Abstract
The combination of economic games and human neuroimaging presents the possibility of using economic probes to identify biomarkers for quantitative features of healthy and diseased cognition. These probes span a range of important cognitive functions, but one new use is in the domain of reciprocating social exchange with other humans - a capacity perturbed in a number of psychopathologies. We summarize the use of a reciprocating exchange game to elicit neural and behavioral signatures for subjects diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Furthermore, we outline early efforts to capture features of social exchange in computational models and use these to identify quantitative behavioral differences between subjects with ASD and matched controls. Lastly, we summarize a number of subsequent studies inspired by the modeling results, which suggest new neural and behavioral signatures that could be used to characterize subtle deficits in information processing during interactions with other humans.
Highlights
The combination of economic games and human neuroimaging presents the possibility of using economic probes to identify biomarkers for quantitative features of healthy and diseased cognition
These studies used two-person sequentially iterated games with multiple rounds (Figure 1A). These games are mathematically more complicated than one-shot exchange games found in the economic literature, but they allow the observation of iterated exchange where signaling between participants can provide valuable learning and guidance cues that are analogous to the kinds of signals we use during more natural social exchange
The work presented here represents the earliest developments of the use of computational and game theoretic approaches to understand autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
Summary
We present computationally obtained results from hyperscanned interactions between healthy participants and participants diagnosed with ASD. These interactions were social, they were reduced to quantitative exchanges governed by the rules of the multi-round trust game. From these results a region of interest in the middle cingulate cortex was determined that was shown to differentiate self and other perspective-taking in an eyes-closed mental imagery task. Clustering algorithms applied to the behavioral gestures elicited during the multi-round trust game and Bayesian modeling approaches to social interaction were discussed to highlight the impact quantitative approaches to ASD are beginning to have. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests
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