Another Advanced Test of Theory of Mind: Evidence from Very High Functioning Adults with Autism or Asperger Syndrome

Simon Baron‐Cohen1, Therese Jolliffe2, Catherine Mortimore3, Mary M. Robertson3
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, U.K.
2Univ. of Cambridge, U.K.
3University of London, U.K.#TAB#

Tóm tắt

Previous studies have found a subgroup of people with autism or Asperger Syndrome who pass second‐order tests of theory of mind. However, such tests have a ceiling in developmental terms corresponding to a mental age of about 6 years. It is therefore impossible to say if such individuals are intact or impaired in their theory of mind skills. We report the performance of very high functioning adults with autism or Asperger Syndrome on an adult test of theory of mind ability. The task involved inferring the mental state of a person just from the information in photographs of a person's eyes. Relative to age‐matched normal controls and a clinical control group (adults with Tourette Syndrome), the group with autism and Asperger Syndrome were significantly impaired on this task. The autism and Asperger Syndrome sample was also impaired on Happe's strange stories tasks. In contrast, they were unimpaired on two control tasks: recognising gender from the eye region of the face, and recognising basic emotions from the whole face. This provides evidence for subtle mindreading deficits in very high functioning individuals on the autistic continuum.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

American Psychiatric Association., 1994, Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

10.1111/j.2044-835X.1989.tb00793.x

10.1111/j.1469-7610.1989.tb00241.x

10.1016/S0193-953X(18)30323-X

Baron‐Cohen S., 1993, Understanding other minds: Perspective from autism

Baron‐Cohen S., 1994, How to build a baby that can read minds: Cognitive mechanisms in mindreading, Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/Current Psychology of Cognition, 13, 513

10.7551/mitpress/4635.001.0001

10.1192/bjp.161.6.839

10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01924.x

10.1111/j.2044-835X.1995.tb00687.x

10.1192/bjp.168.2.158

Baron‐Cohen S., 1992, Reading the eyes: Evidence for the role of perception in the development of a theory of mind, Mind and Language, 6, 173

10.1017/S0033291700026805

Baron‐Cohen S. &Hammer J.(in press).Parents of children with Asperger Syndrome: What is the cognitive phenotype?Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience..

Baron‐Cohen S. &Hammer J.(in press b).Is autism an extreme form of the male brain?Advances in Infant Behaviour and Development 11.

Baron‐Cohen S., 1993, Understanding other minds: Perspectives from autism

10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8

Baron‐Cohen S., 1995, Movement and allied disorders in childhood

10.1192/bjp.165.5.640

10.1080/713756728

Baron‐Cohen S., 1994, The self and its dysfunction: Proceedings of the 4th Rochester Symposium

Bishop D., 1983, Test of Reception of Grammar

10.3109/09540269009028273

10.1111/j.1469-7610.1992.tb01962.x

10.1111/j.2044-8260.1992.tb00983.x

10.1080/02699939208411068

10.1016/0010-0277(95)00692-R

Frith U., 1989, Autism: Explaining the enigma

10.1097/00001756-199509000-00009

Hall J., 1977, Gender effects in decoding non‐verbal cues, Psychological Bulletin, 85, 845, 10.1037/0033-2909.85.4.845

Halpern D., 1992, Sex differences in cognitive ability

10.1007/BF02172093

Happé F., 1994, Autism

Jolliffe T.(1997).Central coherence in adults with high‐functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome. UnpublishedPhD Thesis University of Cambridge.

Kimura D.(1992).Sex differences in the brain. Scientific American September 119–125.

Nummenmaa T., 1964, Jyvaskyla studies in education, psychology, and social research

10.1111/j.1469-7610.1991.tb00351.x

10.1111/j.1469-7610.1991.tb00352.x

10.2307/1130734

Perner J., 1985, “John thinks that Mary thinks that…” Attribution of second‐order beliefs by 5–10 year old children, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 39, 437, 10.1016/0022-0965(85)90051-7

10.1017/S0954579400000845

10.1111/j.1469-7610.1994.tb01209.x

10.1111/j.2044-835X.1991.tb00881.x

10.1111/j.1469-7610.1986.tb00189.x

Wechsler D., 1981, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale‐Revised

10.1016/0010-0277(83)90004-5

10.1126/science.935879