Differential Fairness Decisions and Brain Responses After Expressed Emotions of Others in Boys with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Klapwijk, Eduard T.; Aghajani, Moji; Lelieveld, Gert‐Jan; Lang, Natasja D.J. van; Popma, Arne; Wee, Nic J.A. van der; Colins, Olivier F.; Vermeiren, Robert

doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3159-4

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…This finding is interesting given the mixed results in previous studies. For example, it is consistent with other studies employing neuroeconomics paradigms like the ultimatum game (Ikuse et al, 2018), dictator game (Klapwijk et al, 2017), or other resource allocation games (Tei et al, 2019), which found more prosocial behavior in ASD than in non-ASD participants of child, adolescent, and adult age (Paulus & Rosal-Grifoll, 2017). Moreover, research found that high-functioning ASD children judged the immoral behavior of an unknown peer more strictly (Li et al, 2014) and endorsed punishment of immoral behavior in a prisoner's dilemma game more often than NC (Li et al, 2018); which is in line with Baron-Cohen's (2005) conclusion that despite being rather self-focused, people scoring high on the autism spectrum have strong moral values, sense of justice, and think deeply about how to do good.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Using simple economic games to assess social orienting and prosocial behavior in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Hase

Haynes²,

Hasler

2023

Autism Research

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Deficits in socio‐emotional reciprocity, in prosocial behavior and in developing social relationships are diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), usually assessed by self‐report or observation. Simple social experiments developed by behavioral economists allow for quantification of ASD‐related social behavior. In this study, we used such experiments to compare social‐economic decision‐making between ASD adolescents and neurotypical controls. Precisely, we analyzed social orienting and prosocial behavior in 17 adolescents with ASD (Asperger syndrome) and 24 matched neurotypical adolescents. We used a two‐condition distribution game (possibility of punishment by fellow player versus no such possibility) and an impunity game to examine social orienting (distribution game) and prosocial behavior (both games). Participants with ASD exhibited less social orienting in the distribution game (p = 0.03, d = −0.61). In addition, there was a trend for ASD participants to behave in a more prosocial way than neurotypical participants in the impunity game (p = 0.08, d = 0.60), which was not the case in the no‐punishment condition of the distribution game (p = 0.35, r = 0.17). These results demonstrate the potential of simple economic games to capture reduced social orienting in ASD. The unexpected finding of more prosocial behavior in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder than in neurotypical controls adds to the complexity of previously published results. We recommend meta‐analytic efforts to determine average effect sizes across studies and elucidate the conditions for prosocial behavior in ASD to occur.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Using simple economic games to assess social orienting and prosocial behavior in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Hase

Haynes²,

Hasler

2023

Autism Research

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“…However, in experimental settings, several studies have found that preschool autistic children do show helping behaviors (5,6). In resource allocation tasks [e.g., Dictator Game (DG) and Ultimatum Game (UG)], autistic children showed a higher preference for equality than self-interest compared to TD children (7)(8)(9)(10); but they tended to accept unfair offers (7,10). Different measures might identify different situation of prosocial behaviors, resource allocation tasks such as DG is believed to be powerful to illuminate individuals' social interactions because it could examine the extent to which individuals attain their own goals while simultaneously displaying altruistic behavior toward unrelated individuals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathy, Theory of Mind, and Prosocial Behaviors in Autistic Children

et al. 2022

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Background:Previous research has suggested that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display fewer prosocial behaviors, and the role of empathy or Theory of Mind (ToM) in prosocial behaviors of autistic children remains unclear.MethodsData were obtained from an ongoing longitudinal study in Guangzhou, China. A total of 96 autistic children and 167 typically developing (TD) children were enrolled. Prosocial behaviors were assessed using a subscale of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire and Dictator Game (DG) paradigm with stickers as incentives. Empathic traits and ToM ability were measured using the children's Empathy Quotient and the Chinese version of ToM toolkit. Generalized linear models were used to assess the differences of prosocial behaviors and empathic traits, ToM ability between the two groups and the associations between empathic traits, ToM ability and prosocial behaviors in autistic children.ResultsCompared with TD children, autistic children exhibited worse ToM ability and performed less pro-socially in the DG paradigm, while there were no differences regarding empathic traits. In autistic children, empathic traits especially affective empathy, were positively associated with parent-reported prosocial behaviors [β = 0.17, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.07–0.27; β = 0.47, 95%CI: 0.33–0.60]. ToM ability was associated with DG paradigm (β = 1.03, 95%CI: 0.16–1.89).ConclusionAutistic children showed less pro-sociality and ToM ability than TD children. In autistic children, empathic trait was associated with parent-reported prosocial behaviors while their ToM ability was associated with prosocial behaviors in experimental condition. Our findings indicated that better ToM ability and empathic trait might promote prosocial behaviors in autistic children.

