Spontaneous instrumental approach-avoidance learning in social contexts in autism

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Developmental Science

Background:

• Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) is marked by social interaction atypicalities.
• Social motivation theory suggests difficulties arise from altered processing of social rewards.
• Learning from socioemotional outcomes is central but understudied in ASC.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess spontaneous learning of socioemotional outcomes in individuals with and without ASC.
• To investigate the influence of autistic traits, anxiety, and depression on social learning.
• To test the social motivation theory's prediction of impaired social learning in ASC.

Main Methods:

• An implicit online social reinforcement learning task was administered to large cohorts with (n=274) and without (n=290) ASC.
• Participants chose seating associated with probabilities of encountering emotional individuals.
• Categorical and dimensional analyses were applied to group and individual trait data.

Main Results:

• Spontaneous learning from socioemotional outcomes occurred in both ASC and typically developing (TD) groups.
• Among females without explicit strategies, autism severity correlated with reduced approach learning towards happy individuals.
• Anxiety-depression severity correlated with reduced learning to approach happy and avoid angry individuals across groups.

Conclusions:

• Implicit social learning is generally not impaired in ASC.
• Social learning impairments may be linked to autism severity in females with ASC, particularly without explicit strategies.
• Clinical approaches should consider individual complexities, including comorbid anxiety and depression, for social atypicalities in autism.