The Social Shapes Test as a Self-Administered, Online Measure of Social Intelligence: Three Studies with Typically Developing Adults and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Social Shapes Test (SST) was designed as a measure of social intelligence, theory of mind,or mentalizing without using human faces or relying on extensive verbal ability and iscompletely self-administered online. Despite promising validity evidence, there have been nostudies of whether this task is suitable for adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Acrossthree studies, we find that the SST is an equally reliable test for adults with ASD. We detect amodest difference in SST performance due to ASD and no evidence for differential itemfunctioning. We also provide a ten-item version for whenever testing time is limited. The SST isa suitable measure of social intelligence, especially for studies where remote, online assessmentis needed