Interpreting the world around us requires integrating incoming sensory signals with prior information. Autistic individuals have been proposed to rely less on prior information and make more cautious responses than non-autistic individuals. Here we investigated whether these purported features of autistic perception vary as a function of autistic-like traits in the general population. We used a diffusion model framework, whereby decisions are modelled as noisy evidence accumulation processes towards one of two bounds. Within this framework, prior information can bias the starting point of the evidence accumulation process. Our pre-registered hypotheses were that higher autistic-like traits would relate to reduced starting point bias caused by prior information and increased response caution (wider boundary separation). 222 participants discriminated the direction of coherent motion stimuli as quickly and accurately as possible. Stimuli were preceded with a neutral cue (square) or a directional cue (arrow). 80% of the directional cues validly predicted the upcoming motion direction. We modelled accuracy and response time data using a hierarchical Bayesian model in which starting point varied with cue condition. We found no evidence for our hypotheses, with starting point bias and response caution seemingly unrelated to AQ scores. Alongside future research applying this paradigm to autistic individuals, our findings will help refine theories regarding the role of prior information and altered decision-making strategies in autistic perception. Our study also has implications for models of bias in perceptual decision-making, as the most plausible model was one that incorporated bias in both decision-making and sensory processing.

解释我们周围的世界需要将传入的感官信号与先验信息相结合。与非自闭症个体相比，自闭症个体被提议更少依赖先验信息并做出更谨慎的反应。在这里，我们调查了这些所谓的自闭症感知特征是否随着一般人群中自闭症样特征的变化而变化。我们使用了一个扩散模型框架，其中决策被建模为朝着两个界限之一的嘈杂证据积累过程。在这个框架内，先验信息可能会影响证据积累过程的起点。我们预先注册的假设是，更高的自闭症样特征将与减少由先验信息引起的起点偏差和增加反应谨慎性（更广泛的边界分离）有关。222 名参与者尽可能快速准确地判别连贯运动刺激的方向。刺激之前有中性提示（正方形）或方向提示（箭头）。80% 的方向线索有效地预测了即将到来的运动方向。我们使用分层贝叶斯模型对准确性和响应时间数据进行建模，其中起点随提示条件而变化。我们没有发现任何证据支持我们的假设，起点偏差和反应谨慎似乎与 AQ 分数无关。除了将这种范式应用于自闭症个体的未来研究之外，我们的发现将有助于完善关于先验信息和改变决策策略在自闭症感知中的作用的理论。我们的研究也对知觉决策中的偏见模型有影响，