Rethinking the double empathy problem - Modeling how autistic and non-autistic groups learn about their own and each other’s preferences

BackgroundThe Double Empathy Problem proposes that social understanding and reciprocity difficulties in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) reflect broader, mutual mentalizing challenges between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals (Milton, 2012). We sought to characterize whether non-autistic and autistic individuals apply different types of social knowledge and learning strategies when inferring preferences of their own versus a different diagnostic group. Specifically, we tested whether these differences yield diminished accuracy when making inferences about respective outgroups – consistent with the hypothesized Double Empathy Problem.MethodsExperiment 1 characterized and compared food and activity self-preferences in large samples of non-autistic adults, non-autistic adolescents, and autistic adolescents. Aggregated group preference structures were tested as knowledge for learning. In Experiment 2, non-autistic adults learned about non-autistic and autistic adolescents, while Experiment 3 repeated this design in autistic adolescents. A computational modeling framework examined how groups integrated prior knowledge during learning.ResultsAutistic preferences showed more group-level variability. Non-autistic adults and autistic adolescents applied fine-grained knowledge about their respective diagnostic groups but showed reduced accuracy and efficiency when learning about autistic individuals. Autistic adolescents showed large variability in learning metrics. However, symptom severity, especially behavioral rigidity, scaled with greater prediction errors and lower starting expectations and learning rates.ConclusionsA unified social learning framework can be applied to both non-autistic and autistic individuals in which participants reference fine-grained social knowledge structures reflecting their own diagnostic groups as they learn. Both groups were less accurate and efficient when learning about autistic individuals, contradicting the Double Empathy Problem with respect to social learning