Evidence accumulation during self-referential social processing captures social functioning and psychopathology dimensions in a transdiagnostic sample

Abstract

Abstract Background Psychosis, social anxiety, and autism are clinical constructs that share important phenotypic features, particularly social dysfunction. A critical determinant of social functioning is an individual’s ability to recognize when social cues, such as eye gaze, are meant for them. Emerging computational modeling data in psychosis suggest that altered gaze perception stems from deficits in evidence accumulation – the process of gathering and integrating information – when processing social cues. We investigated whether aberrant evidence accumulation during gaze perception is associated with social functioning or, as a secondary aim, with psychopathology in a transdiagnostic sample with varying levels of psychotic, socially anxious, or autistic characteristics. Methods We examined gaze perception in 111 individuals (aged 14–30) with varying levels of social dysfunction, psychosis proneness, social anxiety, and autistic traits. Drift diffusion models (DDM) characterized key processes driving perceptual judgements in a self-referential gaze perception task, including the efficiency of evidence accumulation. We tested whether evidence accumulation was associated with social functioning, social cognition, and these different psychopathology dimensions. Results Impaired evidence accumulation during gaze perception showed strong associations with impaired social cognition and modest associations with diminished social functioning and elevated psychosis and social anxiety symptoms. Evidence accumulation was not associated with autism traits. Conclusions Evidence accumulation for social cues relates to social cognition – a key determinant of social functioning. It may also be relevant to real-world social functioning and multiple psychopathology dimensions, including psychosis and social anxiety. Therefore, evidence accumulation should be investigated as a mechanism supporting social difficulties and related psychopathology.