Autistic traits, but not schizotypy, predict increased weighting of sensory information in Bayesian visual integration

Povilas Karvelis, Aaron R. Seitz, Stephen Lawrie, Peggy Series

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Recent theories propose that schizophrenia/schizotypy and autistic spectrum disorder are related to impairments in Bayesian inference i.e. how the brain integrates sensory information (likelihoods) with prior knowledge. However existing accounts fail to clarify: i) how proposed theories differ in accounts of ASD vs. schizophrenia and ii) whether the impairments result from weaker priors or enhanced likelihoods. Here, we directly address these issues by characterizing how 91 healthy participants, scored for autistic and schizotypal traits, implicitly learned and combined priors with sensory information. This was accomplished through a visual statistical learning paradigm designed to quantitatively assess variations in individuals' likelihoods and priors. The acquisition of the priors was found to be intact along both traits spectra. However, autistic traits were associated with more veridical perception and weaker influence of expectations. Bayesian modeling revealed that this was due, not to weaker prior expectations, but to more precise sensory representations.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages44
JournaleLIFE
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 May 2018

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • computational psychiatry
  • autism
  • schizophrenia

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