Social Cognition, Communication & ASD

Question 1

how can one understand communicative intentions?

Answer 1

to attribute mental states (mentalizing) to others share the same brain regions (right medial prefrontal cortex and the left temporal pole) that are implicated in understanding communicative intentions Kampe et al. (2003).

Question 2

sensitivity to our names occurs around what age?

Answer 2

4-5 months of age.

Question 3

summary of ASD and communication.

Answer 3

• may appear less interested in other people because they focus their attention on non-social stimuli and local details.
• tend to show reduced looking towards others’ faces and emotions.
• struggle to understand other people and relationships
• often don’t take the normal meaning communicated from subtle social cues.
• may be especially anxious during conversions with strangers.

Question 4

Non-social difficulties for Autism

Answer 4

The Weak Central Coherence theory - suggests that detail-focused cognitive style in ASD generates difficulty to perceive and interpret global properties.

Question 5

Social difficulties in Autism

Answer 5

day-to-day social interaction and communication: interpreting body language, facial expressions and understanding others’ mental states (ToM) depends on the severity, the difficulty can either be implicit or explicit.

Question 6

DAM: information processing framework. What are the steps for this model?

Answer 6

1. detecting a person
2. identifying the individual
3. assessing the individuals attention toward the self.
4. locating the persons focus attention towards external objects/events
5. inferring an observed goal appropriately.

Question 7

infantile autism

Answer 7

characterizes by a severe developmental disorder of communication. This includes reversals of first and second-person, pronouns, echolocation, neologisms, inappropriate intonation and primitive syntax (ofc, level of joint attention that leads to acquisition of the first words… there is a limited vocab).

Question 8

Social cognition a complex set of skills including:

Answer 8

1. automatic, immediate attributions about others’ mental states (1st person perspective; motor/emotional contagion, mimicry, action imitation)
2. higher cognitive operations (ToM; 3rd person perspective).