In their welcome target article, Jaswal & Akhtar (J&A) provide a range of evidence, as well as quotes from popular narratives, to counter the influential social motivation deficit theory of autism. We share their concerns about unhelpful biases in how autistic differences are interpreted. And we agree that atypical overt behaviors in autism (i.e., differences in how autistics appear) do not necessarily mean that autistics, as a group, lack social motivation and/or interest.

But we see problems with the accompanying premise that appearances aside, autistics are or perhaps should be socially typical, as in the highlighted quote, “The truth about autistic people is that we want what everyone else wants” (target article: epigraph and appendix). J&A emphasize throughout that while autistics may not express social interest in expected and conventional-appearing ways, their social interest is in fact typical. Indeed, J&A specify that if autistics vary in their social interest, this is only in a typical way (“just like non-autistic people,” sect. 3, para. 2). Further, they state and imply that it is only by revealing this social typicality that autistics can avoid a host of poor outcomes, from unhealthy cognitive, language, and social development, to poor mental and physical health, to dehumanization.

In addition to their problematic idealization of social typicality, J&A dismiss as irrelevant (“unlikely to yield data that are useful in theory or practice,” sect. 3, para. 3) any attempt to test claims about social motivation or interest in autism. Some of these dismissed data have shown typical social motivation in autistic boys, who did not differ from typical boys in being more motivated to view nonsocial (car) versus social (face) images (Ewing et al. Reference Ewing, Pellicano and Rhodes2013). But many of these dismissed data have revealed that autistics not only appear different but also are different socially.

For example, one central aspect of typical social interest or motivation is the automatic prioritization of social information, at the expense of other information (Chevallier et al. Reference Chevallier, Kohls, Troiani, Brodkin and Schultz2012a). Autistics in contrast are characterized by cognitive versatility, such that hierarchies of information processing are less mandatory (Mottron et al. Reference Mottron, Dawson, Soulières, Hubert and Burack2006). This may result in less automatic social prioritization in autism. Thus while both typical and autistic children over-imitated – they automatically imitated actions they saw another person perform, even when those actions were non-functional – autistic children did so significantly less (Marsh et al. Reference Marsh, Pearson, Ropar and Hamilton2013). Typical youth followed eye gaze when it was both informative and uninformative, whereas autistic youth also followed eye gaze but only when it was informative (Ristic et al. Reference Ristic, Mottron, Friesen, Iarocci, Burack and Kingstone2005). Similarly, typical adults performing a task were more automatically hampered by irrelevant face images than were autistic adults (Remington et al. Reference Remington, Campbell and Swettenham2012). Typical adults were also more likely than autistic adults to miss an “unexpected gorilla stimulus” co-occurring with social information (a multiple-person conversation), yet autistics’ enhanced detection of the unexpected gorilla co-occurred with typical competence in processing the social information (Remington & Fairnie Reference Remington and Fairnie2017). Data from these studies and others similar are useful (in theory and practice) and, in our view, suggest that while autistic social motivation or interest is not lacking, neither is it typical.

Another central aspect of typical social interest or motivation is the automatic prioritization of social reputation at the expense of other priorities (Chevallier et al. Reference Chevallier, Kohls, Troiani, Brodkin and Schultz2012a). Again, data on autistics indicate that less mandatory information-processing hierarchies mean more cognitive versatility, which produces social atypicality. Thus, school-aged typical children were much more likely than autistic children to conform with what “most people” thought when this was obviously wrong (Yafai et al. Reference Yafai, Verrier and Reidy2014; see also Large et al. Reference Large, Pellicano, Mojzisch and Krug2019). Typical adolescents were also much more likely to jettison their views so as to enhance their social reputations via flattery, in comparison with autistic adolescents who prioritized being honest with themselves and others (Chevallier et al. Reference Chevallier, Molesworth and Happé2012b). Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. Reference Izuma, Matsumoto, Camerer and Adolphs2011; see also Cage et al. Reference Cage, Pellicano, Shah and Bird2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests.

While the scope of this commentary permits only the briefest outline of a small fraction of the relevant literature, we need also call attention to the dearth of interest in how autistics learn well (Mottron et al. Reference Mottron, Dawson and Soulières2009). Research in this area is sparse, but it does suggest that given the opportunity, autistics can and do spontaneously learn from complex materials, sometimes in exceptional ways, and this may start early in development (e.g., Kissine et al. Reference Kissine, Luffin, Aiad, Bourourou, Deliens and Gaddour2018; Mottron et al. Reference Mottron, Bouvet, Bonnel, Samson, Burack, Dawson and Heaton2013). This research calls into question assumptions that learning or progress in autism depend on autistics being (if not appearing) typical in their social interest or motivation. We thus question both the urgency J&A attach to revealing typical (if not conventionally expressed) social interest in autistics, and the grim consequences they invoke for autistics who aren't shown to be socially typical.

In summary, we believe it plausible that social interest and motivation in autism are both atypical and characterized by high variance across individuals (Cowen Reference Cowen2011). In the target article, many autistics are in fact marginalized and consigned to difficult fates. This suggests caution in using selective popular narratives about autism as evidence, at the expense of a complex literature on social and nonsocial cognition, based on data from thousands of autistic study participants. Autistics not only appear different when it comes to social interest, but they also are different. These differences should not necessarily be dismissed as pathologies or sources of life problems, and indeed they may help contribute to the cognitive and also productivity advantages often shown by autistics.