CHEATER DETECTION IS PRESERVED IN AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS

The human mind is designed to function in coordination with the social and non-social environment in which our species evolved. A specialized cheater detection mechanism allows humans to be one of a very few species who engage in delayed reciprocal altruism. This mechanism is designed to be vigilant for cheaters, but to allow for honest mistakes, since incorrectly excluding a social exchange partner would be costly. People with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are widely believed to be unable to appreciate others intentions or to use intentions in their calculations, making it likely that those with ASD would not show a difference in cheater detection based on intentionality. We tested this prediction using Wason Selection Tasks (WST) that either described an act of cheating as intentional, or described a failure to fulfill a social exchange that was an honest mistake. For both those with ASD and for the control group, the honest mistake greatly depressed performance on the WST. Either those with ASD can detect intentionality only if it is relevant to cheater detection, or past research has failed to measure the preserved intentionality detection of those with ASD.