The effect of autistic traits on disembedding and mental rotation in neurotypical women and men
Authors
Conson, Massimiliano
Senese, Vincenzo Paolo
Zappullo, Isa
Baiano, Chiara
Warrier, Varun
Barone, Angelo
Cecere, Roberta
Cisone, Andrea
Cerrone, Roberta
Crocetto, Ylenia
Dell’Aversana, Lea
Curti, Alessia Delle
Fontana, Alessandro
Fusotto, Concetta
Mautone, Giusi
Montuori, Generosa
Positano, Monica
Raimo, Gennaro
Raiola, Annamaria
Russo, Maria
Sacco, Federica
Sarno, Maria
Sepe, Angela
Troise, Alessandro
Raimo, Simona
Rauso, Barbara
Salzano, Sara
Publication Date
2022-12Journal Title
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
12
Issue
1
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Conson, M., Senese, V. P., Zappullo, I., Baiano, C., Warrier, V., Barone, A., Cecere, R., et al. (2022). The effect of autistic traits on disembedding and mental rotation in neurotypical women and men. Scientific Reports, 12 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08497-2
Description
Funder: Autism Research Trust
Funder: Templeton World Charitable Fund
Funder: NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100018956
Funder: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research
Funder: Care East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Recent data has revealed dissociations between social and non-social skills in both autistic and neurotypical populations. In the present study, we investigated whether specific visuospatial abilities, such as figure disembedding and mental rotation, are differently related to social and non-social autistic traits, in neurotypical women and men. University students (N = 426) completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), figure disembedding and mental rotation of two-dimensional figures tasks. AQ social skills (AQ-social) and attention-to-details (AQ-attention) subscales were used as measures of social and non-social autistic traits, respectively. Mental rotation was affected by a significant interaction between sex, social and non-social traits. When non-social traits were above the mean (+ 1 SD), no sex differences in mental rotation were found. Instead, below this value, sex differences depended on the social traits, with men on average outperforming women at middle-to-high social traits, and with a comparable performance, and with women on average outperforming men, at lower social traits. A small positive correlation between figure disembedding and social traits was observed in the overall sample. These results are interpreted in terms of the hyper-systemizing theory of autism and contribute to the evidence of individual differences in the cognitive style of autistic people and neurotypical people with autistic traits.</jats:p>
Keywords
Article, /631/477, /631/477/2811, article
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (214322\Z\18\Z)
Innovative Medicines Initiative (777394)
Identifiers
s41598-022-08497-2, 8497
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08497-2
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/335169
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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