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OPEN Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing

to Interact with Those with Autism
based on Thin Slice Judgments
received: 10 October 2016 Noah J. Sasson1,*, Daniel J. Faso1, Jack Nugent2, Sarah Lovell3, Daniel P. Kennedy2,* &
accepted: 07 December 2016 Ruth B. Grossman3,*
Published: 01 February 2017
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including those who otherwise require less support,
face severe difficulties in everyday social interactions. Research in this area has primarily focused on
identifying the cognitive and neurological differences that contribute to these social impairments,
but social interaction by definition involves more than one person and social difficulties may arise not
just from people with ASD themselves, but also from the perceptions, judgments, and social decisions
made by those around them. Here, across three studies, we find that first impressions of individuals
with ASD made from thin slices of real-world social behavior by typically-developing observers are not
only far less favorable across a range of trait judgments compared to controls, but also are associated
with reduced intentions to pursue social interaction. These patterns are remarkably robust, occur within
seconds, do not change with increased exposure, and persist across both child and adult age groups.
However, these biases disappear when impressions are based on conversational content lacking audio-
visual cues, suggesting that style, not substance, drives negative impressions of ASD. Collectively,
these findings advocate for a broader perspective of social difficulties in ASD that considers both the
individual’s impairments and the biases of potential social partners.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterized by impairments in social interaction that
contribute to broad social disabilities and poor functional outcomes1. Across the lifespan, these impairments are
associated with smaller social networks and fewer friendships2, difficulty securing and retaining employment3,
high rates of loneliness4, and an overall reduced quality of life2. Such poor outcomes persist even for individuals
with ASD who have average to above average intelligence5.
Researchers have long investigated the cognitive and neural differences that contribute to social interaction
impairments in ASD6. Such work has been invaluable for highlighting behavioral and biological mechanisms of
social disability in ASD that may serve as primary targets for treatment. However, social interaction quality is not
only predicated upon social ability but also social expression7, and many aspects of social presentation are atypi-
cal in ASD, including abnormal facial expressivity8–10, anomalous use of gaze11, lower rates or unusual timing of
expressive gestures12, violations of personal space13, and unusual vocal prosody14. These differences in social pres-
entation may affect social interaction quality. Unfamiliar observers judge expressions made by individuals with
ASD as more awkward or odd8,15 and such evaluative judgments could potentially affect interaction quality or
even reduce intentions to initiate social interaction altogether. In this way, social interaction impairments in ASD
may not only be an individual impairment, but also a relational one16 in which the perspectives of others affect
the quantity and quality of the social experiences of those with ASD. Indeed, although it has long been established
that those with ASD struggle to interpret the mental states of other people17, recent findings suggest that neuro-
typical individuals likewise have difficulty interpreting the mental states of those with ASD18,19. Thus, difficulties
with social interaction for individuals with ASD may be a bidirectional problem, not just an individual one.
Such relational factors are emphasized in the social model of disability20,21, which posits that those with dis-
abilities may be disadvantaged not only because of their own differences and challenges, but also because of

1
School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, GR41, 800 W Campbell Road, Richardson,
TX, 75080-3021, USA. 2Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street,
Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. 3Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Emerson College, 120
Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116, USA. *These authors contributed equally to this work. Correspondence and
requests for materials should be addressed to R.B.G. (email: ruth_grossman@emerson.edu) or D.P.K. (email: dpk@
indiana.edu) or N.J.S. (email: nsasson@utdallas.edu)

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societal structures (e.g., systemic barriers, negative attitudes, and lack of accommodation) that inhibit optimal
functioning. However, whether the social disability experienced by those with ASD is affected by the perceptions,
behaviors, and social decisions made by their neurotypical peers has largely been overlooked. Are individuals
with ASD perceived differently than their neurotypical peers, and if so, do these judgments contribute to the
social disability they experience? What aspects of their social presentation influence the formation of judgments
made about them and the social behaviors directed towards them?
How people respond to unfamiliar individuals prior to social interaction is governed in large part by first
impressions, which are near instantaneous judgments of personality and character traits based upon “thin slices”
of information22. First impressions are associated with immediate behavioral responses and long-lasting atti-
tudes23. Whereas positive first impressions can evoke approach behaviors24, negative first impressions often
prompt rejection or avoidance behaviors25. For individuals with ASD, negative perceptions may relate to the
social exclusion they frequently experience26 and affect their ability to successfully navigate the social demands
necessary for optimal functional outcomes in adulthood3.
The present study evaluates first impressions of children and adults with ASD by unfamiliar observers, includ-
ing same-age peers, and examines their relation to subsequent intentions for social interaction. Unlike prior
studies that have assessed attitudes towards autism using survey methods27, written vignettes of autism28–30, or
actors portraying autistic behavior31,32, we examined impression formation based upon authentic behavior under
conditions in which first impressions are truly formed. Here, we present three studies conceived and conducted
independently by three research groups assessing observers’ first impressions of—and intentions to socially
engage with— children and adults with ASD based upon “thin slices” of their real-world social behavior. These
studies aim to assess the ways in which individuals with ASD are initially perceived relative to matched typically
developing (TD) controls, examine whether these impressions change with increased exposure, explore the com-
ponents of social presentation that affect these perceptions, and evaluate whether such perceptions are associated
with intentions to socially interact. By exploring these perceptions across different methodologies, stimulus types,
and participant cohorts, the studies aim to assess the relative robustness of impressions made by TD individuals
towards people with ASD, and determine whether they vary by context, age groups, or methodological variations.
Ultimately, this information can highlight previously overlooked social factors that contribute to reduced social
interaction quantity and quality for individuals with ASD.

