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Kristine Krug and her team have shown how neurotypical and autistic children develop different susceptibility to social influence.

The Krug Group has published a major new paper in PNS this week that aims to shed light on how social influence biases even the most simple perceptual decisions. The development and mechanism of these biases have so far been unclear.

In their research, the team systematically examined the developmental course of social influence bias exerted by another person on perceptual decisions in children between 6 and 14 years old. 

They have found that "neurotypical children begin to integrate opinions of another person in early adolescence systematically into their decision-making, such that it biases their decisions (like for adults). This bias is likely to be through changes in visual processing and perception. Autistic children do not develop this systematic bias with social influence. Because of this, they make more accurate judgements in our task." - A/Prof Kristine Krug.

The full paper, "Developmental trajectory of social influence integration into perceptual decisions in children," is available to read in PNAS.