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“…These include, decreased loss-aversion and attraction effect on how subjective choices are evaluated (De Martino et al, 2008; Farmer et al, 2017), a tendency towards risk-seeking when the environment demands it (Gosling & Moutier, 2018) and how (little) alternative cues that usually elicit strong expectations (e.g. facial traits and emotions) impact decision-making in autism (Damiano et al, 2012; Hooper et al, 2019; Klapwijk et al, 2017). In these cases, the priors are default options that can be re-evaluated on the basis of changed circumstances or contexts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eleven papers (40.7% of all value-based studies) investigated how value-based decisions change when choice-options are presented with decision frames, e.g., distinct emphases or with a third choiceirrelevant option. These papers consistently found that framing effects were less pronounced in autistic than in comparison participants (De Martino et al, 2008;Farmer et al, 2017;Hooper et al, 2019;Klapwijk et al, 2017;Panasiti et al, 2016;Shah et al, 2016;Fujino et al, 2017;Fujino et al, 2019;Fujino et al, 2020;Bellamy et al, 2021). However, Fujino et al (2017) found, in an economic decision-making paradigm with ambiguous and risky contexts, that autistic participants were less sensitive to context change in the ambiguous condition, compared to comparison participants (with no differences in the risky condition, similar to Gosling et al, 2018).…”

Section: Framing Studiesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Decision-making in autism: A narrative review

Plas

Mason

Happé

2023

Autism

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Autistic people often have an atypical profile of abilities: while excelling in some structured paradigms, many report difficulties with making real-life decisions. To test whether decision-making in autism is different from in typically developing controls, we reviewed 104 studies that compared decision-making performance between autistic and comparison participants ( N = 2712 autistic and N = 3189 comparison participants) between 1998 and 2022. Our searches revealed four main decision-making paradigms that are widely used in the field of decision neuroscience: perceptual discrimination, reward learning, metacognition and value-based decision-making paradigm. Our synthesis highlights that perceptual processing and reward learning were similar between autistic and comparison participants, whereas value-based decision-making and metacognitive accuracy were often different between groups. Furthermore, decision-making differences were most pronounced when the autistic participant was explicitly probed to report on an internal belief, while implicit markers of the same decision (e.g. error-related response times) were usually not different. Our findings provide evidence in favour of a metacognitive explanation of decision-making atypicalities in autism. Lay summary Many autistic people report difficulties with real-life decision-making. However, when doing decision-making tests in laboratory experiments, autistic people often perform as well or better than non-autistic people. We review previously published studies on autistic people’s decision-making, across different types of tests, to understand what type of decision-making is more challenging. To do this, we searched four databases of research papers. We found 104 studies that tested, in total, 2712 autistic and 3189 comparison participants on different decision-making tasks. We found that there were four categories of decision-making tests that were used in these experiments: perceptual (e.g. deciding which image has the most dots); reward learning (e.g. learning which deck of cards gives the best reward); metacognition (e.g. knowing how well you perform or what you want); and value-based (e.g. making a decision based on a choice between two outcomes that differ in value to you). Overall, these studies suggest that autistic and comparison participants tend to perform similarly well at perceptual and reward-learning decisions. However, autistic participants tended to decide differently from comparison participants on metacognition and value-based paradigms. This suggests that autistic people might differ from typically developing controls in how they evaluate their own performance and in how they make decisions based on weighing up the subjective value of two different options. We suggest these reflect more general differences in metacognition, thinking about thinking, in autism.

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Differential Fairness Decisions and Brain Responses After Expressed Emotions of Others in Boys with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Cited by 11 publications

References 78 publications

Using simple economic games to assess social orienting and prosocial behavior in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Using simple economic games to assess social orienting and prosocial behavior in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Empathy, Theory of Mind, and Prosocial Behaviors in Autistic Children

Decision-making in autism: A narrative review

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