Individual differences in autism-like traits are associated with reduced goal emulation in a computational model of observational learning.

ABSTRACT: One's ability to infer the goals and intentions of others is crucial for social interactions, and such social capabilities are broadly distributed across individuals. Autism-like traits (i.e., traits associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)) have been associated with reduced social inference, yet the underlying computational principles and social cognitive processes are not well characterized. Here we tackle this problem by investigating inference during social learning through computational modeling in two large cross-sectional samples of adult participants from the general population (N₁=943, N₂=352). Autism-like traits were extracted and isolated from other associated symptom dimensions through a factor analysis of the Social Responsiveness Scale. Participant

SUBMITTER: Wu Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11670734 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature