Are Social Deficits Content Dependent? Wason Selection Task Performance in ASD and Schizophrenia

Background:

The Wason Selection Task (WST) is a test of deductive reasoning based on the logical problem “if p then q”. Performance on the WST is demonstrably sensitive to the context in which the problem is presented, particularly, that respondents perform significantly better on the task if it is presented as a rule violation of a social contract, than when it is presented as a purely descriptive problem without a social-contract condition. An influential interpretation of the conditional nature of WST performance is that it reflects content-dependent cognitive processes sensitive to violations of social rules (a neo-Darwinian perspective proposing domain-specific modularity in social cognition).

Objectives:

WST performance has been assessed in individuals with frontal lesions and schizophrenia, but not in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Social deficits are prominent in both ASD and schizophrenia and the conditional sensitivity of WST performance makes it an ideal test of continuity, or lack thereof, of social cognitive performance in ASD, schizophrenia and typical development.

Methods:

Data gathering is proceeding in three groups: adult ASD participants with Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic Module 4 scores above the ASD cut of, participants with schizophrenia diagnoses, and typically-developing controls. Participants are responding to five WST social-contract, five precautionary, and five descriptive problems (precautionary tasks are similar in difficulty to social-contract tasks but are hypothesized to utilize different cognitive resources; descriptive tasks lack social contract or precautionary conditions). Each WST is presented on a computer screen as a four-card task with two yes/no respondent choices for each card. IQ is assessed using the full-scale WASI.

Results:

Preliminary results indicate that WST social-contract performance is relatively impaired in participants with ASD when compared to participants with schizophrenia and typical development, and that social-contract performance and General IQ are correlated in participants with ASD, but not in schizophrenia and typical development.

Conclusions:

We will interpret our results and discuss whether social cognition is content dependent and differently impaired in ASD relative to other mental disorders characterized by social deficits (that content-dependent cognitive processes sensitive to social-rule violations will be relatively impaired in ASD). We will discuss whether ASD participants are using other cognitive resources to solve the WST problems reflected in an apparent relationship between IQ and WST performance. In contrast to the patterns emerging in the ASD data, we will consider whether content-dependent cognitive processes sensitive to social-rule violations are intact in schizophrenia and typical development, and are independent of IQ.