Intact selective attention supports context memory in adults with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract Research on memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) finds increased difficulty encoding contextual associations in episodic memory and suggests executive dysfunction and deficient metacognitive monitoring as potential contributing factors. Using an aging framework, we tested the effects of selective attention on context memory in ASD. We evaluated memory performance, hyper-binding, and metamemory performance in a novel context memory task. Results showed that adults with ASD performed similarly to typically developed adults on all measures. We conclude that context memory performance is not disrupted in adults with ASD, even when demands on selective attention are high, and discuss the need for continued research to evaluate well-known neurotypical aging effects on episodic memory and further investigate the metacognitive profile in ASD.