Exploring the cognitive phenotype of autism: weak "central coherence" in parents and siblings of children with autism: II. Real-life skills and preferences.

Information on everyday life activities and preferences in both social and nonsocial domains was obtained from parents and children who had taken part in an experimental study of central coherence. Comparisons were made between parents who had a son with autism, parents with a dyslexic son, and families without a history of developmental disorder, as well as the male siblings in these families. Data on everyday preferences and abilities were elicited by means of an experimental questionnaire.

Exploring the cognitive phenotype of autism: weak "central coherence" in parents and siblings of children with autism: I. Experimental tests.

Previous twin and family studies have indicated that there are strong genetic influences in the etiology of autism, and provide support for the notion of a broader phenotype in first-degree relatives. The present study explored this phenotype in terms of one current cognitive theory of autism. Parents and brothers of boys with autism, boys with dyslexia, and normal boys were given tests of "central coherence", on which children with autism perform unusually well due to an information-processing bias favouring part/detail processing over processing of wholes/meaning.

Acquired mind-blindness following frontal lobe surgery? A single case study of impaired 'theory of mind' in a patient treated with stereotactic anterior capsulotomy.

Social insight, specifically the ability to represent thoughts and feelings ('theory of mind'), may have a circumscribed and dedicated neurological substrate. Evidence of deficits in 'theory of mind' following acquired lesions would support this idea. Previous studies of lesions resulting from stroke or head injury have been hampered by lack of detailed lesion information and pre-lesion documentation.

Movement and mind: a functional imaging study of perception and interpretation of complex intentional movement patterns.

We report a functional neuroimaging study with positron emission tomography (PET) in which six healthy adult volunteers were scanned while watching silent computer-presented animations. The characters in the animations were simple geometrical shapes whose movement patterns selectively evoked mental state attribution or simple action description. Results showed increased activation in association with mental state attribution in four main regions: medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction (superior temporal sulcus), basal temporal regions (fusiform gyrus and temporal poles adjacent to the amygdala), and extrastriate cortex (occipital gyrus).

Good test--retest reliability for standard and advanced false-belief tasks across a wide range of abilities.

Although tests of young children's understanding of mind have had a remarkable impact upon developmental and clinical psychological research over the past 20 years, very little is known about their reliability. Indeed, the only existing study of test-retest reliability suggests unacceptably poor results for first-order false-belief tasks (Mayes, Klin, Tercyak, Cicchetti, & Cohen, 1996), although this may in part reflect the nonstandard (video-based) procedures adopted by these authors. The present study had four major aims.

High "intelligence," low "IQ"? Speed of processing and measured IQ in children with autism.

The uneven profile of performance on standard assessments of intelligence and the high incidence of savant skills have prompted interest in the nature of intelligence in autism. The present paper reports the first group study of speed of processing in children with autism (IQ 1 SD below average) using an inspection time task. The children with autism showed inspection times as fast as an age-matched group of young normally developing children (IQ 1 SD above average).

Reading the mind in cartoons and stories: an fMRI study of 'theory of mind' in verbal and nonverbal tasks.

Previous functional imaging studies have explored the brain regions activated by tasks requiring 'theory of mind'--the attribution of mental states. Tasks used have been primarily verbal, and it has been unclear to what extent different results have reflected different tasks, scanning techniques, or genuinely distinct regions of activation. Here we report results from a functional magnetic resonance imaging study (fMRI) involving two rather different tasks both designed to tap theory of mind.

The neuroanatomy of autism: a voxel-based whole brain analysis of structural scans.

Autism is a biological disorder which affects social cognition, and understanding brain abnormalities of the former will elucidate the brain basis of the latter. We report structural MRI data on 15 high-functioning individuals with autistic disorder. A voxel-based whole brain analysis identified grey matter differences in an amygdala centered system relative to 15 age- and IQ-matched controls.

Acquired 'theory of mind' impairments following stroke.

The ability to attribute thoughts and feelings to self and others ('theory of mind') has been hypothesised to have an innate neural basis and a dedicated cognitive mechanism. Evidence in favour of this proposal has come from autism; a brain-based developmental disorder which appears to be characterised by impaired theory of mind, despite sometimes good general reasoning skills/IQ. To date no case of specific acquired theory of mind impairment has been reported.

Autism: cognitive deficit or cognitive style?

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by impaired social and communicative development, and restricted interests and activities. This article will argue that we can discover more about developmental disorders such as autism through demonstrations of task success than through examples of task failure. Even in exploring and explaining what people with autism find difficult, such as social interaction, demonstration of competence on contrasting tasks has been crucial to defining the nature of the specific deficit.

The getting of wisdom: theory of mind in old age.

Theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states, has been little explored beyond the early school years. Yet, later development, including possible patterns of breakdown, has important implications for current debate concerning the modularity/domain-specificity of the cognitive and neurological systems underlying theory of mind. This article reports a first study of theory of mind in normal aging.

