title: Individuals with autistic-like traits show reduced lateralization on a greyscales task.
abstract: Individuals with autism spectrum conditions attend less to the left side of centrally presented face stimuli compared to neurotypical individuals, suggesting a reduction in right hemisphere activation. We examined whether a similar bias exists for non-facial stimuli in a large sample of neurotypical adults rated above- or below-average on the autism spectrum quotient (AQ). Using the "greyscales" task, we found the typical leftward bias in the below-average group was significantly reduced in the above-average group. Moreover, a negative correlation between leftward bias and the social skills factor of the AQ suggested a link between atypical hemispheric activation and social difficulties in high-AQ trait individuals that extends to non-facial stimuli.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia. michael.english@uwa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Michael C W
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9526-947X
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: English
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Murray T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Maybery
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Troy A W
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Visser
mesh_terms: D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Autistic-like traits; Brain laterality; Left visual field (LVF) bias; Spatial attention