Autistic adults exhibit typical sensitivity to changes in interpersonal distance

Bunce, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3150-1110, Gehdu, B. K., Press, C., Gray, K. L.H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6071-4588 and Cook, R. (2024) Autistic adults exhibit typical sensitivity to changes in interpersonal distance. Autism Research, 17 (7). pp. 1464-1474. ISSN 1939-3792 doi: 10.1002/aur.3164

Abstract/Summary

The visual processing differences seen in autism often impede individuals’ visual perception of the social world. It has recently been suggested that pairs of individuals shown facing each other – so-called ‘facing dyads’ – engage a form a visual processing similar to that recruited by faces. Given that many autistic people experience difficulties when asked to identify faces, we reasoned that autistic individuals may also make less accurate judgements about facing dyads. We examined whether groups of autistic and non-autistic participants differed in their ability to judge interpersonal distance – a key visual feature of facing dyads. Contrary to our hypothesis, the autistic and non-autistic participants displayed similar ability to detect changes in interpersonal distance. As expected, however, our autistic participants showed worse face recognition than our non-autistic participants. These findings suggest that the visual processing of faces may be selectively impaired in autism without affecting the perception of facing dyads.