The Social Shapes Test (SST) is a measure of social intelligence which does not use human faces or rely on extensive verbal ability. The SST has shown promising validity among adults without autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but it is uncertain whether it is suitable for adults with ASD. We find measurement invariance between adults with (n = 229) or without ASD (n = 1,049) on the 23-item SST. We also find that adults without ASD score higher on the SST than adults with ASD (d = 0.21). We also provide two, 14-item versions which demonstrated good parallel test-retest reliability and are positively related to scores on the Frith-Happé task. The SST is suitable for remote, online research studies.
Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Online testing; Social cognition; Social intelligence; Theory of mind.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.