Comparative study reveals spontaneous visual perspective-taking and heightened interference in young autistic children, indicating intact or heightened sensitivity to social cues.
Key Points
To determine whether young autistic children spontaneously track others' visual perspectives when cognitive task demands are minimized.
Adapted and validated a low-cognitive-demand dot-perspective task in preschool children (N = 59) to measure egocentric and altercentric visual interference.
Tested 34 autistic children and 29 age- and IQ-matched non-autistic children using the adapted task, including a self-perspective-first condition to prevent carryover effects.
Both autistic and non-autistic children showed reliable altercentric and egocentric interference, with autistic children exhibiting significantly larger interference effects than non-autistic controls.
The interference effects in autistic children persisted during the self-perspective-first condition, demonstrating robust spontaneous processing of others' perspectives and greater difficulty suppressing their own viewpoint.