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One of the hallmarks of autism is a tendency to be somewhat emotionally detached. This is of course talked about as mostly a negative thing, but research published in the October 15 Journal of Neuroscience suggests there may be an upside.

People with autism make rational decisions, relying more on careful thought and analysis than on gut instinct, according to British researchers.

To prove their point, the researchers based their experiment on the ‘framing effect,’ which basically means that how someone responds to a statement depends on how it is framed: for example, most people would rather hear that there is an 80 percent chance of surviving than that there is a 20 percent chance of dying.

In their experiment, the researchers gave people $50 and then presented them with the same scenario, only worded differently.

In the first scenario, the ‘gain frame,’ participants were told they could either keep $20 or gamble, with a 40 percent chance of keeping the full $50 and a 60 percent chance of losing everything.

The second scenario, the ‘loss frame,’ was exactly the same, but this time the participants were told they could either lose $30 or gamble, with the same odds as above.

What happened? You guessed it. Control participants are more likely to gamble when they are told they could lose $30, rather than keep $20. Those with autism, in contrast, are less likely to be influenced by the framing effect, and more likely to make their decision rationally.

Of course, this same attention to detail is also the undoing of those with autism in social situations: to navigate complex social interactions, we rely on our gut instincts and emotions more than we realize.

As a possible explanation, the researchers point to their 2006 Science study, which linked the framing effect to the amygdala, a key component of the emotional system. There is some evidence that the activity of the amygdala is affected in people with autism.