Circumscribed Interests and Attention in Autism: The Role of Biological Sex

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

About the autistic author marker

Harrop, C., Jones, D., Zheng, S., Nowell, S. W., Boyd, B. A., & Sasson, N. (2018). Circumscribed Interests and Attention in Autism: The Role of Biological Sex. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48(10), 3449-3459. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3612-z

Publication date: 18 May 2018 Added to AutiHub: 23 Oct 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
6
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 6 (16.7%)

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that circumscribed interests (CI) in females with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may align more closely with interests reported in typical female development than those typically reported for ASD males. We used eye-tracking to quantify attention to arrays containing combinations of male, female and neutral images in elementary-aged males and females with and without ASD. A number of condition × sex effects emerged, with both groups attending to images that corresponded with interests typically associated with their biological sex. Diagnostic effects reported in similar studies were not replicated in our modified design. Our findings of more typical attention patterns to gender-typical images in ASD females is consistent with evidence of sex differences in CI and inconsistent with the "Extreme Male Brain" theory of ASD.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 23 Oct 2026 17:25.

Cited references
59
With a DOI
53
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
6
1 / 59 (1.7%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
2 / 59 (3.4%)
References with detected author names
58 / 59 (98.3%)
Without detected author names
1
Without a structured title
2
Without a stable identifier
6
References with raw author names still to review
1
References with external metadata lookup issues
2
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
218
From DOI or external metadata
218
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
1
76 / 218 (34.9%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 142 / 218 (65.1%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
1 / 218 (0.5%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 1 / 76 (1.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 1 / 172 (0.6%).
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