New research examines the decision-making abilities of adults with autism spectrum disorder, suggesting that they may be better at making rational decisions than adults without the condition.

Share on Pinterest New research provides insights into “autistic cognition.”

The new study – which is published in the journal Psychological Science – was co-authored by psychology researchers George D. Farmer, Simon Baron-Cohen, and William J. Skylark, who are all of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects approximately 1 in 68 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The number of adults living with ASD is not known with certainty, but some studies have estimated that more than 1 million U.S. individuals over the age of 18 have the disorder.

As the authors of the new research explain, people with ASD generally seem to be less sensitive to “contextual stimuli,” as has been shown by various cognitive and perceptual tasks.

This means that they tend to be better at isolating information and judging it independently of its context. For instance, some studies have shown that people with ASD are better at identifying figures embedded in intricate shapes, as their visual searching abilities are less influenced by distractors.

So, the researchers wanted to see whether the same attributes would apply to decision-making. Farmer explains the motivation for their research, saying, “People with autism are thought to focus more on detail and less on the bigger picture.”

He goes on to say that “this is often found in more perceptual studies, for instance by showing that people with autism are less susceptible to some visual illusions. We wanted to know if this tendency would apply to higher-level decision-making tasks.”