Choice blindness in autistic and non-autistic people

Abstract

Choice blindness (failure to notice when our choices are switched unexpectedly) suggests people are often unaware of reasons underlying their intentions/preferences. Some argue, however, that research revealing choice blindness simply reflects social-demand characteristics in participant-experimenter interactions. To address this, we compared autistic adults (a population less susceptible to social demands), to non-autistic adults on a computer-based choice blindness task. Sixteen autistic and 21 non-autistic adults chose between faces, based on preference, and justified their choices. On one fifth of trials, participants were presented with the face they did not choose (manipulation). Finally, previously presented face pairs were re-presented to assess choice stability. Choice blindness was seen for both groups, at equivalent rates. Autistic participants showed less stability of their choices compared to non-autistic participants. Our findings suggest that social-demand characteristics do not influence choice blindness, and that—in this situation—introspective ability does not differ between autistic and non-autistic participants.