A temporally sustained implicit theory of mind deficit in autism spectrum disorders.
Eye movements during false-belief tasks can reveal an individual's capacity to implicitly monitor others' mental states (theory of mind - ToM). It has been suggested, based on the results of a single-trial-experiment, that this ability is impaired in those with a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD), despite neurotypical-like performance on explicit ToM measures. However, given there are known attention differences and visual hypersensitivities in ASD it is important to establish whether such impairments are evident over time. In addition, investigating implicit ToM using a repeated trial approach allows an assessment of whether learning processes can reduce the ASD impairment in this ability, as is the case with explicit ToM. Here we investigated the temporal profile of implicit ToM in individuals with ASD and a control group. Despite similar performance on explicit ToM measures, ASD-diagnosed individuals showed no evidence of implicit false-belief tracking even over a one-hour period and many trials, whereas control participants did. These findings demonstrate that the systems involved in implicit and explicit ToM are distinct and hint that impaired implicit false-belief tracking may play an important role in ASD. Further, they indicate that learning processes do not alleviate this impairment across the presentation of multiple trials.
['Schneider|Dana|D|', 'Slaughter|Virginia P|VP|', 'Bayliss|Andrew P|AP|', 'Dux|Paul E|PE|']
D000328:Adult D001288:Attention D016022:Case-Control Studies D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive D053483:Eye Movement Measurements D005133:Eye Movements D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D009483:Neuropsychological Tests D012938:Social Perception D056345:Theory of Mind D055815:Young Adult
Implicit theory of mind Autism spectrum disorders Eye-movements Social cognition