Autistic adults exhibit a typical search advantage for facing dyads

Vestner, T., Gehdu, B. K., Gray, K. L.H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6071-4588 and Cook, R. (2024) Autistic adults exhibit a typical search advantage for facing dyads. Autism Research, 17 (12). pp. 2572-2578. ISSN 1939-3806 doi: 10.1002/aur.3265

Abstract/Summary

Recent findings obtained with non-autistic participants indicate that pairs of facing individuals (face-to-face dyadic targets) are found faster than pairs of non-facing individuals (back-to-back dyadic targets) when hidden amongst distractor pairings (e.g., pairs of individuals arranged face-to-back) in visual search displays. These results suggest that facing dyads may compete for observers’ attention more effectively than non-facing dyads. In principle, such an advantage might aid the detection of social interactions and facilitate social learning. Autistic individuals are known to exhibit differences in visual processing that impede their perception of other individuals. At present, however, little is known about multi-actor visual processing in autism. Here, we sought to determine whether autistic individuals show a typical search advantage for facing dyads. In an online study, autistic and non-autistic participants were tasked with finding target dyads (pairs of faces arranged face-to-face or back-to-back) embedded amongst distractor dyads (pairs of faces arranged face-to-back). Relative to the non-autistic controls, the autistic participants took slightly longer to locate target dyads. However, a clear and comparable search advantage for facing dyads was seen in both participant groups. This preliminary evidence suggests that multi-actor processing of autistic participants exhibits typical sensitivity to dyadic arrangement.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/119633
Identification Number/DOI	10.1002/aur.3265
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Perception and Action
Publisher	John Wiley
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