An aberrant precision account of autism

Abstract

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by problems with social-communication, restricted interests and repetitive behavior. A recent and thought-provoking article presented a normative explanation for the perceptual symptoms of autism in terms of a failure of Bayesian inference (Pellicano and Burr, 2012). In response, we suggested that when Bayesian inference is grounded in its neural instantiation—namely, predictive coding—many features of autistic perception can be attributed to aberrant precision (or beliefs about precision) within the context of hierarchical message passing in the brain (Friston et al., 2013). Here, we unpack the aberrant precision account of autism. Specifically, we consider how empirical findings—that speak directly or indirectly to neurobiological mechanisms—are consistent with the aberrant encoding of precision in autism; in particular, an imbalance of the precision ascribed to sensory evidence relative to prior beliefs.

Autonomic and brain responses associated with empathy deficits in autism spectrum disorder

“…Importantly, the current findings provide direct support for recent proposals suggesting that failures in Bayesian inference, and particularly aberrant precision (i.e., inverse variance) of the information encoded at various levels of sensorimotor hierarchies, may contribute to socio-emotional deficits in ASD (Friston, et al, 2013b; Lawson, et al, 2014; Pellicano and Burr, 2012). Specifically, abnormally high interoceptive precision (i.e., over reliance on ascending interoceptive information), in the context of interoceptive inference, would result in hypersensitivity of principal AIC neurons that provide downstream predictions of interoceptive signals (Friston, 2010; Seth, et al, 2011).…”

“…Physiologically, this precision or attention is thought to be mediated by the postsynaptic gain or sensitivity of neuronal populations reporting prediction error (Bastos, et al, 2012). The specific failure in ASD has been attributed to a relative increase in the precision of sensory evidence and over the precision of higher (extrasensory) beliefs (Friston, et al, 2013b; Lawson, et al, 2014; Pellicano and Burr, 2012; Quattrocki and Friston, 2014; Van de Cruys, et al, 2014). …”

Susceptibility to Optical Illusions Varies as a Function of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient but not in Ways Predicted by Local–Global Biases

“…Pellicano & Burr (2012) proposed that the use of priors in persons with ASD is attenuated relative to typically developing people and therefore the active process of 4 formulating and testing hypotheses about the world is more immune to suggestion, which results in a tendency to perceive the world more objectively, and a desire to be in more familiar settings. Similar accounts have been developed over the last few years by other researchers (e.g., Davis & Plaisted-Grant, 2015;Lawson, Rees, & Friston, 2014;van Boxtel & Lu, 2013;Van de Cruys et al, 2014).…”

Brain dynamics in ASD during movie‐watching show idiosyncratic functional integration and segregation

“…Interestingly, it has recently been suggested that increased visual responsiveness to low‐level features, as reported in this study, may arise due to a larger noise in the primary visual system (Simmons et al, 2009; Lawson, Rees, & Friston, 2014). Along those lines, a larger intra‐individual variability of the evoked visual response has been reported in ASD (Dinstein et al, 2012; Haigh, Heeger, Dinstein, Minshew, & Behrmann, 2015).…”