Association of Autistic Traits with Inference Generation in Visual Narratives

Autistic individuals sometimes demonstrate differences with narrative comprehension compared to non-autistic individuals. One particular aspect of narrative processing that is thought to be affected in autism is inferencing. Some studies using verbal narratives (i.e., written or spoken stories) have documented differences in inferencing skills among autistic participants. However, fewer studies have investigated inferencing abilities using visual narratives (e.g., comics) in autistic participants, despite mounting evidence that narrative comprehension shares similar cognitive mechanisms across verbal and visual domains. Here, we report two studies examining inference generation during visual narrative comprehension in adults with a range of autistic traits. Experiment 1 used a deletion recognition paradigm to examine participants’ accuracy (ACC) and reaction time (RT) to identify where a panel had been removed from a visual sequence. Experiment 2 used a self-paced viewing paradigm to examine viewing times on sequences that required an inference; ACC and RT on comprehension questions were also examined. In both experiments, individual differences in autistic traits and visual language fluency were examined. Across both studies, autistic traits modulated inferencing abilities and comprehension performance. Subsequent analyses identified differences in imaginative abilities as potentially underlying these modulations.