Theory of Mind and Autism

Question 1

Theory of Mind

Answer 1

The ability to understand and attribute mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions to oneself and others.

Question 2

How do we understand people’s behaviour?

Answer 2

By knowing/assuming their beliefs and desires.

Question 3

What do we find in people’s heads?

Answer 3

• Attitudes (I hope/believe)
• Propositions (the weather is clear)

Question 4

Recursion

Answer 4

The ability to understand that others can have beliefs about beliefs. It is a higher level cognitive ability.

Question 5

How do we work out people’s propositional attitudes?

Answer 5

By making guesses/inferences. We read between the lines, analyse body language, to find reasoning behind other people’s behaviour.

Question 6

2 months old

Answer 6

Staring at eyes

Question 7

6 months old

Answer 7

Knowing when the eyes stare back

Question 8

1 year old

Answer 8

Looking at what parents are staring at

Question 9

18-24 months old

Answer 9

Children begin to separate the contents of other people’s minds from their own beliefs

Question 10

2 years old

Answer 10

Use mental verbs (see, want)

Question 11

3 years old

Answer 11

Use verbs like ‘think’, ‘know’ and ‘remember’, and know that a looker generally wants what they are looking at

Question 12

4 years old

Answer 12

Can attribute to others beliefs they themselves know to be false (smarties test)

Question 13

Smarties test

Answer 13

• Experimenters asked children what they think is inside a Smarties box.
• Usually, the child will guess Smarties.
• The experimenter then shows the child that the box actually contained pencils.
• The experimenter then re-closes the box and asks the child what they think another person, who has not been shown the true contents of the box, will think is inside.
• The child fails the task if they responds that the other person will think that the box contains pencils.

Question 14

Why is talking on a banana a sign of development?

Answer 14

The child is separating the contents of their own pretense (the banana is a telephone) from the contents of their belief.

Question 15

Sally Anne task

Answer 15

• A child sits at a table on which two dolls (Sally and Anne) are positioned facing a lidded box and basket.
• Sally places a marble in her basket then leaves the scene.
• Anne enters and puts the marble in the closed box.
• Then the child is asked where Sally will look for the marble.

Question 16

Sally Anne task statistics (neurotypical vs autistic)

Answer 16

85% of neurotypical children answered correctly, but only 20% of the autistic children passed the false-belief question.
- This shows that the majority of autistic children struggle with Theory of Mind.

Question 17

Icebox Mother hypothesis

Answer 17

Believes that autism is caused by emotionally distant parents, where ideas were set rigidly.

Question 18

Symptoms of severe autism in a very young child

Answer 18

• disregarding people and being more interested in objects
• touching/smelling/walking over people as if they were furniture
• not playing/socialising with other children
• disassembling and then reassembling appliances.

Question 19

Why don’t children with severe autism pretend?

Answer 19

They see the world as is: as objects.
- This is because they struggle to assign a new idea to an object that they already have a concrete idea of.

• Pretend play is too abstract for them, causing them to struggle. I.e. Because they already know what a certain object is, they have trouble with assigning a new idea to it.

Question 20

What does the Rubber Ducky experiment tell us about autistic children?

Answer 20

That they are “mind-blind”. The Sally-Anne test was done but with a camera instead, and autistic children passed the rubber ducky test more than neurotypical children.

• This suggests that autistic children’s module for attributing minds to others is damaged.

Question 21

“The contents of the world are not just there for the knowing but have to be grasped with suitable mental machinery.”

Answer 21

• This suggests that to understand the world, the right “app” is needed.
• People with severe autism cannot see minds because they don’t have the right mental machinery.

Question 22

“Dash of Autism” hypothesis

Answer 22

For success in science, a dash of autism is essential.

• Ian James believed that many famous scientists had autism

Question 23

Anecdotal evidence from Einstein’s life

Answer 23

“I do not socialise because it would distract me from my work”. He didn’t socialise, and therefore didn’t have any friends

• He rarely spoke and spoke with echolalia: (He would simply repeat back what others said to him).

Question 24

Problem with biographical evidence

Answer 24

It is very fragmental, standards have changed, and it is subjective so might be unreliable

Question 25

Autism and STEM

Answer 25

• Scientists score higher in terms of the number of autistic traits compared to people in the general population.
• Autistic teenagers scored better in mechanical reasoning: figuring out how a system works.

Question 26

Link between engineering and autism

Answer 26

Engineering is systematic, and autistic people (particularly males), tend to be more interested in systems.

• A study found that people whose fathers are engineers are more likely to be autistic (fathers who are engineers are more likely to have autistic children). * There may not be a direct relationship, but they just found that among autistic people, a large percentage had fathers who were engineers.

Question 27

Evidence for an autism and maleness link from the first day of life.

Answer 27

The babies were shown a picture of a women’s face and a ball. Newborn females looked at the picture more, while newborn males looked at the ball more.

Question 28

Evidence from embryo longitudinal study.

Answer 28

More prenatal testosterone led to a stronger interest in systems and more autistic traits. However, the trend was less prominent in females, suggesting that there are more factors affecting it.

Question 29

What do males have that leads them to develop more autistic traits?

Answer 29

Testosterone