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Correct prediction per task round for 10 and 20 round games. Line graph of the percentage of correct predictions per round number for the 20 (upper graph) and 10 (lower graph) rounds games for the autism and the comparison group. Full-size DOI: 10.7717/peerj.13328/fig-1
Source publication
Background
Several theories in autism posit that common aspects of the autism phenotype may be manifestations of an underlying differentiation in predictive abilities. The present study investigates this hypothesis in the context of strategic decision making in autistic participants compared to a control group.
Method
Autistic individuals (43 adul...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... to the fact that the autism group did not have sufficient information to predict their opponent's move. In such a scenario, however, as the number of task rounds increases, the per round predictive performance of autistic participants would also get closer and finally reach that of the control group. A similar pattern is not observed in our data (Fig. 1). Moreover, in our PD design, no time constraint was imposed to participants when asked to register their predictions for their opponent's move and task choices, excluding time limitations as a factor that would contribute to reluctance and thus altered predictions in our version of the ...
Context 2
... the other hand, a total prediction impairment was present in our autism group, this would lead to the group employing alternative ways in order to reach a PD decision. These methods could include making random choices or other unorthodox ways of deciding. In our task, in the autism group and the comparison group, predictive performance improves ( Fig. 1) with time, making it very unlikely that their responses are due to ...
Citations
... (9.77)], were recruited to participate in the present study. Participants were all either high or moderate functioning (functionality levels 1 and 2 according to DSM-5; [1]), had fluent phrase speech, normal intelligence and held an official ASD diagnosis based on DSM-5 criteria [1] by psychiatrists of multidisciplinary teams with an extended clinical and research experience among adults with neurodevelopmental disorders (further see [95]- [97]). Exclusion criteria included the presence of acute psychopathology requiring urgent psychiatric treatment as well as Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) below 70. ...
p>Poor social skills in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with reduced independence in daily life. Current interventions for improving the social skills of individuals with ASD fail to represent the complexity of real-life social settings and situations. Virtual reality (VR) may facilitate social skills training in social environments and situations proximal to real life, however, more research is needed for elucidating aspects such as the acceptability, usability, and user experience of VR systems in ASD. Twenty-five participants with ASD attended a neuropsychological evaluation and three sessions of VR social skills training, incorporating 5 social scenarios with three difficulty levels for each. Participants reported high acceptability, system usability, and user experience. Significant correlations were observed between performance in social scenarios, self-reports, and executive functions. Working memory and planning ability were significant predictors of functionality level in ASD and the VR system’s perceived usability respectively. Yet, performance in social scenarios was the best predictor of usability, acceptability, and functionality level in ASD. Planning ability substantially predicted performance in social scenarios, postulating an implication in social skills. Immersive VR social skills training appears effective in individuals with ASD, yet an error-less approach, which is adaptive to the individual’s needs, should be preferred. </p
... (9.77)], were recruited to participate in the present study. Participants were all either high or moderate functioning (functionality levels 1 and 2 according to DSM-5; [1]), had fluent phrase speech, normal intelligence and held an official ASD diagnosis based on DSM-5 criteria [1] by psychiatrists of multidisciplinary teams with an extended clinical and research experience among adults with neurodevelopmental disorders (further see [95]- [97]). Exclusion criteria included the presence of acute psychopathology requiring urgent psychiatric treatment as well as Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) below 70. ...
p>Poor social skills in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with reduced independence in daily life. Current interventions for improving the social skills of individuals with ASD fail to represent the complexity of real-life social settings and situations. Virtual reality (VR) may facilitate social skills training in social environments and situations proximal to real life, however, more research is needed for elucidating aspects such as the acceptability, usability, and user experience of VR systems in ASD. Twenty-five participants with ASD attended a neuropsychological evaluation and three sessions of VR social skills training, incorporating 5 social scenarios with three difficulty levels for each. Participants reported high acceptability, system usability, and user experience. Significant correlations were observed between performance in social scenarios, self-reports, and executive functions. Working memory and planning ability were significant predictors of functionality level in ASD and the VR system’s perceived usability respectively. Yet, performance in social scenarios was the best predictor of usability, acceptability, and functionality level in ASD. Planning ability substantially predicted performance in social scenarios, postulating an implication in social skills. Immersive VR social skills training appears effective in individuals with ASD, yet an error-less approach, which is adaptive to the individual’s needs, should be preferred. </p
... (9.77)), were recruited to participate in the present study. Participants were all either high-or moderate-functioning (functionality levels 1 and 2 according to DSM-5; [1]), had fluent phrase speech, normal intelligence, and had an official ASD diagnosis based on DSM-5 criteria [1] by psychiatrists in multidisciplinary teams with extensive clinical and research experience among adults with neurodevelopmental disorders (for further information, see [95][96][97]). Exclusion criteria included the presence of acute psychopathology requiring urgent psychiatric treatment as well as a Full-Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) below 70. ...
