Reduced social attention in autism is magnified by perceptual load in naturalistic environments.
Amanda J Haskins, Jeff Mentch, Thomas L Botch and 3 others
PMID 36207799WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic adults showed reduced social attention only in complex, multisensory virtual environments, not in simple static images.
This suggests their difficulty is not a constant deficit but a vulnerability to high perceptual load.
Key findings
01Group differences in social attention were significant only in dynamic and multisensory conditions, with no difference in static images.
02Individuals with higher autistic traits showed less change in social attention between low and high perceptual load conditions.
03The effect of perceptual load on group differences was specific to social information and not seen for object or place information.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Small sample size (38 analyzed). Participants had average to above-average nonverbal intelligence, so results may not generalize to those with intellectual disability. Virtual reality environments, while immersive, lack the true social reciprocity and full sensory breadth (e.g., smell, touch) of real-world interactions. The study was cross-sectional, so it describes associations rather than proving causation in daily life.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation and the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that autistic individuals have a global deficit in social attention. The study shows that social attention was comparable to controls in simple, static environments, and the deficit only appeared when perceptual load was high.