Autistic traits relate to reduced reward sensitivity in learning from social point-light displays (PLDs)

A number of studies have linked autistic traits to difficulties in learning from social (vs. non-social) stimuli. However, these stimuli are often difficult to match on low-level visual properties, which is especially important given the impact of autistic traits on sensory processing. Additionally, studies often fail to account for dissociable aspects of the learning process in the specification of model parameters (learning rates and reward sensitivity). Here, we investigate whether learning deficits in individuals with high autistic traits exhibit deficits when learning from facial point-light displays (PLDs) depicting emotional expressions. Social and non-social stimuli were created from random arrangements of the same number of point-lights and carefully matched on low-level visual properties. Neurotypical participants (N = 63) were assessed using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and completed a total of 96 trials in a reinforcement learning task. Although linear multilevel modeli..., Sample
The sample consisted of typically developing (TD) individuals, which were contacted via a participation recruitment platform of the University of Vienna. Participants were required to fulfill the following inclusion criteria: a) age between 18 and 65 years, b) heterosexual orientation, c) proficiency in English, d) no drug or alcohol addiction or regular drug use, e) no psychiatric or neurological condition. As the experiment was part of a larger project, some of the exclusion criteria are related to another task and not directly relevant for this study.
From the total of 74 recruited individuals, three participants were excluded due to missing data for AQ scores and five participants were dropped based on exclusion criteria. Three individuals were excluded from analyses because of missing data for the task, leading to a final sample of N = 63 participants for analysis. Participants received either a financial compensation of 10€ or 4 study credits.
Measures - AQ
To measure autis..., , # Autistic traits and reinforcement learning

## General

This repository contains data and scripts for the RSOS submission \"Autistic Traits relate to reduced Reward Sensitivity in Learning from Social Point-Light Displays (PLD’s)\". The data was collected to investigate the relationship between autistic traits and learning performance using point-light displays (PLDs) in a reinforcement learning task. Sixty-three participants categorized two-digit numbers while receiving probabilistic feedback. Social feedback was provided via PLDs depicting facial emotions (happiness or anger), while non-social feedback used PLDs forming checkmarks or crosses. Computational modeling (Rescorla-Wagner framework) was used to fit parameters such as learning rates and reward sensitivity to explore differences in social versus non-social learning and their associations with autistic traits, measured via the autism spectrum quotient (AQ). Results showed that higher autistic traits were associated with reduce...