Participants

Candidate participants were recruited through advertisements in online communities and Internet bulletin boards at several Universities in Seoul, Korea. Prior to the experiment, to screen for individuals with BAP, a total of 474 adults completed the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ) (Hurley et al., 2007) and the Korean Version of the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) (Ko et al., 2018). As in prior studies, the BAP group was selected from those who met the cut-off points, namely, an average BAPQ score of 3.15 or higher (the highest 25% of BAPQ score) and a total AQ score of 23 or higher (the highest 25% of AQ score). The control group included individuals with an average BAPQ score of 2.528 or less (the lowest 25% of BAPQ score) and a total AQ score of 16 or less (the lowest 25% of AQ score). Among those who met the above criteria, those who expressed willingness to participate in the experiment were selected as participants. The exclusion criteria for the present study were as follows: (1) diagnosis of other psychiatric disorders, (2) participation in any other pharmacological treatment, and (3) intellectual problems (i.e., a score below 70 on the K-WAIS-IV). Finally, 69 participants were sorted into the following two groups: (a) BAP group (n = 36) and (b) control group (n = 33). Specific demographic information is provided in the Results section.