Rethinking fast and slow processing in autism

I love findings that fly in the face of simplistic dichotomies. Taylor, Farmer, Livingston, Callan & Shah (2022) published “Rethinking Fast and Slow Processing in Autism” in Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science. Daniel Kahneman’s (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow has been widely read. Taylor et al. note that, “there is major interest in the possibility that autism is associated with impaired ‘fast’ intuitive thinking but enhanced ‘slow’ or ‘rational’ deliberative thinking.” After criticizing previous work, they describe their studies of 200 people on the autism spectrum and 200 others. Here’s the rest of the abstract:

Participants completed contemporary cognitive and self-report measures of intuitive and deliberative processing, as well as a psychometrically robust measure of general cognitive ability. Except for lower self-reported intuitive thinking, we found no unique contributions of autism to intuitive or deliberative thinking across all four studies, as evidenced by frequentist and Bayesian analyses. Overall, these studies indicate that intuitive and deliberative thinking is neither enhanced nor particularly impaired in relation to autism. We deliberate on the implications of these findings for theories of autism and future investigation of strengths and difficulties in autistic people. 

I love this study because it is so consistent with my own experience over the last twenty years assessing young children and copy-editing neuropsychological reports. People on the autism spectrum are extraverted and introverted, feeling and thinking types on the Myers-Briggs, cold and distant, compassionate and caring. It is a spectrum and “autism” is only one of the many characteristics of the person that may be relevant to their general functioning. It’s critical that practitioners abandon the dualistic notions that make categorization simple but way off the mark all too often. It’s also critical that more research help clarify the nuances in people on the autism spectrum.