Insistence on sameness and intolerance of change are among the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but little research has addressed how people with ASD represent and respond to environmental change. Here, behavioral and pupillometric measurements indicated that adults with ASD are less surprised than neurotypical adults when their expectations are violated, and decreased surprise is predictive of greater symptom severity. A hierarchical Bayesian model of learning suggested that in ASD, a tendency to overlearn about volatility in the face of environmental change drives a corresponding reduction in learning about probabilistically aberrant events, thus putatively rendering these events less surprising. Participant-specific modeled estimates of surprise about environmental conditions were linked to pupil size in the ASD group, thus suggesting heightened noradrenergic responsivity in line with compromised neural gain. This study offers insights into the behavioral, algorithmic and physiological mechanisms underlying responses to environmental volatility in ASD.

中文翻译：

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患有自闭症的成年人高估了感官环境的波动性。

坚持相同和不容忍改变是自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的诊断标准之一，但很少有研究探讨ASD人群如何代表和应对环境变化。在这里，行为和瞳孔测量结果表明，与ASD成人相比，ASD成年人在受到其期望值侵犯时不会感到惊讶，而惊奇程度的降低可预示症状严重程度的增加。分级的贝叶斯学习模型表明，在ASD中，面对环境变化而过度了解波动的趋势会导致相应地减少对概率异常事件的学习，从而推定这些事件不会那么令人惊讶。特定于参与者的模拟模型估计的环境状况与ASD组的学生人数有关，因此，这暗示了与减少的神经增益相一致的增强的去甲肾上腺素能反应性。这项研究提供了对ASD环境波动性响应的行为，算法和生理机制的见解。