Study 1
Method.  Participants.  Forty adults (20 ASD; 20 TD) served as stimulus participants. The stimulus groups
were matched on gender (17 males in each group), and were comparable on both age (ASD mean =​ 24.5 years, TD
mean =​  25.0; p =​ 0.786) and full-scale IQ on the WASI (ASD mean =​ 106.4, TD mean  =​  110.5; p =​  0.293). ASD
diagnoses were confirmed by a certified clinician using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule33. TD par-
ticipants reported no ASD diagnosis in themselves or their first-degree family members. 214 undergraduates (164
female; mean age =​ 21.4) served as rating participants and completed informed consent. Power analysis using
GPower 3.1 with an alpha level of 0.05, a power level of 0.8, and an effect of 0.3, which is comparable to related
studies with a similar design8, determined a sample of 160 participants would be sufficient, but we oversampled
relative to this number because previous studies included fewer stimulus participants and fewer presentation
modalities. The Institutional Review Board at the University of Texas at Dallas approved this study and all meth-
ods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

Stimuli and Materials.  Stimuli were created from video recordings of stimulus participants engaging in the
“High Risk Social Challenge” task34, a 60 s mock audition for a reality/game show. Each video contains bodies
and faces of stimulus participants and the first 10 s of social behavior occurring after any content-free introduc-
tions (e.g., “Hi TV. This is my audition tape”) was edited into five presentation modalities: (1) audio-only (2)
visual-only (3) audio-visual (4) static image and (5) transcript of speech content. Separation of the audio and
visual components allows for examining the degree to which these social information sources independently
contribute to first impression formation. The static image, taken from the first moment in the video in which the
participant is sitting upright with eyes open and not speaking or gesturing, was used to determine whether first
impressions of ASD and TD adults differ even in the absence of movement, speech, or conversational content.
Finally, the transcript modality aimed to determine whether conversational content, which can differ in ASD and
affect social interaction quality35, influences impression formation of ASD and TD adults independent of vocal
and visual information.

Procedure.  Rating participants provided their judgments individually on a desktop monitor using Qualtrics sur-
vey software. To avoid any carry-over effects, rating participants experienced only one presentation modality (e.g.,
transcript, static frame) for each of the 40 stimulus participants. Each stimulus was rated one at a time on ten items
using a four-point scale (0–3). Six items related to traits that are reliably perceived when forming first impres-
sions: attractiveness, awkwardness, intelligence, likeability, trustworthiness, and dominance/submissiveness14,35.
The remaining four items related to behavioral intentions towards the stimulus participant as potential social
partners: willingness to live near the stimulus participant, likelihood of hanging out with the stimulus participant
in their free time, level of comfort sitting next to the stimulus participant, and likelihood of starting a conversa-
tion with the stimulus participant28,30. Items appeared in a random order between rating participants to account
for potential order effects, but were presented in the same order across stimuli for each individual rater. Here, as
in Studies 2 and 3, rating participants were not informed of the clinical status of stimulus participants, nor was
any reference to autism made anywhere in the task.

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Figure 1.  Group effects on each modality. Groups only did not significantly differ on the transcript of
Speech Content.

Figure 2.  Group effects on each item. ASD group is rated significantly less favorable on every item except
Live Near, Trustworthy, and Smart.

