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High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder

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The journal article Enhanced Decision Making and Risk Avoidance in High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (South et al., 2014) that is being reviewed is an experiment with High-Functioning autistic individuals and nerurotypical individuals inquiring if there is a difference in the behavior when making decisions if there is a risk involved. The researchers begin by explaining their supporting information in conducting this experiment. They reference previous written material that explains the impairments that individuals with Autism have in their neurocognitive processes, including the social and typical behaviors that occur during a normal day. The researchers’ hypothesis going into the experiment was that the due to the impairments …show more content…

The control group (CON) consisted of 56 neurotypicals in which 14 of them were females, whereas the ASD group only had 3 females. All participants were given the same IQ test in which the mean for the ASD group was ~110 and the CON group was ~114. There were seven participants though that had to be excluded from the experiment due to an error in the SCR data. The researchers used the IGT when conducting this experiment since it is a method to analyze a participants decision when provided rewards, punishments and confusion. The IGT was given to each participant using a computer. Prior to starting each participant read the instructions of the game, and proceeded to perform a trial game to become accustomed to the task. During the task decks are identified as A (overall loss), B (overall loss), C (overall gain), and D (overall gain). Decks A & B are identified as decks that have large and immediate gains but can be unpredictable. Then followed by a high loss and lead to loss at the end of the deck. Decks C & D have smaller immediate gains and losses, but at the end of the deck there is a gain. The researchers calculated the learning of the participants over a period of five blocks of 20 trials. They evaluated the overall performance as well as gain-stay and loss-shift strategies that each participant selected when they made a decision based off each deck. The SCR data

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