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Levick, J, 2024. Investigating implicit learning in relation to clinical and sub-clinical autistic traits: evidence of intact learning in the social domain. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.
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Abstract
Implicit learning processes enable us to acquire language skills and social knowledge without conscious awareness or an intention to learn. Because Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is partly characterised by social communication impairments, it has been suggested that a reduced capacity for implicit learning may underlie these deficits. The majority of studies on this topic have provided little support for this suggestion. However, a handful of studies did demonstrate a link between autistic traits and reduced non-conscious learning, particularly when the learning included a social component. The experiments presented in this thesis were designed to further investigate the hypothesised relationship between autistic traits and implicit learning.
An initial study investigated implicit statistical learning in young lower-functioning autistic children, a group largely overlooked by previous research. This school-based research was, however, interrupted at a critical stage by COVID-19-related school closures in the UK. Research then re-focussed on implicit social learning in adults, and how it relates to dimensional autistic traits. Based on methods developed by Hudson et al. (2012) and Macinska (2019), the four remaining studies in this thesis utilised a social learning phase in which pro- and anti-social characters conveyed their dispositions to participants via dynamic combinations of gaze directions and facial expressions. Unlike the aforementioned studies, no evidence was found that autistic traits (or ASD diagnoses) related to a reduced ability to learn social information implicitly. Instead, when participants were required to attend closely to the characters’ eyes (an important source of ‘mental state’ information in the learning-phase stimuli), higher autistic traits were associated with superior social learning from the undetected facial cues. Evidence from this thesis therefore suggests that implicit learning remains intact in those with elevated autistic traits. However, attentional factors, including the autism-related propensity to divert attention from others’ eyes, may moderate implicit learning from social cues.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Levick, J. |
| Contributors: | Name Role NTU ID ORCID |
| Date: | July 2024 |
| Rights: | The copyright in this work is held by the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed to the author. |
| Divisions: | Schools > School of Social Sciences |
| Record created by: | Laura Borcherds |
| Date Added: | 24 Jun 2025 13:01 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2025 13:01 |
| URI: | https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53789 |
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