Results
We conducted a 2 (ASD vs. TD stimulus group) by 5 (modality) by 10 (rating) mixed-model ANOVA. A signifi-
cant main effect of stimulus group (F(1, 38) =​  47.33, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.555) found ASD stimulus participants to be
rated less favorably overall (M =​  1.46, SD  =​ 0.14) than TD stimulus participants (M =​  1.76, SD  =​  0.15). Significant
interactions occurred between: group and modality (F(4, 152) =​  9.14, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.194); group and rating
(F(9, 342) =​  17.57,   <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.316); and a three-way interaction between group, rating, and modality
(F(36, 1368) =​  3.10, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.076). Follow-up pairwise comparisons explored patterns of group differences
on each interaction, with Bonferroni correction to control for multiple comparisons and Greenhouse-Geisser
correction when Mauchly’s test indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated.
For the group by modality interaction (see Fig. 1), ASD stimulus participants were evaluated less favora-
bly than controls across all modalities except for Transcript (t(38) =​  1.00, p =​  0.32, d =​ 0.29). The ASD group
was rated significantly less favorably in the audiovisual modality (M =​  1.36, SD  =​ 0.16) than in than the Audio
(M =​  1.50, SD  =​  0.25, p =​ 0.02, 95% CI [0.01, 0.26], d =​ 0.66) and Transcript (M =​  1.59, SD  =​  0.19, p =​  0.001, 95%
CI [0.08, 0.37], d =​ 1.30) modalities. For the group by rating interaction (see Fig. 2), ASD stimulus participants
were rated less favorably than controls on each rating except for trustworthiness t(38) =​  0.14, p =​  0.89, d =​  0.04),
intelligence t(38) =​  0.89, p =​  0.38, d =​ 0.26), and willingness to live nearby t(38) =​  2.03, p =​  0.05, d =​  0.46),
with the largest effect size occurring for the rating of awkwardness (t(38) =​  9.37, p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [0.63, 0.98],
d =​ 2.96). For the significant three-way interaction between group, rating, and modality, visual modalities (i.e.,
audio-visual, silent-video, static image) produced less favorable ratings for the ASD stimulus participants than
the Audio and Transcript modalities for ratings of awkwardness (F(2.68, 50.85) =​  11.78, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​  0.383),
attractiveness (F(2.33, 44.33) =​  19.78, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.510), intent to hangout (F(2.32, 44.15) =​  10.16, p <​  0.001,
η​2 =​ 0.348) and intent to talk to (F(4, 76) =​  6.65, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.259). In contrast, ratings for the TD group were
generally consistent across all modalities, with significant differences only emerging for the silent video modality
producing more favorable ratings than the transcript modality for intelligence (F(1.97, 37.41) =​  7.43, p =​  0.002,
η​2 =​ 0.281), likeability (F(1.76, 33.48) =​  5.54, p =​  0.011, η​2 =​ 0.226) and intent to talk to (F(1.91, 36.24) =​  4.45,
p =​  0.02, η​2 =​  0.190).
We also explored relationships between individual character and behavioral intent items averaged across
modalities (see Table 1). Both groups exhibited strong correlations (all rs>​.59, ps <​ 0.01) between ratings of

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Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Live Near — 0.78** 0.94** 0.83** −​0.16 0.55* 0.94** −​0.54* 0.86** 0.70**
2. Hangout 0.87** — 0.88** 0.98** −​0.58** 0.88** 0.72** −​0.09 0.88** 0.59**
3. Sit Next 0.95** 0.94** — 0.94** −​0.38 0.72** 0.88** −​0.35 0.90** 0.71**
4. Talk To 0.88** 0.96** 0.94** — −​0.56** 0.85** 0.78** −​0.15 0.92** 0.63**
5. Awkward 0.24 −​0.08 0.11 −​0.17 — −​0.59** −​0.19 −​0.60** −​0.53* −​0.21
6. Attractive 0.42 0.72** 0.53* 0.63** −​0.32 — 0.41 0.12 0.64** 0.56**
7. Trust 0.94** 0.85** 0.92** 0.89** 0.08 0.35 — −​0.57** 0.85** 0.58**
8. Dominance −​0.88** −​0.68** −​0.84** −​0.67** −​0.57** −​0.20 −​0.79** — −​0.25 −​0.08
9. Likeable 0.81** 0.92** 0.89** 0.94** −​0.23 0.61** 0.88** −​0.58** — 0.53*
10. Smart 0.91** 0.76** 0.86** 0.78** −​0.22 0.27 0.90** −​0.82** 0.71** —

Table 1.  Zero-order Correlations for ratings of traits and behavioral intent items. Note: Values below the
diagonal (blue) reflect correlations within TD stimulus participants. Values above the diagonal (red) reflect
correlations within ASD stimulus participants. *p <​  0.05. **p <​  0.01.

trustworthiness, likability, and intelligence and each behavioral intent item. One discrepant pattern between
groups did emerge, however: the ASD, but not TD, stimulus participants demonstrated significant negative rela-
tionships between awkwardness ratings and the raters’ intent to talk to (r =​  −​0.56, p <​ 0.01) and to hang out with
(r =​  −​0.58, p <​ 0.01). Finally, mean ratings across the items did not differ between male and female stimulus par-
ticipants (t(38) =​  7.46, p =​  0.17, Male: M =​  2.41, SD =​  0.21; Female: M =​  2.28, SD =​ 0.20, 95% CI [−​0.06, 0.31],
d =​  0.63).

