All-or-None Evaluation of Prediction Certainty in Autism

Abstract

The brain generates predictions to prepare for upcoming events. As life is not always 100% predictable, it also estimates a level of certainty for these predictions. Given that autistic individuals resist even small changes in everyday life, we hypothesized impaired tuning of prediction certainty in autism. To study this, EEG was recorded from adolescents and young adults with autism while they performed a probabilistic prediction task in which cue validity was parametrically manipulated. A fully predictable condition (100% cue validity) was contrasted with less predictable conditions (84, 67 and 33% cue validity). Well characterized brain potentials were examined to assess the influence of cue validity on target anticipation (contingent negative variation; CNV), the evaluation of target statistics (P3), and prediction model updating (slow wave; SW). As expected, cue validity systematically influenced the amplitudes of the CNV, P3 and SW in controls. In contrast, cue-validity effects on CNV and SW were substantially reduced in autism. This suggests that although target statistics are accurately registered in autism, as indicated by intact modulation of the P3, they are not effectively applied to generate expectations for upcoming input or model updating. Contrasting the fully predictable with the less predictable conditions, our data suggest that autistic individuals adopted an all-or-none evaluation of certainty of their environment, rather than adjusting certainty of predictions to different levels of environmental statistics. Social responsiveness scores were associated with flexibility in representing prediction certainty, suggesting that impaired representation and updating of prediction certainty may contribute to social difficulties in autism.

Do we all synch alike? Brain–body-environment interactions in ASD

“…Reduced phase concentration and inter-trial phase coherence to the cues in the autistic group suggested that impaired neural entrainment contributed to reduced temporal precision in the CNV. In a separate EEG study on adults with ASD (ages: 16-28 years old), we found that the CNV was less modulated by how likely the target was to occur (Reisli et al, 2022), and notably here too the CNV appeared to be less temporally locked to the onset of the target (e.g., more distributed across the cue-target interval; see Figure 2). Collectively these CNV and phase coherence data suggest less precision in the alignment of neural activity with temporally predictable events.…”

“…FIGURE 2Examples of altered modulation of predictive processing in ASD, using two different prediction paradigms: (A) timing (prediction of "when"); and (B) content (prediction of "what." In both paradigms, EEG of the ASD groups showed reduced modulation by the manipulations than controls [modified fromBeker et al (2021) andReisli et al (2022)]. …”