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Predictive Processing During Cue-Outcome Associative Learning in Autistic Children

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Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Predictive coding theories posit that autism is characterized by an over-adjustment to prediction errors, resulting in frequent updates of prior beliefs. Atypical weighting of prediction errors is generally considered to negatively impact the construction of stable models of the world, but may also yield beneficial effects. In a novel associative learning paradigm, we investigated whether unexpected events trigger faster learning updates in favour of subtle but fully predictive cues in autistic children compared to their non-autistic counterparts. We also explored the relationship between children’s language proficiency and their predictive performances.

Methods

Anticipatory fixations and explicit predictions were recorded during three associative learning tasks with deterministic or probabilistic contingencies. One of the probabilistic tasks was designed so that a fully predictive but subtle cue was overshadowed by a less predictive salient one.

Results

Both autistic and non-autistic children based their learning on the salient cue, and, contrary to our predictions, showed no signs of updating in favour of the subtle cue. While both groups demonstrated associative learning, autistic children made less accurate explicit predictions than their non-autistic peers in all tasks. Explicit prediction performances were positively correlated with language proficiency in non-autistic children, but no such correlation was observed in autistic children.

Conclusion

These results suggest no over-adjustment to prediction errors in autistic children and highlight the need to control for general performance in cue-outcome associative learning in predictive processing studies. Further research is needed to explore the nature of the relationship between predictive processing and language development in autism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. | F.R.S.-FNRS - Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique Fondation d’utilité publique, Rue d’Egmont 5, Brussels, B-1000, Belgium

    Fanny Papastamou, Charlotte Dumont & Mikhail Kissine

  2. CRCN, Université libre de Bruxelles, 50 avenue F.D. Roosevelt, Brussels, CP 175, 1050, Belgium

    Fanny Papastamou, Charlotte Dumont & Arnaud Destrebecqz

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  1. Fanny Papastamou
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All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. This study involved human participants and was approved by the Erasme-ULB Hospital-Faculty Ethics Committee (register number CCB: B4062022000135). Written consent was obtained from all participants and their parents.

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Papastamou, F., Dumont, C., Destrebecqz, A. et al. Predictive Processing During Cue-Outcome Associative Learning in Autistic Children. J Autism Dev Disord (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06448-6

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