Turns out people with ASD are better at making decisions than NTs

[dragoncat16]

Autistic adults make better decisions without showing cognitive bias says study

People with autism disorder may show more consistent choices in high-level decision-making tasks and are less likely to show a cognitive bias because they are not influenced by the way choices are presented, showed a research. The findings indicate that individuals with autism are less susceptible to the effects of decoy options when evaluating and choosing the “best” product among several options relative to individuals without autism. “People with autism are indeed more consistent in their choices than the neurotypical population. From an economic perspective, this suggests that people with autism are more rational and less likely to be influenced by the way choices are presented,” said George Farmer, psychology researcher at the University of Cambridge. People with autism are thought to focus more on detail and less on the bigger picture. Thus, in the study, researchers wanted to know if this tendency would apply to higher-level decision-making tasks.

For the study, published in Psychological Science, the team recruited 90 adults with autism and 212 neurotypical adults to participate in an online decision-making study. The data revealed that, compared with neurotypical participants, participants with autism made more consistent choices and made fewer switches in their selections. The results showed that individuals with autism are less likely to show a cognitive bias that often affects their neurotypical peers. “These findings suggest that people with autism might be less susceptible to having their choices biased by the way information is presented to them — for instance via marketing tricks when choosing between consumer products,” Farmer said.

 

[mw2530]

Wow, a positive article about ASD. Seems to be positive at least. Never thought I'd see the day. Refreshing.

 

[Ylva]

And this is what they want to take away from us. From now on, if someone wants to remove ("cure") their child's autism, I will conclude that they only want them to make poorer decisions.

 

[Judge]

No surprise to me. An insurance company entrusted me with millions of dollars every day to make decisions which either made them money or lost them money as a matter of risk management. I also worked alongside a fellow underwriter for many years, and in hindsight I am certain he's on the spectrum too.

 

[dragoncat16]

It is well-known that certain geniuses in the past are thought to have been on the spectrum. In my field of physics, the two most important figures, the ones that most revolutionized human knowledge about how the universe works, are Newton and Einstein, and they are now both thought to have been on the spectrum. Also, Marie Curie, who made groundbreaking discoveries in radioactivity, is thought to have been on the spectrum. The psychiatrist who made my diagnosis told me that a quarter of the professors at Oxford are on the spectrum (he might have been exaggerating a bit about the numbers). I have also noticed that the people I have known that were the smartest and most likely to actually be at genius level (which is more common in my field of "rocket science" than in most other fields), have shown autistic traits.

People say that it is a disability (and, in fact, the only way to get an ASD diagnosis is if it negatively affects one's life in some way), but in my life, the only thing that has "disabled" me is the way I have been treated by others. Why can ASD not just be considered a characteristic such as skin colour? Of course, through the history of humanity, people with certain shades of skin have considered themselves superior to those with other shades of skin. Now, the victims of that type of prejudice are protected by law. I think that neurodiversity should be treated the same way. If living in a certain place on the neurodiversity spectrum is considered a "disability", then the ones without that "disability" will naturally believe themselves to be superior, and that will automatically spawn prejudice. Yes, I have trouble maintaining eye contact with another person, but there are lots of people who can't do advanced calculus or write a largely autonomous computer program, which are skills that I do possess. Others on the spectrum have equally unique and important skills, as do neurotypicals. The difference is that neurotypicals are usually allowed to develop and celebrate their aptitudes, whereas I and others on the spectrum are not allowed to live up to our potential because of prejudice, humiliation, poor treatment, lack of understanding, and the prevailing attitude that we and our feelings, ambitions, and skills are of less importance, and somehow less "human", just because we are different. That attitude can only be strengthened by claims of ASD being a disability.

The condition of autism is physically characterised by having denser brain matter and more connections in the brain than in the neurotypical brain, and doesn't that imply a potentially more capable system? After all, to make a computer more powerful, you put in a bigger processor and make more connections. You don't rip the connections out of it and expect it to perform well. Sometimes, that more "connected" brain configuration leads to problems such as sensory issues and other difficulties, but, given that the most notable geniuses in history were likely autistic themselves, it shows that it is potentially a step in the evolution of humanity. If one group is generally more intelligent and characteristically makes more logical decisions than another group, is the first group not more fit for survival in the long term? If neurotypicals continue to reject us and make us the outcasts of society, we'll band together and eventually form a whole new species.

