Learning in the face of failure: The benefit of autistic traits

This study aims to explore how learning performance differs for non-diagnosed adults with high and low levels of autistic traits (ATs) for positive versus negative feedback delivered via social and nonsocial stimuli. College student participants were tested on their ability to learn novel words (i.e., Korean characters) in a simple memory experiment incorporating either positive or negative feedback. A 2 (positive feedback vs. negative feedback) × 2 (ATs: high vs. Low) between-subject design was adopted in both Experiments 1 and 2. Social feedback stimuli were used in Experiment 1 and nonsocial feedback stimuli were used in Experiment 2. The results revealed that individuals with both high and low levels of ATs showed learning for both types of feedback (success and failure) using social and nonsocial stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). However, individuals with low levels of ATs learned less from failure than from success, whereas individuals with high levels of ATs showed equivalent learning for failure and success, for both social and nonsocial stimuli. These results suggest that for college students, a benefit of having high levels of ATs is increased resilience and an ability to continue to learn in the face of failure.