Autistic traits, but not schizotypy, predict increased weighting of sensory information in Bayesian visual integration
- University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- University of California, Riverside, United States
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.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source code has been included, which can be used to reproduce the results figures.
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Author details
Funding
NARSAD (Young investigator grant 19271)
- Peggy Seriès
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: All participants gave informed written consent and received monetary compensation for participation. The study was approved by the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics Ethics Panel.
Copyright
© 2018, Karvelis et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Autistic traits, but not schizotypy, predict increased weighting of sensory information in Bayesian visual integration
eLife 7:e34115.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34115