Study 2
Method.  Participants.  A total of 12 adults with ASD (2 female; 10 male) and 16 TD participants (7 female;
9 male) served as stimulus participants. ASD diagnoses were confirmed by the ADOS-2 (Module 4) admin-
istered and scored by research reliable personnel. Groups were matched on age (ASD mean =​  22.8  ±​  3.5; TD
mean =​  22.8  ±​  4.4; t(26)  =​  0.05, p =​ 0.96) and full-scale IQ (ASD mean =​  117.8  ±​ 11.2; TD mean =​  112.0  ±​  14.9;
t(26) =​  1.12, p =​ 0.27). Thirty-seven undergraduate students (18 female, 19 male; mean age =​  19.4  ±​  1.3) served
as raters and provided informed consent. They also received class credit for their participation. The Institutional
Review Board of Indiana University approved this study and all methods were performed in accordance with the
relevant guidelines and regulations.

Stimuli and Materials.  Stimulus participants sat directly across from an experimenter while responding to a
brief set of open-ended casual questions (e.g., “Have you seen any good movies recently?”). The experimenter was
instructed to respond appropriately and attempt to engage the participant in a natural dialogue. All participants
were familiar with the experimenter from having participated in previous studies in the laboratory. The experi-
menter recorded video using wearable point-of-view video recording glasses (Pivothead HD; recorded in 1080p),
thus providing a direct first-person point of view of the social interaction. All but five participants also completed
the UCLA Loneliness Scale.
We used MATLAB (v2014b; MathWorks, Natick, MA) to randomly select 10 still frames (henceforth, images)
from each video to be used as stimuli. Images were only excluded if the subject was not near the middle of the
frame or if the image was blurry (both due to head movement of the experimenter), or if the stimulus participant’s
eyes were closed. These images were then cropped to eliminate some of the background and show the person
from approximately their torso and above.

Procedure.  Raters were instructed that they would be viewing a variety of photographs of individuals taken
during a typical social interaction, and their task was to make various judgments based on these images. Each
rater completed 3 experimental blocks, with each block corresponding to a different rating question: (1) “How
socially awkward is this person?” (2) “How approachable is this person?” (3) “Would I see myself being friends
with person?” Stimuli within each block were randomized, and each stimulus participant was seen a total of 10
times per block. Male raters only rated male stimulus participants (190 stimuli per block), and female raters only
rated female stimulus participants (90 stimuli per block).
Ratings were made using a non-graduated slider, with ends labeled and representing the extremes of the
judgment (e.g., “not socially awkward” vs. “very socially awkward”). These extremes were quantified as ‘0’ and ‘1’,
with intermediate values falling in between this range corresponding to the location of the sliding bar. Participant
responses were stored with a mouse click, and the next stimulus was shown after a 1 second inter-trial interval.
There were no time constraints for responding. The experiment was presented using MATLAB and Psychtoolbox
(PTB3)37.

Results
To examine initial first-impression judgments, we first limited our analysis to the rating on the first image from
each stimulus participant. A 3 (rating categories) x 2 (group) repeated measures ANOVA revealed a main effect
of rating category [F(2, 25) =​  10.517, p <​  0.001; η​2 =​ 0.457] and group [F(1, 26) =​  23.348, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​  0.473],
but no group x rating category interaction [F(2, 25) =​  1.932, p =​  0.166, η​2 =​ 0.134]. [Note that scores for the awk-
wardness were reverse scored so that higher scores reflect positive judgments for all questions.] Across all three

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Figure 3.  Individuals with ASD (red) are immediately judged more negatively than TD controls (blue) in
each of the three rating categories (all ps < 0.001).

rating categories, individuals with ASD were rated less favorably than TD controls (Awkwardness: t(26) =​  4.51,
p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [0.12, 0.32], d =​ 1.68); Approachability: t(26) =​  4.57, p <​ 0.001, CI [−​0.38, −​0.14], d =​  1.71;
Likelihood of being friends: t(26) =​  3.91, p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [−​0.28, −​0.09], d =​ 1.50) (see Fig. 3). Ratings of
individuals were highly consistent across the three judgment tasks (ASD pairwise correlations were all r >​  0.95,
p <​ 0.001; TD control pairwise correlations were all r >​  0.69, p  <​ 0.003). While the small sample of female ASD
participants precludes formal statistical testing, our results provide preliminary support for the claim that these
effects are at least as strong (if not stronger) for women with ASD (ASD men vs. ASD women: awkwardness: 0.61
vs. 0.80; approachability: 0.38 vs. 0.19; likelihood of being friends: 0.33 vs. 0.19).
We next asked whether ratings of an individual by others were stable across repeated exposure, or whether
they changed over time. Each rater saw each stimulus participant 10 times over the course of each block. For each
rating category and each rater, we fit a line across their 10 ratings of each stimulus participant. Then, we averaged
the slopes of the lines across raters for each stimulus participant, and carried out a 3 (rating category) x 2 (group)
repeated measures ANOVA as above, but with slope as the dependent variable. There was no effect of rating cate-
gory [F(2, 25) =​  0.79, p =​  0.466, η​2 =​ 0.06], group [F(1, 26) =​  0.24, p =​  0.63, η​2 =​ 0.01], or group x rating category
interaction [F(2, 25) =​  2.40, p =​  0.111, η​2 =​ 0.16]. Furthermore, for all ASD and TD stimulus participants, slopes
were not different from zero (6 one-sample t-tests), demonstrating that ratings were reliable over repeated expo-
sure [all ps >​ 0.11] (see Fig. 4). Finally, individuals with ASD reported greater levels of loneliness than TD control
participants [ASD mean =​ 54.5 (11.5); Control mean =​ 40.2 (8.6); t(21) =​  3.37, p =​  0.0029; d =​  1.41].

Study 3
Method.  Participants.  14 boys, seven with ASD and seven TD controls, served as stimulus participants. The
groups did not differ significantly on age (ASD mean =​ 12:1 [134.14 months], TD mean =​ 12:4 [147.43 months];
p =​  >​0.250), IQ on the Leiter38 (ASD mean =​ 105.14, TD mean =​  114.57; p =​ 0.200), or receptive vocabulary on
the PPVT39 (ASD mean =​ 119.14, TD mean =​  131.71; p =​ 0.189). ASD diagnosis was confirmed by trained clini-
cians using the ADOS32, and all TD participants scored below the ASD threshold on the CARS40. 125 adults and
33 adolescents served as rating participants. Data from adult raters were collected via the online crowdsourcing
platform Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Because facial expressions and prosody are highly dependent on
cultural-linguistic context, we excluded participants who did not grow up and live in the US or spoke American
English as their primary language, or who did not complete the task. The final sample of adult raters (n =​  98) had
an average age of 31:4 (range =​ 19–64), and a gender distribution of 53 male, 44 female, and one not specified.
33 TD adolescents (23 male, 10 female) with a mean age of 13:1 (range =​ 10–16:11) provided ratings in the lab-
oratory. Data from this sample was analyzed separately to examine first impressions from raters more similar in
age to the stimulus participants. The Institutional Review Board of Emerson College approved this study and all
methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

Stimuli and Materials.  Stimulus participants were recorded during a task in which they were asked to retell brief
stories containing happiness; surprise, fear, and anger (see ref. 9). Brief video clips (2–4 seconds) were extracted
representing all four emotions and containing one complete sentence or phrase each. Video clips were selected
based on video/audio quality, grammatical accuracy of the sentence productions, and were matched by expressed
emotion across the two diagnostic groups. A maximum of two videos per stimulus participant were used with
some children appearing in only one video due to availability of stimuli with acceptable video and audio quality,
resulting in a total of 24 videos with 12 videos from each of the two subgroups. We created two pseudorand-
omized sequences, which were counterbalanced across participants.

Procedure.  Adult rater participants completed the tasks remotely via M-Turk and electronically provided
informed consent. All task directions were displayed before each video presentation. For each trial, participants
viewed one of the 24 video clips and answered five questions using a non-graduated slider bar with “not likely”
and “very likely” as the two anchor points. We chose a non-graduated slider to allow maximum freedom of judg-
ment for participants, rather than forcing more categorical choices on a numeric scale. Participants were asked to
rate the children’s overall awkwardness, as well as their likelihood to start a conversation with others, have a lot of
friends, get along well with others, and spend a lot of time by themselves. Average slider response was calculated

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Figure 4.  Ratings are very stable over repeated exposure to the same person. Each line represents the mean
rating provided for one stimulus participant across image exposure number (blue = TD; red = ASD).
Furthermore, note that ratings of stimulus participants are highly consistent across these three judgments tasks
(i.e., individuals who scored high on awkwardness scored low on approachability and friendship, and vice
versa). For example, the one ASD participant with very typical ratings for awkwardness is the same participant
that is rated high on the approachability and friendship ratings.

Figure 5.  Ratings for ASD stimulus participants (red) are all significantly less favorable than for TD
controls (blue). All ps < 0.001.

for each prompt/question within each diagnostic group, using a range of 0–100 with 50 being the neutral or
mid-point on the slider bar. Adolescent rater participants completed a similar task via a computer within the
laboratory, but only rated three items provided by the adult raters: awkwardness, getting along well with others,
and spending a lot of time by themselves.

Results
Scores for two items (“awkwardness” and “spending time by themselves”) were reversed scored in all analyses so
that higher ratings reflect more positive judgments for all items. Data from adult raters were analyzed first. We
conducted a 2 (stimulus producer group: ASD vs TD) by 5 (question) repeated measures ANOVA, which revealed
a main effect for stimulus participant group (F(1, 97) =​  104.99, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.52) and a main effect for question
(F(4, 388) =​  46.32, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.32, as well as a significant interaction between question and stimulus partic-
ipant group F(4, 388) =​  4.98, p =​  0.001, η​2 =​ 0.05). Ratings can be found in Fig. 5.
We conducted follow-up pairwise t-tests to compare item responses between groups, using Bonferroni
adjusted alpha levels of.01 per test to adjust for multiple comparisons. Results show that children with ASD were
rated as significantly less likely to start a conversation with others (t(97) =​  −​7.59, p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [−​13.47,
−​7.88], d =​ 0.95), less likely to have a lot of friends (t(97) =​  9.85, p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [−​13.29, −​8.83], d =​  1.06),
less likely to get along well with others (t(97) =​  7.76, p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [−​10.85, −​6.43], d =​ 0.69), more likely
to spend time by themselves (t(97) =​  7.65, p <​ 001, 95% CI [−​12.30, −​7.23], d =​ 0.80), and were judged to
be significantly more awkward than the TD controls in the videos (t(97) =​  10.05, p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [−​15.93,
−​10.68], d =​ 1.03). Lower awkwardness ratings significantly correlated with greater perceived likelihood of start-
ing a conversation with others (r =​  0.517, p <​ 0.001), having a lot of friends (r =​  0.573, p <​ 0.001), getting along
well with others (r =​  0.399, p <​ 0.001), and with the perceived likelihood of spending a lot of time alone (r =​  0.780,
p <​ 0.001). These relationships remain significant when examining stimulus participant groups separately: like-
lihood of starting a conversation with others (ASD: r =​  0.650, p <​  0.001; TD: r =​  0.340, p =​ 0.001), having a lot
of friends (ASD: r =​  0.678, p <​  0.001; TD: r =​  0.555, p <​ 0.001), getting along well with others (ASD: r =​  0.509,
p <​  0.001; TD: r =​  0.357, p <​ 0.001), and perceived likelihood of spending a lot of time alone (ASD: r =​  0.819,
p <​  0.001; TD: r =​  0.685, p <​  0.001).

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To examine whether patterns held when raters were similar in age to the stimulus participants, a 2 (stimulus
participant group: ASD vs TD) by 3 (question) repeated measures ANOVA was conducted using a sample of ado-
lescent raters. We found a main effect for stimulus participant group (F(1, 32) =​  15.97, p <​  0.001, η​2 =​  0.333), but
no main effect of question (F(2, 64) =​  0.12, p =​  0.887, η​2 =​ 0.004), and no question by stimulus participant group
interaction (F(2, 64) =​  1.04, p <​  0.36, η​2 =​ 0.032). Follow-up pairwise t-tests using Bonferroni adjusted alpha lev-
els of.0167 per test compared responses to each question between stimulus participant groups and show that
children with ASD were rated by adolescents as significantly less likely to get along well with others (t(32) =​  4.69,
p <​ 0.001, 95% CI [−3​ 8.8, −1​ 5.31], d =​ 0.39) and more likely to spend time by themselves (t(32) =​  3.75, p =​  0.001,
95% CI [11.88, 40.11], d =​ 0.32). Awkwardness, however, did not reach significance (t(32) =​  1.94, p =​  0.06, 95%
CI [−​0.85, 35.19], d =​  0.25).

Discussion
Across three independent studies using distinct samples and a variety of methodological approaches, observers’
first impressions of individuals with ASD engaging in real-world social behavior were found to be robustly less
favorable than those of matched TD controls. These negative first impressions were consistent for both adults and
children with ASD, for static as well as dynamic stimuli, for both brief (2–4 s) and longer (10 s) glimpses of social
behavior, and did not change with repeated exposure. Further, because these impressions were associated with
reduced intentions to socially engage by observers, they may reflect a previously under-recognized contributor to
the reduced quantity and quality of social interaction experienced by individuals with ASD.
Our findings show that negative first impressions of adults with ASD occurred only when audio and/or visual
information was present, and not when the transcript of their speech content was evaluated (Study 1). This dis-
crepancy suggests that social presentation style rather than the substantive content of social speech drove neg-
ative impression formation of individuals with ASD. Supporting this conclusion, a static image was sufficient
for generating negative first impressions of those with ASD and including additional information, such as body
movement or voice, did not worsen them further. In contrast, first impressions of TD controls improved with the
addition of a visual information, suggesting that unlike the ASD group, visual cues helped rather than hurt the
impressions they made on observers. We also determined that negative impressions extended beyond perceived
social competence to judgments of likeability (reduced), attractiveness (reduced), and submissiveness (increased)
(Study 1). However, negative impressions did not occur for all evaluated traits, with the two groups not differing
on ratings of perceived intelligence or trustworthiness. The lack of group differences on these traits suggest that
the social presentation differences in the ASD group may lead to more negative evaluations of traits associated
with social appeal and approach behaviors (e.g., awkwardness, attractiveness, likability), than those associated
with competence (intelligence) and character (trustworthiness).
We also demonstrate that negative impressions remain stable across multiple thin-slice judgments. A series of
randomly selected static images of college-aged individuals with ASD collected from a first-person perspective
during social interaction were consistently rated as less approachable and more awkward than matched controls,
with observers indicating a lower likelihood of being friends with members of the ASD group (Study 2). These
ratings were stable across ten exposures of different randomly-selected images of each individual, suggesting that
the negative impressions of the ASD group were not driven by poorer or non-representative image capture or by
sequence effects, but rather by reliable differences in social presentation in ASD leading to consistent negative
evaluation. This finding of negative evaluations of individuals with ASD is also emphasized by the consistency of
results across all three studies, which include static and dynamic stimuli, as well as representations of different
age groups.
Adult and school-aged observers also report negative perceptions of adolescents with ASD (Study 3), indi-
cating that negative first impressions persist even when observers are similar in age to those being evaluated. The
extension to school-aged children is important given that individuals with ASD generally receive the greatest
amount of social skills intervention during this developmental period41, which decreases precipitously after high
school42. Thus, despite being at an age when intense attention is often paid to social skills training, the ASD chil-
dren in Study 3 are nonetheless rated poorly by both adults and same-age observers. Negative first impressions
by adults may affect how children with ASD are perceived and treated by educators, and similar impressions by
same-age observers may limit the formation of social networks and friendships. The establishment of a peer social
network during early adolescence facilitates identity formation, access to resources, stress and coping support,
and general well-being43, and the findings here may reflect another obstacle impeding the establishment of such
social connections for youth with ASD above and beyond their already existing difficulties with social skills and
social understanding.
Findings across the three independent studies were remarkably consistent despite using distinct samples and
methods. Taken together, they offer strong evidence that the social presentations of individuals with ASD, par-
ticularly their non-verbal cues, including prosody, facial expressions, and body posture, are perceived less favora-
bly and are associated with reluctance on the part of observers to pursue social engagement. This is particularly
important given that individuals with ASD self-reported much greater feelings of loneliness than controls (Study
2). This is consistent with prior research indicating that individuals with ASD do not differ from their TD peers
in their desire for relationships4, and suggests an unmet need for social experiences in ASD. Negative first impres-
sions may serve as a barrier to fulfilling this desire for social interaction, as approach and withdrawal behavior
towards novel social partners is based on subjective perceptions regardless of their accuracy44. In turn, this may
limit opportunities in ASD for developing social connections and friendships, as well as the intergroup contact
necessary for mitigating negative biases when present45. We explored the effect of repeated exposure to images of
the same individual and found no changes in perceptual ratings (Study 2). However, repeated exposure to images
is not equivalent to increased familiarity, and thus the current study cannot assess whether increased personal
contact with individuals with ASD reduces negative impressions over time. Future studies are encouraged to

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explore this possibility, as such evidence would be consistent with a large literature in social psychology indicat-
ing that increasing intergroup contact reduces bias and prejudice45. In order to determine the effect of increased
familiarity on these types of ratings, future studies would need to pursue a longitudinal approach, collecting
interpersonal ratings at several time points over the course of weeks or months.
It is also important to explore specific components of visual and/or auditory presentation that may lead to
negative impressions of young adults with ASD (e.g., body posture, prosody, grooming, and fashion). Several of
the stimuli used across the three studies were videos and there is some evidence in the literature that the move-
ment patterns of individuals with ASD are atypical and may represent a salient cue of awkwardness or difference
to TD observers46,47. Kinematic analyses of facial expressions in this population point to subtle dynamic differ-
ences related to the complexity of dynamic transitions45 as well as symmetry of movement patterns between face
regions48, which could represent at least some of the cues potential conversation partners use to form their first
impressions of individuals with ASD. However, negative judgments of people with ASD in our studies were not
limited to video stimuli, but remained equally robust for static images, indicating that the rougher movement
patterns of individuals with ASD46,48 are not solely to blame for this phenomenon. It remains an open question
whether videos would lead to more negative first impressions than static images within more socially demanding
contexts such as the dynamic interaction in Study 2 that required spontaneous responses to questioning, rather
than the one-sided social presentations elicited in studies 1 and 3.
Recent studies also suggest the presence of autism-specific dysmorphology, specifically related to distances
between facial features48 that could lead to perception of atypicality even when looking only at static images.
However, significant dysmorphic features most commonly characterize individuals with more significant autism
symptoms and severity48. This does not describe the individuals with preserved language and cognitive skills who
appeared in the stimuli for the studies presented here and therefore cannot explain the rapid and robust negative
evaluations reported here. Additionally, individuals with ASD are rated less favorably than their TD peers even
in audio-only conditions (Study 1), indicating a significant contribution of prosodic features to the negative first
impressions we report14. Based on evidence in the literature and the data presented here, we propose that negative
first impressions of ASD are not founded on any one feature of expression, but rather represent an effect of subtle
physical, dynamic, and auditory cues of presentation that can also include additional features, such as clothing
choices, grooming habits, gaze patterns, or body posture.
The consistency of findings across these studies using different methodologies and stimulus types indicates
that the foundation of these negative perceptions is complex and difficult to isolate. If our goal is to improve social
interactions for individuals with ASD, it may therefore be equally important to educate others to be more aware
and accepting of social presentation differences, rather than trying to change the many interwoven factors of
self-presentation that mark the expressions of individuals with ASD as atypical. Given the social cognitive diffi-
culties in perspective taking associated with autism6, some individuals with ASD may lack insight about how their
social presentation is viewed by potential social partners. Others, however, may be more cognizant of these per-
ceptions but are comfortable in their self-expression. For them, intervention strategies targeting awareness and
acceptance among TD peers in their social environments may be a more sensitive and accommodating approach
than encouraging impression management strategies.
The studies reported here should be viewed in the context of several limitations. Although the real-world
social presentations used in each study provided a more naturalistic portrayal of actual social behavior in ASD
compared to previous work using actors or vignettes, they may not fully reflect how impression formation occurs
during live social interaction. We only included explicit judgments made of those with and without ASD. In addi-
tion to what participants indicate explicitly, their biases may also play out in more implicit ways. Future studies
may seek to address whether implicit biases towards those with ASD parallel the more explicit findings reported
here. Further, all participants with ASD in this study were intellectually-capable, and findings may not generalize
to cognitively impaired populations. Additionally, while ratings did not differ for male and female stimulus par-
ticipants in studies 1 and 2, sample sizes of females were small and future studies should examine whether pat-
terns differ by gender. Finally, these studies present only group-wise comparisons and do not address individual
differences among those with ASD, nor whether individual characteristics of the raters (e.g., gender, personality,
etc.) affect the results reported here.
These limitations notwithstanding, the current project provides convergent evidence across three independ-
ent studies that first impressions of individuals with ASD are significantly less favorable than those of matched
TD controls, and are associated with greater reluctance on the part of observers to pursue social engagement.
The data demonstrate that negative impressions are formed across age groups and based on a range of fea-
tures, including visual, auditory, dynamic, and static cues, indicating that these impressions are not context- or
stimulus-dependent and are likely to persist across a range of real-world social situations. Taken together, these
findings suggest that social interaction difficulties in ASD are not solely an individual impairment but also a rela-
tional one, and consideration of both of these factors is necessary for a full understanding of social impairment
in ASD. The reluctance of TD individuals to engage in social interactions with their ASD peers further limits the
opportunities for individuals with ASD to practice their already fragile social skills. This can have a significant
negative impact on the ability of socially aware and socially interested individuals with ASD to improve their
social communication abilities and work toward more successful social integration. Therefore, intervention and
education approaches that target both those with ASD as well as their TD peers may offer a more comprehensive
approach for improving social and functional outcomes in autism.

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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by seed funding from Indiana University and NIH-R00-MH094409 (DPK; Study 2),
and NIH-NIDCD 1R01DC012774 and NIH-NIDCDR21DC010867 (RBG; Study 3). We thank Brad Caron for
assistance with stimulus creation and data collection for Study 2 and Anil Ramakrishna and Darren Hedley for
task creation for Study 3.

Author Contributions
N.J.S., D.P.K., R.B.G. each independently conceived of the projects (Study 1, 2 and 3, respectively), and collected,
analyzed and interpreted the data (with D.J.F., J.N. and S.L., respectively). N.J.S. drafted the initial manuscript
with support from D.P.K. and R.B.G. All authors revised the manuscript critically and approved the final version.

Additional Information
Competing financial interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests.
How to cite this article: Sasson, N. J. et al. Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with
Autism based on Thin Slice Judgments. Sci. Rep. 6, 40700; doi: 10.1038/srep40700 (2016).
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© The Author(s) 2017

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