Autistic Traits in the Neurotypical Population do not Predict Increased Response Conservativeness in Perceptual Decision Making

Pirrone, Angelo; Wen, Wen; Li, Sheng; Baker, Daniel H.; Milne, Elizabeth

doi:10.1177/0301006618802689

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(44 reference statements)

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“…Future research should investigate whether this result can be extended to other domains, and should investigate the mechanisms that underlie increased response caution in ASD. It is important to note that, the result of increased boundary separation from a DDM perspective is a descriptive account that does not tell us anything about the mechanisms and causes that generate it (for a discussion about the mechanisms that may underlie increased response conservativeness in ASD, see Pirrone, Wen, Li, Baker & Milne, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A diffusion model decomposition of orientation discrimination in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Pirrone

Johnson

Stafford

et al. 2018

European Journal of Developmental Psychology

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Children with and without ASD performed an orientation discrimination task, in which the difficulty of the discrimination was equated across individuals. Behavioural results showed that subjects with ASD were slower in making a decision. A computational decomposition of data was performed and modelled parameters indicated that: (i) participants with ASD adopted a more conservative response criterion and (ii) motor response did not differ between groups. Our results confirm that differences in reaction times (RTs) and/or accuracy between participants with and without ASD in orientation discrimination may be related to differences in response conservativeness rather than in stimulus discriminability, in line with data previously reported from adults (Pirrone, Dickinson, Gomez, Stafford & Milne, 2017). This result has important implications for studies that have claimed impairments/enhancements in ASD on the basis of differences in RTs and/or accuracy alone.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A diffusion model decomposition of orientation discrimination in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Pirrone

Johnson

Stafford

et al. 2018

European Journal of Developmental Psychology

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“…We first analyzed RT measures from a Posner-style attentional cueing experiment previously reported by Pirrone, Wen, Li, Baker, and Milne (2018) . Participants ( N = 38) saw a central cue stimulus directing their attention to either the left or the right of fixation.…”

Section: Reaction Timesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power contours: Optimising sample size and precision in experimental psychology and human neuroscience.

Baker¹,

Vilidaitė²,

Lygo³

et al. 2021

Psychological Methods

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130

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When designing experimental studies with human participants, experimenters must decide how many trials each participant will complete, as well as how many participants to test. Most discussion of statistical power (the ability of a study design to detect an effect) has focused on sample size, and assumed sufficient trials. Here we explore the influence of both factors on statistical power, represented as a 2-dimensional plot on which iso-power contours can be visualized. We demonstrate the conditions under which the number of trials is particularly important, that is, when the within-participant variance is large relative to the between-participants variance. We then derive power contour plots using existing data sets for 8 experimental paradigms and methodologies (including reaction times, sensory thresholds, fMRI, MEG, and EEG), and provide example code to calculate estimates of the within- and between-participants variance for each method. In all cases, the within-participant variance was larger than the between-participants variance, meaning that the number of trials has a meaningful influence on statistical power in commonly used paradigms. An online tool is provided ( https://shiny.york.ac.uk/powercontours/ ) for generating power contours, from which the optimal combination of trials and participants can be calculated when designing future studies.

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“…When using yes/no decision tasks to assess sensory detection, SDT approaches afford clarity on sensory vs. decisional processes that may be related to higher order cognitive phenomena. Studies of perceptual decision making in the visual system indicate that participants with ASD are slower and more cautious in their responses in a two-alternative forced choice task (Pirrone et al, 2018), suggesting they prioritize accuracy over speed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elevated Thresholds for Light Touch in Children With Autism Reflect More Conservative Perceptual Decision-Making Rather Than a Sensory Deficit

Quinde-Zlibut

Okitondo

Williams

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often behaviorally hyper-reactive to light touch, but it is unclear to what degree this arises from a fundamental sensory difference vs. higher order systems for attention or emotion processing. Thus far, experimental findings for light touch detection are mixed, and few previous studies have independently considered sensitivity (the ability to discriminate signal from noise) and decision criterion (the overall response bias or tendency to answer "yes" or "no" in a detection task). We tested a large sample of children, adolescents, and adults with ASD (n = 88) and with neurotypical (NT) development (n = 59) using von Frey filaments to derive light touch thresholds at the palm. We calculated signal detection metrics for sensitivity (A z) and response criterion (c) from hit and false alarm rates. Both metrics exhibited significant group differences, such that the ASD group was less sensitive, but had a much more conservative response criterion. We used a best subset model selection procedure in three separate ordinal regressions for the whole group, adults, and children/adolescents. In all selected models, c was by far the most significant predictor of threshold, supplanting effects of diagnostic group that were significant in the baseline models. In contrast, Az was not a significant predictor of threshold in any of the models. Mean values of c were similar for adults with and without autism and for children/adolescents with ASD, but lower (more liberal) in neurotypical children/adolescents. This suggests that children with ASD exhibit a conservatism in their perceptual decision-making that differs from their NT peers but resembles that of adults. Across the sample, the value of c was significantly and positively correlated with age and with autism symptoms (SRS-2 total score), in addition to thresholds. The results of this study suggest that, rather than a sensory difference in detection

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Autistic Traits in the Neurotypical Population do not Predict Increased Response Conservativeness in Perceptual Decision Making

Cited by 9 publications

References 26 publications

A diffusion model decomposition of orientation discrimination in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

A diffusion model decomposition of orientation discrimination in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Power contours: Optimising sample size and precision in experimental psychology and human neuroscience.

Elevated Thresholds for Light Touch in Children With Autism Reflect More Conservative Perceptual Decision-Making Rather Than a Sensory Deficit

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