A) The aperiodic exponent (1/f-like slope). Thin gray lines represent the individual exponent values for each participant (taken as the average across all EEG channels), while the thick blue line represents the average exponent over all participants. The accompanying topographic maps show the distribution of exponent (top) and offset (bottom) values across the scalp. B) Topographic plot of the spatial distribution of the cluster of electrodes involved in the significant association between aperiodic slope and level of autistic traits as measured by the SRS-2 total T-score from the cluster-based permutation analysis. C) Scatterplot showing the association between aperiodic slope taken as an average over the electrodes in the cluster and autistic traits (SRS-2 score).