People spontaneously infer various characteristics from others’ behavior. This spontaneous trait inference (STI) and spontaneous situation inference (SSI) can occur simultaneously as a result of unintended processes. Literature suggests that various factors yield individual differences in the occurrences of spontaneous inferences. However, it is still unclear whether individual’s autistic traits affect the occurrence of spontaneous trait and situation inferences. 

This study aimed to investigate whether attention bias to person against situation differ depending on the intensity of autistic traits, and whether the attention bias is related to the occurrences of STI and SSI. Experiment 1 (n=106) examined the participants’ attention bias to person against situation and its relationship with the tendency to infer others’ traits spontaneously. Participants’ attention bias to person was measured by using eye-tracking paradigm, and their spontaneous trait and situation inferences were measured by using the false recognition paradigm. Experiment 2 (n=47) measured participants’ event-related potentials (ERPs) to sensitively detect the occurrence of STIs.

We were not able to collect American data due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the future, we plan to conduct EEG experiments on Japanese and American participants.