Autistic adults exhibit a typical search advantage for facing dyads

Recent findings obtained with non-autistic participants indicate that face-to-face dyadic targets (pairs of facing individuals) are found faster than back-to-back dyadic targets (pairs of non-facing individuals) when hidden amongst distractor pairings in visual search displays. These results suggest that facing dyads may compete for observers’ attention more effectively than non-facing dyads. In principle, such an advantage might aid the detection of social interactions and facilitate social learning. Autistic individuals are known to exhibit differences in visual processing that impede their perception of other individuals. At present, however, little is known about-multi actor visual processing in autism. Here, we sought to determine whether autistic individuals show a typical search advantage for facing dyads. In an online study, autistic and non-autistic participants were tasked with finding target dyads (pairs of faces arranged face-to-face or back-to-back) embedded amongst distractor dyads (pairs of faces arranged such that the individuals faced the same direction). Relative to the non-autistic controls, the autistic participants took slightly longer to locate target dyads. However, a clear and comparable search advantage for facing dyads was seen in both sets of participants. This preliminary evidence suggests that multi-actor processing of autistic participants exhibits typical sensitivity to dyadic arrangement.