Agency and reward across development and in autism: A free-choice paradigm.

ABSTRACT: Our ability to perform voluntary actions and make choices is shaped by the motivation from control over the resulting effects (agency) and from positive outcomes (reward). The underlying action-outcome binding mechanisms rely on sensorimotor abilities that specialise through child development and undergo different trajectories in autism. The study aimed at disentangling the role of agency and reward in driving action selection of autistic and non-autistic children and adults, who were asked to freely select one of three candies and feed the animals appearing on a tablet. The candies were associated with different probabilities of delivering a neutral vs no effect (agency task), or a positive vs neutral effect (reward task). Choices and reaction times (RT) were measured to understand whethe

SUBMITTER: Valori I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10096291 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature