Contagion of Temporal Discounting Value Preferences in Neurotypical and Autistic Adults

Louisa Thomas,Mona M Garvert,Patricia L Lockwood,Joshua H Balsters

doi:10.1007/s10803-021-04962-5

Abstract

Neuroeconomics paradigms have demonstrated that learning about another’s beliefs can make you more like them (i.e., contagion). Due to social deficits in autism, it is possible that autistic individuals will be immune to contagion. We fit Bayesian computational models to a temporal discounting task, where participants made decisions for themselves before and after learning the distinct preferences of two others. Two independent neurotypical samples (N = 48; N = 98) both showed a significant contagion effect; however the strength of contagion was unrelated to autistic traits. Equivalence tests showed autistic (N = 12) and matched neurotypical N = 12) samples had similar levels of contagion and accuracy when learning about others. Despite social impairments being at the core of autistic symptomatology, contagion of value preferences appears to be intact.

Highlights

Social influence has been shown to bias our behaviours and preferences (Behrens et al, 2008; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Izuma, 2013; Meyer et al, 2019; Raafat et al, 2009; Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2019)
To determine whether there was a significant change in behaviour after learning the value preferences of another person, one-sample t-tests were run on the Study 1 and Study 2 sample data
We examined contagion of value preferences on a temporal discounting (TD) task, and whether contagion correlates with autistic traits and is disrupted in autistic adults

Summary

Introduction

Social influence has been shown to bias our behaviours and preferences (Behrens et al, 2008; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Izuma, 2013; Meyer et al, 2019; Raafat et al, 2009; Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2019). Karvelis et al (2018) explored predictive coding in NT individuals using a visual learning task and showed that increased autistic traits in this sample corresponded to less precise prior expectations, combined with more precise sensory representations Taken together, these findings suggest a deficit in generating internal priors that form the prediction of reward outcomes in autistic individuals relative to NT controls, and that this finding can be observed in NT individuals with higher levels of autistic traits. These findings suggest a deficit in generating internal priors that form the prediction of reward outcomes in autistic individuals relative to NT controls, and that this finding can be observed in NT individuals with higher levels of autistic traits This may translate to decreased learning about the subjective values of others in tasks measuring contagion. To account for individual differences in contagion, the value preferences of the other agents in this study vary in line with the participant’s own preferences

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion