Flexibility in autism during unpredictable shifts of socio-emotional stimuli: Investigation of group and sex differences.

Researchers studied how well autistic and non-autistic adults could switch between different mental tasks. They found that autistic people had more difficulty switching when the tasks involved complex social and emotional information that changed unpredictably. However, when tasks were simpler and more predictable, autistic people performed similarly to non-autistic people. The study also found that autistic women showed better social skills than autistic men, which might help them mask their autism traits.

This study examined cognitive flexibility in 101 autistic and 145 non-autistic adults using two online tasks. The research focused on unpredictable, implicit shifts involving complex socio-emotional stimuli versus predictable, explicit shifts with simpler character stimuli. Autistic participants showed greater switch costs (difficulty transitioning between tasks) specifically during the complex socio-emotional flexibility task, but not during the simpler predictable task. The study also identified sex differences, with autistic females demonstrating better social skills and a distinct cognitive profile compared to autistic males, potentially contributing to social camouflaging abilities.

These findings suggest that flexibility difficulties in autism are particularly pronounced when tasks involve unpredictable, complex social-emotional processing demands.

Assessment of flexibility difficulties should include complex, unpredictable social-emotional tasks rather than simple explicit tasks. Interventions may need to specifically target flexibility in social contexts. Sex differences should be considered in autism assessment and intervention planning, particularly regarding camouflaging behaviors in females.

Sample limited to adults without intellectual disability. Online testing methodology may not capture real-world flexibility challenges. Sex difference findings require replication in larger samples. Study design details and control measures not fully specified in abstract.

Flexibility difficulties in autism might be particularly common in complex situations, when shifts (i.e. the switch of attentional resources or strategy according to the situation) are unpredictable, implicit (i.e. not guided by explicit rules) and the stimuli are complex. We analyzed the data of 101 autistic and 145 non-autistic adults, without intellectual deficiency, on two flexibility tasks performed online. The first task involved unpredictable and non-explicit shifts of complex socio-emotional stimuli, whereas the second task involved predictable and explicit shifts of character stimuli. Considering the discrepancies between laboratory results and the real-life flexibility-related challenges faced by autistic individuals, we need to determine which factor could be of particular importance in flexibility difficulties.

We point out that the switch cost (i.e. the difference between shift and non-shift condition) was larger for autistic than for non-autistic participants on the complex flexibility task with unpredictable and non-explicit shifts of socio-emotional stimuli, whereas this was not the case when shifts were predictable, explicit and involved less complex stimuli. We also highlight sex differences, suggesting that autistic females have better social skills than autistic males and that they also have a specific cognitive profile, which could contribute to social camouflaging. The findings of this work help us understand which factors could influence flexibility difficulties in autism and are important for designing future studies. They also add to the literature on sex differences in autism which underpin better social skills, executive function, and camouflaging in autistic females.