Curiosity-driven exploration study Credit Francesco Poli & Maran Koolen (created using Pixabay and DALL-E, CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A new study published this week in PLOS Computational Biology, led by Francesco Poli from Radboud University in the Netherlands, found that individuals with more vital autistic traits demonstrated unique exploration patterns and increased persistence while playing a computer game. As a result, they performed better than those with lower levels of autistic traits.

Scientists understand that individuals exhibit curiosity and explore their surroundings to gain knowledge. The choices a person makes regarding what to explore significantly impact their learning. Research has demonstrated that the levels of exploration vary greatly among individuals.

In a recent study, researchers tested 77 university students using a curiosity-driven exploration task. In this task, participants needed to learn the hiding patterns of multiple characters to predict their locations. The participants’ levels of autistic traits were assessed through both self-reported questionnaires and those reported by their parents regarding social behaviour.

People with lower scores of general autistic traits were less persistent and sought learning opportunities by engaging with characters more in the early stages of exploration. People with higher scores of autistic traits were more persistent and explored for longer times, even when learning was not easy. This meant that they performed better on this task.