'You're Wrong' Has Less Impact On Autistic Brains, New Study Finds

A new study has found that the brains of autistic people respond less strongly to being told they have made a mistake. This difference may help explain why some autistic individuals find it difficult to adjust their behaviour when situations change.

The research, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, was carried out by scientists from Nottingham Trent University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Researchers discovered that autistic adults showed weaker brain responses to negative feedback compared with people without autism. They were also less influenced by how confident they felt about their decisions.

To understand these differences, scientists recorded brain activity while participants completed tasks involving the identification of sounds. They examined how people responded when told their answers were incorrect and whether this feedback affected their next decisions.

The results showed that people without autism had stronger brain responses when they received negative feedback. Their decisions were also influenced by how easy or difficult a task was and how confident they felt about their answers.

In contrast, autistic participants showed weaker brain responses to negative feedback. They were also less likely to change their decision-making behaviour based on their confidence levels.

The study also found that people without autism were more likely to let previous successful attempts influence their next choices, especially when they had completed an easy task correctly.

However, autistic participants were less influenced by earlier successful attempts, suggesting that they process and use feedback differently.

Researchers believe these differences in how the brain responds to mistakes and confidence may help explain why some autistic people struggle to adapt quickly to changing situations.

The findings offer new insights into how autistic individuals process information and make decisions. They also highlight that autistic and non-autistic people may use different strategies when learning from feedback.