2D synchronous and asynchronous spectra are basically 3D-datasets and are generally represented by contour plots. X- and y-axes are identical to the x-axis of the original dataset, whereas the different contours represent the magnitude of correlation between the spectral intensities. The 2D synchronous spectrum is symmetric relative to the main diagonal. The main diagonal thus contains positive peaks. As the peaks at (x,y) in the 2D synchronous spectrum are a measure for the correlation between the intensity changes at x and y in the original data, these main diagonal peaks are also called autopeaks and the main diagonal signal is referred to as autocorrelation signal. The off-diagonal cross-peaks can be either positive or negative. On the other hand, the asynchronous spectrum is asymmetric and never has peaks on the main diagonal.
Generally contour plots of 2D spectra are oriented with rising axes from left to right and top to down. Other orientations are possible, but interpretation has to be adapted accordingly.