We investigated the relationships between Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores, adult attachment style (as assessed by the Internal Working Model [IWM] scale) scores, and social skills (as assessed by Kikuchi's Scale of Social Skills ) in university students who had no diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (N = 468). The AQ consists of five subscales: social skills, local details, attention switching, communication, and imagination. The IWM is composed of three subscales: secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment styles. The KiSS-18 is a single-factor model. First, we calculated the correlations between AQ, IWM, and KiSS-18 scores. Next, we examined the differences in each subscale score of the IWM between two groups defined by their AQ scores (High and Low AQ groups). We found that the High AQ had higher scores on the IWM secure subscale than did the Low AQ group. In addition, the High AQ group had lower scores on the IWM anxious and avoidant subscales than did the Low AQ group. Moreover, in the High AQ group, the secure style, but not the anxious and avoidant styles, modulated the KiSS-18 scores. The results of the present study add to existing knowledge of the relationships between autism spectrum tendency, adult attachment style, and social skills, and suggested that adult attachment styles (particularly the secure style) may play the role of mediator of social skill ability.

is study examined viewpoint-dependent and viewpoint-independent visual cognitive processes in children of normal intelligence (mean age=9.8 years) who have di culty in Japanese Kanji writing. A mental rotation task in which the stimuli consisted of two ice-cream cones with three di erently colored scoops of ice cream was used. Children were asked to judge whether the two stimuli, one upright and one rotated, were the same or di erent. Ice-cream cones were either identical, mirror images, or non-mirror images. We found that children with difculty in Kanji writing showed no impairment for identical and non-mirror images and only exhibited lower accuracy scores when stimuli were mirror images. Since children could complete mental rotation in the identical condition and could nd the unique features in the non-mirror images condition, their viewpoint-dependent and viewpoint-independent systems may be intact. However, they had de cits in mirror image perception. ese may be one of the factors underlying reversal errors in these children.