Enhanced rationality in autism spectrum disorder

Liron Rozenkrantz; Anila M. D'Mello; John D.E. Gabrieli

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2021.05.004

Enhanced rationality in autism spectrum disorder

Liron Rozenkrantz, Anila M. D'Mello, John D.E. Gabrieli

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

Challenges in social cognition and communication are core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but in some domains, individuals with ASD may display typical abilities and even outperform their neurotypical counterparts. These enhanced abilities are notable in the domains of reasoning, judgment and decision-making, in which individuals with ASD often show ‘enhanced rationality’ by exhibiting more rational and bias-free decision-making than do neurotypical individuals. We review evidence for enhanced rationality in ASD, how it relates to theoretical frameworks of information processing in ASD, its implications for basic research about human irrationality, and what it may mean for the ASD community.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	685-696
Number of pages	12
Journal	Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Volume	25
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.05.004
State	Published - Aug 2021
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Funding

L.R. is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from The Simons Center for the Social Brain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A.M.D. is supported by a National Institute of Mental Health F32 grant (MH117933). The authors are thankful for the support of the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. The authors thank Cindy E. Li and Lindsay Bungert for their helpful feedback on this manuscript. The authors have no interests to declare. L.R. is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from The Simons Center for the Social Brain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . A.M.D. is supported by a National Institute of Mental Health F32 grant ( MH117933 ). The authors are thankful for the support of the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. The authors thank Cindy E. Li and Lindsay Bungert for their helpful feedback on this manuscript.

Funders	Funder number
McGovern Institute for Brain Research
Simons Center for the Social Brain
National Institute of Mental Health	MH117933
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Keywords

autism
decision-making
rationality
skills

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10.1016/j.tics.2021.05.004

Cite this

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Enhanced rationality in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

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Keywords

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