Why autistic people may be less susceptible to marketing tricks

By Emma Young We know from past research that autistic people process the world differently at a perceptual level, including showing reduced sensitivity to context. One consequence is that they’re better than average at finding figures in complex shapes. But does this way of looking at the world also influence their higher-level decision-making? According to a new study in Psychological Science, it does: William Skylark and his University of Cambridge colleagues George Farmer and Simon Baron-Cohen found that people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) – as well as people in the general population with relatively high levels of autistic traits – make more “conventionally rational” decisions, which could influence everything from how they vote to what products they choose to buy. The team recruited 90 men and women who had been diagnosed with an ASC and 212 neurotypical controls and presented them with ten consecutive pairs of products, which differed in each case on two dimensions (for example, one USB stick (A) had relatively high capacity but low longevity, while the other (B) had low capacity but high longevity). Each pair was also accompanied by a third “decoy” product. In every case, the participants had to choose which product was “best”. Participants saw each product pair twice. On one occasion, it was accompanied by a decoy that was fractionally inferior compared with product A; on the other occasion, the decoy was fractionally inferior than produ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Autism Decision making Source Type: blogs