Distinguishing lies from jokes: theory of mind deficits and discourse interpretation in right hemisphere brain-damaged patients.

Right-hemisphere brain damaged (RHD) patients and a normal control group were tested for their ability to infer first- and second-order mental states and to understand the communicative intentions underlying ironic jokes and lies. Subjects listened to stories involving a character who had either a true or a false belief about another character's knowledge. Stories ended either with an ironic joke or a lie by this character.

'Theory of mind' in the brain. Evidence from a PET scan study of Asperger syndrome.

The ability to attribute mental states to others ('theory of mind') pervades normal social interaction and is impaired in autistic individuals. In a previous positron emission tomography scan study of normal volunteers, performing a 'theory of mind' task was associated with activity in left medial prefrontal cortex. We used the same paradigm in five patients with Asperger syndrome, a mild variant of autism with normal intellectual functioning.

Studying weak central coherence at low levels: children with autism do not succumb to visual illusions. A research note.

While anecdotal reports of abnormal perceptual experiences in autism abound, there have been to date no experimental studies showing fundamental perceptual peculiarities. The present paper reports results from a first study of low-level visual integration in autism. Twenty-five subjects with autism, 21 normal 7- and 8-year-olds, and 26 children with learning difficulties were asked to make simple judgements about six well-known visual illusions.

The neuropsychology of autism.

In this review, we aim to bring together major trends in autism research at three levels: biology, behaviour and cognition. We propose that cognitive theories are vital in neuropsychology, which seeks to make connections between brain abnormality and behavioural symptoms. Research at each of the three levels is incomplete, but important advances have been made.

Other minds in the brain: a functional imaging study of "theory of mind" in story comprehension.

The ability of normal children and adults to attribute independent mental states to self and others in order to explain and predict behaviour ("theory of mind") has been a focus of much recent research. Autism is a biologically based disorder which appears to be characterised by a specific impairment in this "mentalising" process. The present paper reports a functional neuroimaging study with positron emission tomography in which we studied brain activity in normal volunteers while they performed story comprehension tasks necessitating the attribution of mental states.

The role of age and verbal ability in the theory of mind task performance of subjects with autism.

A number of studies have reported that most children with autism fail theory of mind tasks. It is unclear why certain children with autism pass such tests and what might be different about these subjects. In the present study, the role of age and verbal ability in theory of mind task performance was explored.

Wechsler IQ profile and theory of mind in autism: a research note.

The unusually uneven intelligence test profile found in autism has been consistently replicated. However, few psychological theories of autism give prominence to this feature. Nor is it clear how currently influential theories, such as the theory of mind account or the executive function hypothesis, can explain the marked peaks and troughs found in the performance of both high- and low-functioning individuals with autism.

Language and communication in autistic disorders.

Communication problems form one of the key diagnostic criteria for autism, but there is a wide variety of manifestations. The theory that autistic individuals are unable to represent mental states can shed light on both the nature and range of communication impairments. This theory predicts that the specific communication deficit lies in the use of language to affect other minds.

Adaptive behaviour and theory of mind in autism.

The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales are used to assess the real life competence of adolescents and adults with autism in France. Real life adaptation is compared with performance on social cognitive tasks, involving the attribution of mental states, and with subjects' age and ability. New scales are used to contrast real life behaviours which appear to require the ability to attribute mental states with those behaviours which are possible without this ability.

Sampling the form of inner experience in three adults with Asperger syndrome.

Three adults with Asperger syndrome were invited to talk about their inner experiences, using an experience sampling and interview technique. They reported thoughts primarily or solely in the form of images. By contrast, normal adults previously tested with this technique reported inner experiences of a variety of forms.

An advanced test of theory of mind: understanding of story characters' thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally handicapped, and normal children and adults.

Research has suggested that the core handicaps of autism result from a specific impairment in theory of mind (ToM). However, this account has been challenged by the finding that a minority of autistic subjects pass 1st- and even 2nd-order ToM tests while remaining socially handicapped. In the present study, able autistic subjects who failed ToM tasks, those who passed 1st-order, and those who passed 2nd-order tasks were tested with a battery of more naturalistic and complex stories.

Autism: beyond "theory of mind".

The theory of mind account of autism has been remarkably successful in making specific predictions about the impairments in socialization, imagination and communication shown by people with autism. It cannot, however, explain either the non-triad features of autism, or earlier experimental findings of abnormal assets and deficits on non-social tasks. These unexplained aspects of autism, and the existence of autistic individuals who consistently pass false belief tasks, suggest that it may be necessary to postulate an additional cognitive abnormality.

Communicative competence and theory of mind in autism: a test of relevance theory.

Sperber and Wilson's (1986) relevance theory makes explicit the role of the comprehension of intentions in human communication. Autistic people have been hypothesized to suffer from a specific and characteristic impairment in the ability to attribute such mental states (e.g.