 

[Nitro]

You don't earn a CEO title by making poor decisions but you still get to make them when you get to the top.

The downside to that is how deeply those decisions effect the bottom line when they cross the accountant's desk.

Self-preservation was the driving force behind where my path led me

 

[Ragnahawk]

Autistic adults make better decisions without showing cognitive bias says study

People with autism are thought to focus more on detail and less on the bigger picture.

Then I am an anomaly. I focus more on the bigger picture. INTP for short. (Yet I am an Aspy. Strange isn't it.)

 

[Butterfly88]

This is great, we need more positive articles like this.

 

[Katleya]

I've been saying for so long that I honestly didn't feel affected by cognitive bias, but nobody ever believes me, and they insist that "yes, we all are", when really, no, I'm not. So glad I came across your post! (and your further elaboration, too, if I could like it a million times, I would)

 

[dragoncat16]

I have been reading about congitive bias, specifically confirmation bias and selective perception, recently because of something that happened to me at work. I really didn't see myself identifying with that behaviour. I knew that others were prone to it, which is why I was looking it up in the first place. I thought that since I do not go through life with my whole perception clouded by such issues, it couldn't possibly be so bad for other people either. I guess it's a whole theory of mind thing.

I think the reason we're supposed to have trouble with theory of mind is because our perception, memory, and decision-making are more realistic, accurate, and logical, respectively, and it is very difficult for us to put ourselves in the shoes of people whose own brains cloud and distort everything they perceive based on what is good for their own ego. I have been thinking about why NTs lie, and why they sometimes even seem to believe the lies they tell. I think that it is possible that they aren't being intentionally dishonest, but they simply can't accept the truth and their whole perception and memory are altered, so they believe they are telling the truth even when they are lying.

Those of us on the spectrum, on the other hand, do perceive and remember things more accurately, and we see no logical point in trying to represent things as other than they are. Whereas NTs lie to themselves on a regular basis and are therefore their minds and interactions are always filled with untruths, inaccuracies, and distorted views of reality, we not only prefer the truth, but we require it, to provide us with an anchor to the world around us. We mistakenly assume that because we prefer the truth, everybody else does too, but it turns out that NTs regularly lie to each other, in their words, in their actions, and in what they avoid saying, and they rely on reading facial expressions and body language to grasp some kind of subconscious version of that anchor to the world that we like to have foremost in our own conscious minds.

The reason that we are generally not good at "reading people" is that if everyone were like us, we would not need to do that in order to get by in society. We start out as children with our particular style of looking at the world around us. We naturally assume that everyone else sees and interacts with the world as we do, so we don't develop the skills we would need to be able to read people who have a different way of seeing and interacting with the world. Those skills would naturally develop at an early age, probably at the same time we are learning other language skills (ages 2-7 or so, when kids can pick up new languages very quickly and easily). Most of us who are "high-functioning" would probably not be diagnosed until later than that (maybe the situation is different now, but I think it is still diagnostically very tricky to distinguish having a place on the spectrum from a number of other issues, or just general misbehaviour), so we have already missed out on getting support with developing such skills.

I don't know how they would teach such skills anyway. Would someone explain to a 5-year-old on the spectrum that his or her NT friends have a distorted view of reality and are therefore prone to dishonesty in many forms, and then go on to try to teach that child to learn how to read these people in order to make it through life, just because there are more of them in the world? If it's an NT person trying to educate the child, then what the child would be told is that the way the child him/herself views the world is wrong and he/she has to get in line with everyone else, even though that child is actually superior at decision-making to his or her peers.

I think that if I had been told as a kid that there was something wrong with me, it is possible that I wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything at school or in life. Perhaps early diagnosis isn't so good if that ASD label with all its negative connotations are stuck to a kid for life. The only word that was used to describe my condition back then was "gifted", so I went with that. Maybe instead of the words "inflicted", "suffering", or anything else related to ASD should be replaced by "gifted". Yes, I like that. I am gifted with being on the autism spectrum. Even my 5-year-old self (who had already been skipped to the next level in school twice by then so was already in grade 2) would have been happy with that.

