ORIGINAL PAPER Impaired Social Processing in Autism and its Reflections in Memory: A Deeper View of Encoding and Retrieval Processes Rachel S. Brezis • Tal Galili • Tiffany Wong • Judith I. Piggot Published online: 9 November 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Previous studies of memory in autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have consistently shown that persons with ASC have reduced memories for social information, relative to a spared memory for non-social facts. The current study aims to reproduce these findings, while examining the possible causes leading to this difference. Participants’ memory for trait-words was tested after they had viewed the words in three study contexts: visuo-motor, letter-detection, and social judgment. While participants with ASC showed a levels-of-processing effect, such that their memory for words viewed in the social judgment context was greater than their memory for words viewed in the letter-detection context, their memory for socially- processed words was reduced relative to comparison participants. This interaction effect could not be explained by a speed/accuracy trade-off, nor could it be explained solely by differences in encoding. These results suggest that social memory deficits in ASC arise from difficulties both in orienting towards and encoding social content, as well as retaining and retrieving it. Implications for theory and clinical practice are discussed. Keywords Social memory Á Autism Á Encoding Á Retrieval Á Levels of processing Introduction Studies of memory in autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have consistently shown that persons with ASC have a poor memory for social information, relative to a spared memory for non-social facts (Boucher and Bowler 2008; Crane and This study was completed in preparation of the first author’s doctoral dissertation; earlier versions have been presented at the International Meetings for Autism Research. R. S. Brezis Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA R. S. Brezis Center for Autism Research and Treatment, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Present Address: R. S. Brezis (&) Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Center for Culture and Health, University of California, 760 Westwood Plaza, Box 62, Room B7-435, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1759, USA e-mail: rsbrezis@ucla.edu T. Galili Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel T. Wong Á J. I. Piggot Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Present Address: T. Wong Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Present Address: J. I. Piggot Department of Psychiatry, University of Dundee, Centre for Child Health, Dudhope Terrace, Dundee, UK 123 J Autism Dev Disord (2014) 44:1183–1192 DOI 10.1007/s10803-013-1980-y