Fig. 2

Experiment 2: Part 1 depicts relationships and mediation effects between autistic traits (AQ total), alexithymia (TAS-20 total), and eating psychopathology (EAT-26 total), with sex as a moderator. Relationships unaffected by sex are depicted in black; where sex did exert a moderating effect, blue and pink are used to depict the nature of relationships for male and female participants respectively. Part 2 depicts relationships between autistic traits (AQ total) and eating psychopathology (EAT-26 total) with the subscales of the TAS-20 (DDF, DIF, EOT) as parallel mediators and sex as a moderator, using the same colour scheme to depict where and how relationships were moderated by sex. In both parts, p values are reflected by asterisks where p < .001 is depicted with three asterisks, p < .01 is depicted with two asterisks, and p < .05 is depicted with an asterisk