Inhibitory control and semantic richness moderate the relationship between autism spectrum characters and creative thinking

Previous studies have reported inconsistent findings regarding creativity in individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC). The present study treated ASC as a continuum and examined whether inhibitory control and semantic structure moderate the relationship between autistic characteristics and the originality and creative quality of divergent thinking. A mixed sample ( n = 334), including participants on the autism spectrum and individuals from the general population, completed the Alternate Uses Task, which requires generating creative uses for common objects. The object probes differed in semantic richness: some were semantically scarce, with few associations, whereas others were semantically rich, with many associations. Although total ASC scores did not predict overall creative quality (considering originality and appropriateness of ideas), ASC was negatively associated with originality (probe-idea semantic distance) in responses to semantically rich probes but not to scarce probes. This effect was strongest among individuals with weaker inhibitory control. Analyses of specific autistic traits showed that difficulties with attention switching predicted greater originality. Moderating effects of inhibition and semantic structure also emerged for attention to patterns/details and imagination . Together, these findings highlight the importance of considering both the semantic richness of task prompts and individual differences in inhibitory control when investigating creativity in neurodivergence.