Revisiting the ownership effect in adults with and without autism.

Self-owned items are better remembered than other-owned items; this ownership effect reflects privileged processing of self-related information. The size of this ownership effect has been shown to decrease in neurotypical adults as the number of autistic traits increases, and is reduced in autistic adults. However, emerging evidence has questioned the reliability of these findings.

Linking metacognition and mindreading: Evidence from autism and dual-task investigations.

Questions of how we know our own and other minds, and whether metacognition and mindreading rely on the same processes, are longstanding in psychology and philosophy. In Experiment 1, children/adolescents with autism (who tend to show attenuated mindreading) showed significantly lower accuracy on an explicit metacognition task than neurotypical children/adolescents, but not on an allegedly metacognitive implicit one. In Experiment 2, neurotypical adults completed these tasks in a single-task condition or a dual-task condition that required concurrent completion of a secondary task that tapped mindreading.

Links Between Autistic Traits, Feelings of Gender Dysphoria, and Mentalising Ability: Replication and Extension of Previous Findings from the General Population.

Gender nonconformity is substantially elevated in the autistic population, but the reasons for this are currently unclear. In a recent study, Kallitsounaki and Williams (Kallitsounaki and Williams, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2020; authors 1 and 2 of the current paper) found significant relations between autistic traits and both gender dysphoric feelings and recalled cross-gender behaviour, and between mentalising ability and gender dysphoric feelings. The current study successfully replicated these findings (results were supplemented with Bayesian analyses), in sample of 126 adults.

The self-reference effect on memory is not diminished in autism: Three studies of incidental and explicit self-referential recognition memory in autistic and neurotypical adults and adolescents.

Three experiments investigated the extent to which (a) individuals with autism show a self-reference effect (i.e., better memory for self-relevant information), and (b) the size of the self-reference effect is associated with autism traits.

Relationships between implicit and explicit uncertainty monitoring and mindreading: Evidence from autism spectrum disorder.

We examined performance on implicit (non-verbal) and explicit (verbal) uncertainty-monitoring tasks among neurotypical participants and participants with autism, while also testing mindreading abilities in both groups. We found that: (i) performance of autistic participants was unimpaired on the implicit uncertainty-monitoring task, while being significantly impaired on the explicit task; (ii) performance on the explicit task was correlated with performance on mindreading tasks in both groups, whereas performance on the implicit uncertainty-monitoring task was not; and (iii) performance on implicit and explicit uncertainty-monitoring tasks was not correlated. The results support the view that (a) explicit uncertainty-monitoring draws on the same cognitive faculty as mindreading whereas (b) implicit uncertainty-monitoring only test first-order decision making.

Can you spot a liar? Deception, mindreading, and the case of autism spectrum disorder.

Detection of deception is of fundamental importance for everyday social life and might require "mindreading" (the ability to represent others' mental states). People with diminished mindreading, such as those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), might be at risk of manipulation because of lie detection difficulties. In Experiment 1, performance among 216 neurotypical adults on a realistic lie detection paradigm was significantly negatively associated with number of ASD traits, but not with mindreading ability.

Judgment of Learning Accuracy in High-functioning Adolescents and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

This study explored whether adults and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate difficulties making metacognitive judgments, specifically judgments of learning. Across two experiments, the study examined whether individuals with ASD could accurately judge whether they had learnt a piece of information (in this case word pairs). In Experiment 1, adults with ASD demonstrated typical accuracy on a standard 'cue-alone' judgment of learning (JOL) task, compared to age- and IQ-matched neurotypical adults.

Recognition memory and source memory in autism spectrum disorder: A study of the intention superiority and enactment effects.

It is well established that neurotypical individuals generally show better memory for actions they have performed than actions they have observed others perform or merely read about, a so-called 'enactment effect'. Strikingly, research has also shown that neurotypical individuals demonstrate superior memory for actions they intend to perform in the future (but have not yet performed), an effect commonly known as the 'intention superiority effect'. Although the enactment effect has been studied among people with autism spectrum disorder, this study is the first to investigate the intention superiority effect in this disorder.

Metacognitive monitoring and control processes in children with autism spectrum disorder: Diminished judgement of confidence accuracy.

Metacognition consists of monitoring processes (the ability to accurately represent one's own mental states) and control processes (the ability to control one's cognitive processes effectively). Both processes play vital roles in self-regulated learning. However, currently it is unclear whether these processes are impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).

Spatial navigation, episodic memory, episodic future thinking, and theory of mind in children with autism spectrum disorder: evidence for impairments in mental simulation?

This study explored spatial navigation alongside several other cognitive abilities that are thought to share common underlying neurocognitive mechanisms (e.g., the capacity for self-projection, scene construction, or mental simulation), and which we hypothesized may be impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Self-referential memory in autism spectrum disorder and typical development: Exploring the ownership effect.

