Theory of Mind: Autism as Mindblindness?

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Theory of Mind Autism as Mindblindness?

• Dr Jason Low
• School of Psychology
• Victoria University of Wellington

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Georges de la Tour, The Fortune Teller
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ToM and the full range of mental states

• Theory of mind is one quintessential ability that
  makes us human
• Test of Tom have been found to be effective as
  markers of pervasive developmental disorders
  (e.g., autism)
• Autism as mind-blindness

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1. Mental Physical Distinction

• Wellman Estes (1986)
• Listen to two stories
• A is thinking about a dog vs B is holding a dog
• Who can pat the dog?
• Baron-Cohen (1989) 3-4 yr olds vs. children with
  autism with vma of 4 yrs

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2. Appearance Reality Distinction

• Flavell, Green Flavell (1986)
• Sponge-rock
• Baron-Cohen (1989)
• 3-4 yrs vs cwa (4yrs vma)
• Autism difficult with understanding different
  between subjective and objective reality

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3. First Order False Belief Tasks

• Inferring one persons mental state
• Unexpected Contents
• Unexpected Transfer
• Sally-Anne Experiment (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985)
• Critical question Where will Sally look for her
  marble?
• Problems general intellectual understanding?
  Memory problems?
• Control groups normal downs Where did Sally
  put the marble in the beginning? Where is the
  marble now?

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4. Seeing leads to knowing

• Where does knowledge come from, and who knows
  what, and who doesnt know what
• 3 year olds grasp principle
• Baron-Cohen Goodhart (1994) autism at chance
  level only

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5. Production of range of mental state words

• CWA produce fewer mental state words in their
  spontaneous description of picture stories (e.g.,
  Baron-Cohen et al., 1986)

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6. Spontaneous pretend play

• Lower frequency amongst cwa (e.g., Lewis
  Boucher, 1988)

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7. Understanding how belief causes emotion

• Emotions can be caused by situation (falling over
  and crying)
• But can also be caused by mental states (desires
  and beliefs)
• CWA with vma of 3 have difficulty with mental
  states as causes of emotion (Baron-Cohen, 1991)

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8. Mentalistic interpretation of gaze

• Baron-Cohen et al. (1995)
• Which one is Charlie going to take?
• What is Charlie looking at?

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9. Physical sabotage and mental deception

• Sodian Frith (1994)

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10. Figurative speech

• Baron-Cohen (1997)
• Metaphor, sarcasm, jokes

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11. Pragmatics

• Sensitivity to speaker and listener mental states

Bleed
Yes
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12. Imagination

• Draw a pretend looking person (e.g., a person
  with two heads).

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Components of a Theory of Mind
ID Desires Goals "Mary wants the apple"
EDD Eyes can see things "Mary sees the apple"
SAM Infers desires goals based on eye
direction "I see that Mary wants the apple"
TOMM Allows the full range of mental states "I
think Mary will take and eat the apple after
seeing it"
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Mind-blindness or executive dysfunction?

• Mechanism which enables the normal person to
  shift attention flexibly, inhibit stereotypical
  responses, generate goal directed behaviour and
  solve problems in a planful manner
• ToM correlates with tests of executive
  functioning (e.g., Tower of Hanoi)

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Problems with a strong EFT account

• Executive dysfunction occurs in a large number of
  other clinical disorders (e.g., schizophrenia,
  OCD, Tourettes, anxiety disorder, ADHD
• A narrower executive dysfunction? in autism
  there is a deficit in disengaging from the
  salience of reality
• But in a number of tests where cwa have to
  disengage from reality, the pass!
• Leslies False photograph test

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So what of ToM?

• ToM is not reducible to executive function
• EFT deficits may co-occur with mind-blindness
  because both share same brain origins (frontal
  lobes)
• Two cognitive deficits may be separately
  responsible for different types of behaviours in
  autism
• But EFT researchers point to modified false photo
  test with strong EFT demands (see Russell,
  Saltmarsh, Hill, 1999)