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Vicarious Effort-Based Decision-Making in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

This study investigated vicarious effort-based decision-making in 50 adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) compared to 32 controls using the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task. Participants made choices to win money for themselves or for another person. When choosing for themselves, the ASD group exhibited relatively similar patterns of effort-based decision-making across reward parameters. However, when choosing for another person, the ASD group demonstrated relatively decreased sensitivity to reward magnitude, particularly in the high magnitude condition. Finally, patterns of responding in the ASD group were related to individual differences in consummatory pleasure capacity. These findings indicate atypical vicarious effort-based decision-making in ASD and more broadly add to the growing body of literature addressing social reward processing deficits in ASD.

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Funding

This research was funded by National Institutes of Health grants (grant numbers MH081285, MH073402, HD079124, R00MH102355, and R01MH108605), and UNC-Chapel Hill (the Diller-Gilligan Summer Research Fellowship).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, USA

    Maya G. Mosner, Sean McWeeny, Jasmine S. Shah, Nathan D. Markiewitz, Rachel K. Greene & Gabriel S. Dichter

  2. Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, 27510, USA

    Jessica L. Kinard & Gabriel S. Dichter

  3. Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27705, USA

    Cara R. Damiano-Goodwin

  4. Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-8185, USA

    Margaret R. Burchinal

  5. Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA

    Helena J. V. Rutherford

  6. Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Michael T. Treadway

  7. Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, USA

    Gabriel S. Dichter

Authors
  1. Maya G. Mosner
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  2. Jessica L. Kinard
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  3. Sean McWeeny
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  4. Jasmine S. Shah
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  5. Nathan D. Markiewitz
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  6. Cara R. Damiano-Goodwin
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  7. Margaret R. Burchinal
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  8. Helena J. V. Rutherford
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  9. Rachel K. Greene
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  10. Michael T. Treadway
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  11. Gabriel S. Dichter
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Contributions

MM and GD conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, participated in data collection, conducted statistical analyses, and jointly drafted the manuscript. MT conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and jointly drafted the manuscript. CD and HR participated in its design and coordination and jointly drafted the manuscript. JK, SM, JS, and RG participated in data collection. NDM and MB consulted on statistical analyses.

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Correspondence to Maya G. Mosner.

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Conflict of interest

MTT has consulted for the Boston Consulting Group, Avanir Pharmaceuticals and NeuroCogTrials. No funding or sponsorship was provided by these companies for the current work, and all views expressed herein are solely those of authors. The other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Mosner, M.G., Kinard, J.L., McWeeny, S. et al. Vicarious Effort-Based Decision-Making in Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 47, 2992–3006 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3220-3

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