Subgroups of people with high Autism-Spectrum Quotient scores identified from a large set of personality traits and attributes

The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is a widely used index to quantify autistic traits. Previous studies using clustering analysis have indicated that people showing high AQ and other autism indices may comprise several subtypes. However, those studies mainly focused on Big5 personality traits and analyzed a limited number of samples (participants). The inclusion of a larger set of personality traits and attributes would contribute not only to understanding autism more deeply, but also to characterizing AQ more precisely. In addition, an analysis of larger general populations would give new perspectives on people with high AQ scores. To address these issues, here we conducted a personality traits-based clustering of 1364 subjects who had an AQ score of 33 or higher (high AQ group) collected online. We identified three subclasses (subtypes): Group 1, characterized by emotional instability, low self-esteem, high hostility, anxiety, depressive tendency and schizotypal traits; Group 2, characterized by high BIS for an inhibitory attitude towards novelty, and high Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Group 3, characterized by personality traits and attributes consistent of the average of the general population. Thus, this study provides empirical results showing subtypes of the high AQ population. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This study was supported by CREST (Grant Number JPMJCR15E4), JST, Moonshot R&D (Grant Number JPMJMS2011), JST and KAKENHI (17H06314 and 20K21562) to M.H. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Not Applicable The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The ethics comitte of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology approved this study. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Not Applicable I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Not Applicable I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Not Applicable All personality trait scores used in this study will be available from the OPEN ICPSR database.