Fortunately, with regard to reading others, certain skills can be learned, even as an adult. I have done various online tests (e.g. Aspie tests and ARC Tests) involving looking at people's facial expressions and listening to their voices, and I scored above average, even though people on the specturm are supposed to score significantly lower than NTs. After all, I watch TV, and I can easily read an actor's expression and tell from their voice what they are supposed to be feeling, and the people who modelled for these tests are probably also actors. The real eye-opener was when I did a test in which photos of only the eye area are presented and the test-taker is supposed to identify the name of the emotion out of 4 possible choices. There are 36 photos. NTs have an average score of 27 and people on the spectrum have an average score of 21. I got 34 of them correct. While I was doing the test, I was thinking "this is so ridiculous. I have no idea about this," but I was getting them mostly right, even though I had no confidence in my performance.

I wish I could trust my instincts so well when I'm dealing with real actual people I'm interacting with and not just partial photos. I guess it would help if I looked at their eyes once in a while lol. I think the problem is that I can't help assuming by default that I'm dealing with logical beings and not the irrational, dishonest by nature, ego-driven, and self-deceiving creatures that many NTs are (and it has been scientifically proven that this is so).

 

[Haiku]

Thanks for reporting on this study. I'm quite interested in this topic myself, as I'm currently writing a grant for a study that is similar (it's ASD-positive and has to do with the social preferences of autistic people -- can't say much more than that!)

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

It is well-known that certain geniuses in the past are thought to have been on the spectrum. In my field of physics, the two most important figures, the ones that most revolutionized human knowledge about how the universe works, are Newton and Einstein, and they are now both thought to have been on the spectrum. Also, Marie Curie, who made groundbreaking discoveries in radioactivity, is thought to have been on the spectrum. The psychiatrist who made my diagnosis told me that a quarter of the professors at Oxford are on the spectrum (he might have been exaggerating a bit about the numbers). I have also noticed that the people I have known that were the smartest and most likely to actually be at genius level (which is more common in my field of "rocket science" than in most other fields), have shown autistic traits.

People say that it is a disability (and, in fact, the only way to get an ASD diagnosis is if it negatively affects one's life in some way), but in my life, the only thing that has "disabled" me is the way I have been treated by others. Why can ASD not just be considered a characteristic such as skin colour? Of course, through the history of humanity, people with certain shades of skin have considered themselves superior to those with other shades of skin. Now, the victims of that type of prejudice are protected by law. I think that neurodiversity should be treated the same way. If living in a certain place on the neurodiversity spectrum is considered a "disability", then the ones without that "disability" will naturally believe themselves to be superior, and that will automatically spawn prejudice. Yes, I have trouble maintaining eye contact with another person, but there are lots of people who can't do advanced calculus or write a largely autonomous computer program, which are skills that I do possess. Others on the spectrum have equally unique and important skills, as do neurotypicals. The difference is that neurotypicals are usually allowed to develop and celebrate their aptitudes, whereas I and others on the spectrum are not allowed to live up to our potential because of prejudice, humiliation, poor treatment, lack of understanding, and the prevailing attitude that we and our feelings, ambitions, and skills are of less importance, and somehow less "human", just because we are different. That attitude can only be strengthened by claims of ASD being a disability.

The condition of autism is physically characterised by having denser brain matter and more connections in the brain than in the neurotypical brain, and doesn't that imply a potentially more capable system? After all, to make a computer more powerful, you put in a bigger processor and make more connections. You don't rip the connections out of it and expect it to perform well. Sometimes, that more "connected" brain configuration leads to problems such as sensory issues and other difficulties, but, given that the most notable geniuses in history were likely autistic themselves, it shows that it is potentially a step in the evolution of humanity. If one group is generally more intelligent and characteristically makes more logical decisions than another group, is the first group not more fit for survival in the long term? If neurotypicals continue to reject us and make us the outcasts of society, we'll band together and eventually form a whole new species.

In terms of not being influenced..... Newton invested and lost all his money in a sfock market bubble (either tulips or the south sea bubble)
So you could say ne was certainly caught in the NT mania of the day.

 

[CBA83]

[QUOTE="
I wish I could trust my instincts so well when I'm dealing with real actual people I'm interacting with and not just partial photos. I guess it would help if I looked at their eyes once in a while lol. I think the problem is that I can't help assuming by default that I'm dealing with logical beings and not the irrational, dishonest by nature, ego-driven, and self-deceiving creatures that many NTs are (and it has been scientifically proven that this is so).[/QUOTE]


This I read and recieved great value from. Thanks - 10 points.