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Autistic Traits in the Neurotypical Population Do Not Predict Increased Response Conservativeness in Perceptual Decision Making

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Autistic Traits in the Neurotypical Population Do Not Predict Increased Response Conservativeness in Perceptual Decision Making This is a repository copy of Autistic traits in the neurotypical population do not predict increased response conservativeness in perceptual decision making. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/136732/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Pirrone, Angelo, Wen, Wen, Li, Sheng et al. (2 more authors) (2018) Autistic traits in the neurotypical population do not predict increased response conservativeness in perceptual decision making. Perception. pp. 1081-1096. ISSN 0301-0066 https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006618802689 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Perception For Peer Review https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/perception Page 1 of 33 Perception 1 2 1 3 4 RUNNING HEAD: Autistic traits and response conservativeness 5 6 7 8 Autistic traits in the neurotypical population do not predict increased response 9 10 conservativeness in perceptual decision making 11 12 13 14 15 16 1,2,3, 1,2,3, 1,2,3, 5 , 17 Angelo Pirrone , Wen Wen , Sheng Li , Daniel H. Baker , Eli)abeth Milne 18 19 -1. School of Ps0chologicalFor and 1ognitive Peer Sciences, Review Peking Universit0, Bei2ing 100871, 1hina 20 -2. Bei2ing 6e0 Laborator0 of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking Universit0, Bei2ing, 100871, 21 1hina. 22 -3. P6U7IDG8McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking Universit0, Bei2ing, 100871, 1hina. 23 - . 6e0 Laborator0 of Machine Perception -Ministr0 of Education., Peking Universit0, Bei2ing, 24 100871, 1hina. 25 -5. Department of Ps0cholog0, Universit0 of :ork -U6. 26 27 -,. Department of Ps0cholog0, The Universit0 of Sheffield -U6. 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/perception Perception Page 2 of 33 1 2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Abstract 9 10 11 12 Recent research has shown that adults and children with autism spectrum disorders -ASD. have a 13 14 15 more conservative decision criterion in perceptual decision making compared to neurot0pical -NT. 16 17 individuals, meaning that autistic participants prioritise accurac0 over speed of a decision. Here, we 18 19 test whether autistic traitsFor in the NT Peer population coReviewrrelate with increased response conservativeness. 20 21 We emplo0ed three different tasks; for two tasks we recruited participants from 1hina -N=39. and 22 23 for one task from the U6 -N=37.. Our results show that autistic traits in the NT population do not 24 25 predict variation in response criterion. We also failed to replicate previous work showing a 26 27 28 relationship between autistic traits and sensitivit0 to coherent motion and static orientation. 29 30 Aollowing the argument proposed b0 Gregor0 and Plaisted7Grant -201,., we discuss wh0 31 32 perceptual differences between autistic and NT participants do not necessaril0 predict perceptual 33 34 differences between NT participants with high and low autistic traits. 35 36 37 38 Keywords: autism, decision making, response conservativeness, AB 39 40 41 42 43 Acknowledgements: This work was supported b0 Beijing Municipal Science C Technolog0 44 1ommission -D171100000117015.; National 6e0 Research and Development Program of 1hina 45 -2017:AB1002503.; National Natural Science Aoundation of 1hina -31 7097 .. The funding 46 source had no role other than financial support. All authors declare that the0 have no conflict of 47 interest. 48 49 1orrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to Angelo Pirrone, School of 50 Ps0chological and 1ognitive Sciences, Peking Universit0, Bei2ing 100871, 1hina. E7mail: 51 angelopirroneEgmail.com. 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/perception Page 3 of 33 Perception 1 2 3 3 4 5 6 Introduction 7 8 9 10 When making a FsimpleG binar0 perceptual decision, such as deciding whether a pattern on the road 11 12 is an animal or the shadow of a tree, we Huickl0 sample information for one option over the other 13 14 15 until a certain decision boundar0 is reached and a decision is made in favour of the alternative that 16 17 received most support -Gold C Shadlen, 2007.. A number of factors are known to affect our 18 19 decisions: -1. the difficult0For of the task Peer I Feas0G discriminations Review are made faster and more accuratel0 20 21 compared to FdifficultG discriminations, -2. participantsG sensitivit0 I those who are FbetterG at 22 23 discriminations are faster and more