Atypical integration of temporal evidence and priors in causality judgment along the autism-schizotypy continuum

Perceptual inference arises from integrating sensory evidence with prior knowledge. Causality perception-deciding whether one event causes another-offers a window into this process. We examined how prior experience and individual differences shape causal inference in 150 neurotypical individuals spanning the autism-schizotypy (ASD-SSD) spectrum. Participants judged causality in dynamic collision events with varying temporal delays. Causality judgments were influenced by physical timing (sensory driven) and serial dependence on previous decisions (prior driven). SSD-like individuals showed the strongest serial dependence and ASD-like individuals the weakest. Hierarchical drift diffusion modeling revealed increased causality bias and lower decision thresholds in SSD-like individuals, reflecting a prior-dominated style. ASD-like individuals showed reduced perceptual-history influence and higher thresholds, indicating a sensory-driven approach. Crucially, prior biases and perceptual history were interrelated, suggesting a hierarchical organization of perceptual inference across timescales and linking causality perception to predictive processes shaped by distinct cognitive-perceptual profiles.