Poor social skills in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with reduced independence in daily life. Current interventions for improving the social skills of individuals with ASD fail to represent the complexity of real-life social settings and situations. Virtual reality (VR) may facilitate social skills training in social environments and situations similar to those in real life; however, more research is needed to elucidate aspects such as the acceptability, usability, and user experience of VR systems in ASD. Twenty-five participants with ASD attended a neuropsychological evaluation and three sessions of VR social skills training, which incorporated five social scenarios with three difficulty levels. Participants reported high acceptability, system usability, and user experience. Significant correlations were observed between performance in social scenarios, self-reports, and executive functions. Working memory and planning ability were significant predictors of the functionality level in ASD and the VR system’s perceived usability, respectively. Yet, performance in social scenarios was the best predictor of usability, acceptability, and functionality level. Planning ability substantially predicted performance in social scenarios, suggesting an implication in social skills. Immersive VR social skills training in individuals with ASD appears to be an appropriate service, but an errorless approach that is adaptive to the individual’s needs should be preferred.
... (9.77)], were recruited to participate in the present study. Participants were all either high or moderate functioning (functionality levels 1 and 2 according to DSM-5; [1]), had fluent phrase speech, normal intelligence and held an official ASD diagnosis based on DSM-5 criteria [1] by psychiatrists of multidisciplinary teams with an extended clinical and research experience among adults with neurodevelopmental disorders (further see [95]- [97]). Exclusion criteria included the presence of acute psychopathology requiring urgent psychiatric treatment as well as Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) below 70. ...
Poor social skills in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with reduced independence in daily life. Current interventions for improving the social skills of individuals with ASD fail to represent the complexity of real-life social settings and situations. Virtual reality (VR) may facilitate social skills training in social environments and situations proximal to real life, however, more research is needed for elucidating aspects such as the acceptability, usability, and user experience of VR systems in ASD. Twenty-five participants with ASD attended a neuropsychological evaluation and three sessions of VR social skills training, incorporating 5 social scenarios with three difficulty levels for each. Participants reported high acceptability, system usability, and user experience. Significant correlations were observed between performance in social scenarios, self-reports, and executive functions. Working memory and planning ability were significant predictors of functionality level in ASD and the VR system’s perceived usability respectively. Yet, performance in social scenarios was the best predictor of usability, acceptability, and functionality level. Planning ability substantially predicted performance in social scenarios, postulating an implication in social skills. Immersive VR social skills training in individuals with ASD appears an appropriate service, yet an error-less approach, which is adaptive to the individual’s needs, should be preferred.
... Intriguingly, while such frustration following a negative offer predicted greater rejection of unfair offers in the comparison group, this was not the case in the autism group (Woodcock et al., 2020). This is similar to a study by Mantas et al., (2022) who reported that -in a prisoner's dilemma task -autistic participants were less able to predict their opponents' choices; however, there were no differences between groups (autistic and comparison) for total score earned over the course of the game or co-operation levels. ...
Autistic people often have an atypical profile of abilities: while excelling in some structured paradigms, many report difficulties with making real-life decisions. To test whether decision-making in autism is different from in typically developing controls, we reviewed 104 studies that compared decision-making performance between autistic and comparison participants ( N = 2712 autistic and N = 3189 comparison participants) between 1998 and 2022. Our searches revealed four main decision-making paradigms that are widely used in the field of decision neuroscience: perceptual discrimination, reward learning, metacognition and value-based decision-making paradigm. Our synthesis highlights that perceptual processing and reward learning were similar between autistic and comparison participants, whereas value-based decision-making and metacognitive accuracy were often different between groups. Furthermore, decision-making differences were most pronounced when the autistic participant was explicitly probed to report on an internal belief, while implicit markers of the same decision (e.g. error-related response times) were usually not different. Our findings provide evidence in favour of a metacognitive explanation of decision-making atypicalities in autism.
