Social priors and mentalizing connectivity across autistic and schizotypal traits.

Researchers studied how people with autistic or psychosis-like traits interpret social situations differently. They showed participants animated triangles and asked them to decide if the triangles were interacting socially. People with more autistic traits were less likely to see social interaction even with clear hints, while people with psychosis-like traits saw social interaction even without hints. Both groups showed similar changes in brain connectivity patterns during the task.

This neuroimaging study examined how autistic and schizotypal traits influence social perception using an Animated Triangles Task in 116 non-clinical adults across two studies. Participants viewed animated triangles with varying levels of social cues while researchers measured behavioral responses and brain activation patterns. Results showed that individuals with higher positive schizotypal traits made more social attributions without cues, while those with higher autistic traits showed reduced social interpretations despite strong cues. Both trait dimensions were associated with reduced connectivity in brain networks involved in understanding others' thoughts (mentalizing networks).

The findings suggest different behavioral patterns but potentially similar underlying neural mechanisms across the autism-psychosis trait continuum.

Findings suggest autistic individuals may under-interpret social cues while those with schizotypal traits may over-interpret them, despite similar underlying brain connectivity patterns. This could inform targeted interventions for social cognition difficulties, though replication with clinical populations and larger samples is needed before clinical application.

Small sample sizes (71 and 45 participants), uncorrected statistical analyses, non-clinical population only, preliminary findings requiring validation with larger samples and adjusted statistical methods. Authors explicitly note need for further validation.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) both involve social-cognitive difficulties but may rely on opposite predictive mechanisms. Predictive-coding and diametrical accounts propose weak priors in ASD versus strong priors in SSD. We tested whether autistic and positive schizotypal traits differentially shape the use of social priors when interpreting ambiguous social cues. Two studies with non-clinical adults employed an adapted Animated Triangles Task (ATT) with three cueing conditions: Random-Uncued, Random-Cued, and ToM-Cued.

Study 1 (n = 71) assessed behavior; Study 2 (n = 45) combined behavioral data with task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), including region-of-interest (ROI) and psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and cerebellar Crus II. Social-attribution ratings increased across conditions, confirming the cueing manipulation. At the uncorrected level, higher positive schizotypal traits were associated with greater social attribution without cues, whereas higher autistic traits were associated with lower intention ratings despite strong cues. ToM-Cued trials activated the mentalizing network.

Both trait dimensions showed exploratory associations with reduced mentalizing-network connectivity. These preliminary findings suggest potentially shared neural patterns coupled with divergent behavioral responses across the autism-psychosis trait continuum, pending further validation with larger sample sizes and adjusted statistical analyses.