Abstract
People with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often take longer to make decisions. The Autism-Psychosis Model proposes that people with autism and psychosis show the opposite pattern of results on cognitive tasks. As those with psychosis show a jump-to-conclusions reasoning bias, those with ASD should show a circumspect reasoning bias. Jumping-to-conclusions was assessed in a sample of 20 adolescents with ASD and 23 age-matched controls using the jumping-to-conclusions beads task. Both groups demonstrated equivalent levels of confidence in decision-making, however the ASD group required more beads than controls before making their decision. Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between the beads required and degree of autism symptoms. Consistent with the Autism-Psychosis Model, a more circumspect reasoning bias was evident in ASD.
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Notes
Originally Systemizing was scored 1 for an agree response and 2 for a strongly agree response and zero otherwise. Hoekstra et al. used a 0, 1, 2, 3 rating response scale. In the present study for the ASD and control participants, these two scoring frameworks were highly correlated (r(43) = 0.96, p<0.001) and we retained the scoring of Hoeekstra et al..
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Grant sponsor EPSRC; Grant number EP/G031975/1.
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Brosnan, M., Chapman, E. & Ashwin, C. Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder Show a Circumspect Reasoning Bias Rather than ‘Jumping-to-Conclusions’. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 513–520 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1897-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1897-5