Social and delay discounting in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Current literature is divided over whether and how processes such as perspective taking and reward sensitivity differ between individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) versus neurotypical individuals. Discounting tasks may provide novel insight into how these processes operate. In delay discounting tasks, participants choose between smaller immediate rewards and larger delayed rewards, and in social discounting tasks, participants choose between a smaller monetary rewards for themselves versus a larger reward for partners of varied social distance (e.g., a close friend vs. an acquaintance). Delay and social discounting tasks thus implicitly measure the subjective value of rewards given to one's future self and to others, capturing constructs such as perspective taking, reward processing, and social closeness, all of which have been discussed as core cognitive mechanisms underlying ASD. Despite extensive research on discounting in other clinical populations, few studies have examined delay discounting in ASD and no research has examined social discounting in ASD. The goal of the current study was to assess delay and social discounting for monetary rewards in a single sample of adolescents and adults with ASD compared to a matched neurotypical sample. Overall, adults and adolescents with ASD valued both future rewards and rewards given to others less than their typical counterparts did, but rates of discounting were not significantly correlated across temporal and social domains. These results extend an important behavioral paradigm for understanding both perspective taking and reward processing to autism.Lay Summary: Discounting tasks-which experimentally measure the subjective value of different rewards-have been used with a variety of clinical populations, but are underexplored in ASD. We found that compared to neurotypical individuals, individuals with ASD showed diminished subjective value for future rewards (compared to immediate rewards) and rewards for others (compared to rewards for self). This finding has implications for understanding perspective taking, reward processing, and social closeness in ASD.

Autistic adults show enhanced generosity to socially distant others

“…Our findings support the results from two previous studies showing that autistic participants are less influenced by social distance manipulations (Tei et al, 2019;Warnell et al, 2019). Our data support Tei et al's (2019) findings showing increased generosity to socially distant others in autism but are not consistent with Warnell et al's (2019) findings who found reduced generosity to closer others in autism. As in Tei et al (2019), we only investigated adults and had six social distances including a stranger condition.…”

“…To date, two studies have investigated social discounting in autism and have reported divergent results. Warnell et al (2019) found reduced generosity towards closer others in autistic adolescents and young adults compared to a matched non-autistic group, but no differences in generosity toward more socially distant people. In a different study, Tei et al (2019) reported greater generosity to more socially distant others in autistic adults: autistic participants made more consistent prosocial decisions regardless of the closeness of the potential recipient.…”

“…Thus, our primary goal was to resolve the controversy concerning social discounting in autism and to understand whether any differences are related to the social and/or non-social aspects of autism. For example, are differences in social discounting in autism related to less behavioural flexibility (Tei et al, 2019) or an altered sensitivity to social information (Warnell et al, 2019)?…”

“…By comparing a sample of autistic and neurotypical participants, we strived to resolve the controversy concerning social discounting in autism given previous conflicting results: reduced generosity to close others (Warnell et al, 2019) vs. greater generosity to distant others (Tei et al, 2019). We also aimed to determine which social and non-social aspects of autism best accounted for the potential differences in social discounting by using the Autism Quotient (AQ; Baron-Cohen et al, 2001), a 50-item questionnaire which captures both the social and non-social aspects of autism across five subscales: Social (e.g.…”

Contagion of Temporal Discounting Value Preferences in Neurotypical and Autistic Adults

“…Research into discounting in ASC is mixed. Some studies suggest that TD follows the same pattern as in NT individuals (Antrop et al, 2006 ; Demurie et al, 2012 ; Warnell et al, 2019 ), whereas others have found that autistic individuals discount future rewards more steeply than NT controls (i.e., are more impatient; Carlisi et al, 2017 ; Chantiluke et al, 2014 ). To account for individual differences in contagion, the value preferences of the other agents in this study vary in line with the participant’s own preferences.…”