Autism Traits and Cognitive Performance: Mediating Roles of Sleep Disturbance, Anxiety and Depression.
Gaynor E McArthur, Eunro Lee, Robin Laycock
PMID 36138298WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with more autistic traits reported more anxiety and depression and showed reduced global processing bias.
Sleep and anxiety did not significantly mediate the link between autistic traits and working memory, though a non-significant trend suggested they might. These findings relate to subclinical traits in a general population sample.
Key findings
01Participants with higher autistic traits had significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety compared to those with lower traits.
02Higher autistic traits were associated with a significantly reduced global processing advantage on the Navon task.
03The proposed mediation of working memory performance by sleep disturbance and anxiety did not reach statistical significance.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The sample consisted of adults from the general population, not individuals with a clinical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, so findings may not apply to diagnosed patients. The primary mediation hypothesis regarding working memory did not reach statistical significance. Data was collected online, which may introduce noise in reaction time measures and reduce the reliability of cognitive tasks. The study used a cross-sectional design, so it cannot establish causality between traits, comorbidities, and cognitive performance. A scoring error in the sleep questionnaire was noted by the authors, though they argue it had minimal impact.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. No other conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that treating sleep or anxiety will directly improve working memory in autistic adults based on this study. The mediation effect was not statistically significant, and the sample was drawn from the general population rather than diagnosed individuals.