Lay summary
Many autistic people report difficulties with real-life decision-making. However, when doing decision-making tests in laboratory experiments, autistic people often perform as well or better than non-autistic people. We review previously published studies on autistic people’s decision-making, across different types of tests, to understand what type of decision-making is more challenging. To do this, we searched four databases of research papers. We found 104 studies that tested, in total, 2712 autistic and 3189 comparison participants on different decision-making tasks. We found that there were four categories of decision-making tests that were used in these experiments: perceptual (e.g. deciding which image has the most dots); reward learning (e.g. learning which deck of cards gives the best reward); metacognition (e.g. knowing how well you perform or what you want); and value-based (e.g. making a decision based on a choice between two outcomes that differ in value to you). Overall, these studies suggest that autistic and comparison participants tend to perform similarly well at perceptual and reward-learning decisions. However, autistic participants tended to decide differently from comparison participants on metacognition and value-based paradigms. This suggests that autistic people might differ from typically developing controls in how they evaluate their own performance and in how they make decisions based on weighing up the subjective value of two different options. We suggest these reflect more general differences in metacognition, thinking about thinking, in autism.
... Social skills finally 81 have been theoretically proposed to also depend on social cognition aspects such as 82 mental state/emotion recognition [23] but these aspects are not consistently associated 83 with social impairment in ASD [24]. Given these potential associations among social 84 cognition and social skills, EF and social skills, and EF and social cognition (e.g., [25], 85 [26]), it has been suggested that EF may contribute to social skills both directly and indi-86 rectly [27]; Social cognition aspects are likely to partially mediate the association be- 87 tween EF and social skills. 88 89 Assessment of ASD impairments is critical for identifying potential difficulties and 90 weaknesses when implementing interventions. ...
... and 2 according to DSM-5;[1]), had fluent phrase speech, normal intelligence and held 399 an official ASD diagnosis based on DSM-5 criteria[1] by psychiatrists of multidiscipli-400 nary teams with an extended clinical and research experience among adults with neuro-401 developmental disorders (further see[83]-[85]). Exclusion criteria included the presence 402 of acute psychopathology requiring urgent psychiatric treatment as well as Full Scale In-403 telligence Quotient (FSIQ) below 70. ...
Poor social skills in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with reduced independence in daily life. Current interventions for improving the social skills of individuals with ASD fail to represent the complexity of real-life social settings and situations. Virtual reality (VR) may facilitate social skills training in social environments and situations proximal to real life, however, more research is needed for elucidating aspects such as the acceptability, usability, and user experience of VR systems in ASD. Twenty-five participants with ASD attended a neuropsychological evaluation and three sessions of VR social skills training, incorporating 5 social scenarios with three difficulty levels for each. Participants reported high acceptability, system usability, and user experience. Significant correlations were observed between performance in social scenarios, self-reports, and executive functions. Working memory and planning ability were significant predictors of functionality level in ASD and the VR system’s perceived usability respectively. Yet, performance in social scenarios was the best predictor of usability, acceptability, and functionality level in ASD. Planning ability substantially predicted performance in social scenarios, postulating an implication in social skills. Immersive VR social skills training appears effective in individuals with ASD, yet an error-less approach, which is adaptive to the individual’s needs, should be preferred.
Several studies suggest that children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often present deficits in executive functions (EFs). The research on cold EF shows a high heterogeneity across different cohorts of patients as well as different study designs, while studies investigating hot EF and their relationship with different ASD phenotypes are still limited and related only to specific domains, although this concept could contribute to clarify the phenotypical variability by explaining the difficulties encountered by individuals with ASD in daily life, where stimuli are often emotionally charged. With the aim to identify specific neuropsychological profiles in children and adolescents with ASD without intellectual disability, we designed a study protocol comparing a clinical sample of individuals with ASD to aged-matched (10–17 years) typically developing controls (TDC) on a neuropsychological test battery investigating both “cold” and “hot” EF with the purpose of further investigating their relationships with ASD symptoms. Autonomic measures including heart rate, heart rate variability, skin conductance, and salivary cortisol were also recorded before/during/after the neuropsychological testing session. This paper describes the case–control study protocol named “ Caratterizzazione NEuropsicologica del disturbo dello Spettro Autistico, senza Disabilità Intellettiva, CNeSA study ,” its rationale, the specific outcome measures, and their implications for the clinical management of individuals with ASD and a precision medicine approach.