accurate, -3. the response conservativeness -i.e., the distance 24 25 between the two boundaries for a decision. I participants can decide to be fast in the decision 26 27 28 -hence more inaccurate. or accurate -hence slower., - . the bias for a response I with regards to 29 30 the above example, on a road with few trees but man0 farms, sub2ects might be more likel0 to 31 32 answer for the option FanimalG compared to the option FtreeG, -5. the time to execute the motor 33 34 response I once decided that the stimulus is an animal, a 0oung driver might be faster moving the 35 36 car awa0 from it, compared to an older individual, given the speed difference in motor response 37 38 between 0ounger and older individuals -Ratcliff C Mc6oon, 2008.. 39 40 41 42 43 Pirrone, Dickinson, Gome), Stafford and Milne -2015. have shown that, in deciding whether a 44 45 stimulus is oriented clockwise or anticlockwise, adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder -ASD., 46 47 compared to neurot0pical -NT. participants, adopt a more conservative response criterion and take 48 49 longer to execute the motor response. The authors used a computational model of decision making, 50 51 the Drift Diffusion Model -Ratcliff & Mc6oon, 2008. that enables the extraction of estimates for 52 53 54 each of the parameters that contribute to the output of a simple perceptual decision. Pirrone, 55 56 57 58 59 60 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/perception Perception Page 4 of 33 1 2 3 4 Johnson, Stafford and Milne -under review. have replicated the results of increased response 5 6 conservativeness in children with ASD performing an orientation discrimination task. Interestingl0, 7 8 in both studies, the sensitivit0 of the participants to the stimulus did not differ between autistic 9 10 participants and controls. As widel0 discussed in the two above mentioned papers, this result has 11 12 important conseHuences for studies that, on the basis of RTs and8or accurac0 differences alone, have 13 14 15 proposed perceptual enhancement or impairments in ASD. Aurthermore, given that the 16 17 conservativeness hypothesis ma0 explain previous findings in autism this result has led to a number 18 19 of research pro2ects that areFor the focus Peer of current andReview future research. 20 21 22 23 It has been proposed that ASD is an extreme case of a continuum of traits also observable in the NT 24 25 population -Baron71ohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, C 1luble0, 2001.. Autistic traits are 26 27 28 commonl0 measured using the autism7spectrum Huotient Huestionnaire -AB; Baron71ohen et al, 29 30 2001.. The AB is a 50 item Huestionnaire which assesses five different domains that are associated 31 32 with ASD: social skill, attention switching, attention to detail, communication and imagination. 33 34 Some studies have reported performance similarities between participants with high AB scores and 35 36 individuals with ASD in a variet0 of perceptual tasks -Stewart et al., 2009; Grinter et al.,2009; 37 38 Almeida et al.,2010; Ba0liss C 6ritikos, 2011. and the AB has been used to test predictions about 39 40 41 ASD on NT populations -Stewart, M. E., C Ota, 2008; Au0eung, BaronL1ohen, Ashwin, 42 43 6nickme0er, Ta0lor, C Hackett, 2009., although this approach can be considered to be 44 45 controversial -see Gregor0 C Plaisted7Grant, 201,.. 46 47 48 49 To date, no studies have investigated the link between response conservativeness and autistic traits 50 51 in the neurot0pical population. This is the aim of the current stud0 as we investigate whether 52 53 54 increased response conservativeness is predicted b0 AB scores. We used three classical perceptual 55 56 57 58 59 60 https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/perception Page 5 of 33 Perception 1 2 5 3 4 tasks: an orientation discrimination task similar to the one used in the studies cited above; a motion 5 6 discrimination task; and an attention7cuing task. The choice of the orientation task is motivated b0 7 8 the fact that this experimental paradigm was adopted b0 Pirrone et al. -2017. and Pirrone et al. 9 10 -under review. for our previous investigations of decision making in autistic adults and children. 11 12 1oherent motion perception was also included as there are a large number of studies showing 13 14 15 differences in the wa0 in which participants with autism perceive coherent motion, although results 16 17 are not alwa0s consistent -for a review see Milne, Swettenham C 1ampbell, 2005.. Aurthermore, 18 19 previous studies have shownFor that motion Peer coherence Review and orientation discrimination are correlated 20 21 with AB scores -see, Dickinson, Jones and Milne, 201 ; Jackson et al, 2013.
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