information. Human behavior is highly influenced by reward and negative outcomes, both of which are strong facilitators of learning. However, the tendency to be irrationally attracted to rewards and irrationally averse to negative information creates biases in information processing and decision-making. This is especially clear in tasks examining the framing effect, where neurotypical individuals favor options that are described as gains over options described as losses, even though the gain and loss are mathematically identical (e.g., ‘lose $20 of $50’ versus ‘keep $30 of $50’ [9.Tversky A. Kahneman D. The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice.Science. 1981; 211: 453-458Crossref PubMed Scopus (9381) Google Scholar]). Studies in ASD find that the magnitude of this preference is much smaller than in neurotypical individuals [18.Martino B.D. et al.Explaining enhanced logical consistency during decision-making in autism.J. Neurosci. 2008; 28: 10746-10750Crossref PubMed Scopus (135) Google Scholar,20.Shah P. et al.Emotional decision-making in autism spectrum disorder: the roles of interoception and alexithymia.Mol. Autism. 2016; 7: 43Crossref PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar], suggesting more veridical information processing in ASD. Similarly, in probabilistic learning tasks that manipulate reward frequency and magnitude, neurotypical participants favor high-frequency large rewards over high-frequency low rewards, even when the former are coupled with large losses, resulting in a net loss. In such tasks, several studies reported superior performance of individuals with ASD, who are less drawn to the immediate salience of rewards, and learn long-term reward contingencies more accurately from choice outcomes [21.South M. et al.Enhanced decision-making and risk avoidance in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder.Neuropsychology. 2014; 28: 222-228Crossref PubMed Scopus (49) Google Scholar,28.Mussey J.L. et al.Decision-making skills in ASD: performance on the Iowa Gambling Task.Autism Res. 2015; 8: 105-114Crossref PubMed Scopus (34) Google Scholar,29.Vella L. et al.Understanding self-reported difficulties in decision-making
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