Owned objects occupy a privileged cognitive processing status and are viewed almost as extensions of the self. It has been demonstrated that items over which a sense of ownership is felt will be better remembered than other items (an example of the "self-reference effect"). As autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterised by an a typical self-concept, people with ASD may not demonstrate this "ownership effect".

Metacognition, metamemory, and mindreading in high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder.

Metacognition refers to cognition about cognition and encompasses both knowledge of cognitive processes and the ability to monitor and control one's own cognitions. The current study aimed to establish whether metacognition is impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). According to some theories, the ability to represent one's own mental states (an aspect of metacognition) relies on the same mechanism as the ability to represent others' mental states ("mindreading").

Spatial navigation impairments among intellectually high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder: exploring relations with theory of mind, episodic memory, and episodic future thinking.

Research suggests that spatial navigation relies on the same neural network as episodic memory, episodic future thinking, and theory of mind (ToM). Such findings have stimulated theories (e.g.

Online action monitoring and memory for self-performed actions in autism spectrum disorder.

This study explored whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience difficulties with action monitoring. Two experimental tasks examined whether adults with ASD are able to monitor their own actions online, and whether they also show a typical enactment effects in memory (enhanced memory for actions they have performed compared to actions they have observed being performed). Individuals with ASD and comparison participants showed a similar pattern of performance on both tasks.

Diminished time-based, but undiminished event-based, prospective memory among intellectually high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder: relation to working memory ability.

Objective: Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out an intended action. Working memory is the ability to store information in mind while processing potentially distracting information. The few previous studies of PM in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have yielded inconsistent findings.

Episodic memory and episodic future thinking impairments in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: an underlying difficulty with scene construction or self-projection?

Objective: There appears to be a common network of brain regions that underlie the ability to recall past personal experiences (episodic memory) and the ability to imagine possible future personal experiences (episodic future thinking). At the cognitive level, these abilities are thought to rely on "scene construction" (the ability to bind together multimodal elements of a scene in mind--dependent on hippocampal functioning) and temporal "self-projection" (the ability to mentally project oneself through time--dependent on prefrontal cortex functioning). Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by diminished episodic memory, it is unclear whether episodic future thinking is correspondingly impaired.

Time-based and event-based prospective memory in autism spectrum disorder: the roles of executive function and theory of mind, and time-estimation.

Prospective memory (remembering to carry out an action in the future) has been studied relatively little in ASD. We explored time-based (carry out an action at a pre-specified time) and event-based (carry out an action upon the occurrence of a pre-specified event) prospective memory, as well as possible cognitive correlates, among 21 intellectually high-functioning children with ASD, and 21 age- and IQ-matched neurotypical comparison children. We found impaired time-based, but undiminished event-based, prospective memory among children with ASD.

Remembering the past and imagining the future in autism spectrum disorder.

Recent research has revealed that episodic memory (remembering past experiences) and episodic future thinking (imagining future experiences) rely on the same underlying neuro-cognitive system. Consistent with this suggestion, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been shown to experience difficulties in both domains. In the present study 18 adults with ASD and 18 typical adults performed sentence completion tasks assessing the ability to generate past and future events.

Episodic memory and episodic future thinking in adults with autism.

The ability to remember past experiences (episodic memory) is thought to be related to the ability to imagine possible future experiences (episodic future thinking). Although previous research has established that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have diminished episodic memory, episodic future thinking has not previously been investigated within this population. In the present study, high-functioning adults with ASD were compared to closely matched typical adults on a task requiring participants to report a series of events that happened to them in the past and a series of events that might happen to them in the future.

Memory and the self in autism: A review and theoretical framework.

This article reviews research on (a) autobiographical episodic and semantic memory, (b) the self-reference effect, (c) memory for the actions of self versus other (the self-enactment effect), and (d) non-autobiographical episodic memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and provides a theoretical framework to account for the bidirectional relationship between memory and the self in ASD. It is argued that individuals with ASD have diminished psychological self-knowledge (as a consequence of diagnostic social and communication impairments), alongside intact physical self-knowledge, resulting in an under-elaborated self-concept. Consequently, individuals with ASD show impaired autobiographical episodic memory and a reduced self-reference effect (which may each rely on psychological aspects of the self-concept) but do not show specific impairments in memory for their own rather than others' actions (which may rely on physical aspects of the self-concept).

Impaired performance on see-know tasks amongst children with autism: evidence of specific difficulties with theory of mind or domain-general task factors?

It is widely assumed that children with autism have a diminished understanding of the perception-knowledge relationship, as a specific manifestation of a theory of mind (ToM) impairment. However, such a conclusion may not be justified on the basis of previous studies, which have suffered from significant methodological weaknesses. The current study aimed to avoid such problems by adopting more stringent participant matching methods, using a larger sample (N = 80), and implementing a new, more rigorous control task in order to ensure that non-ToM task factors were not confounding results.

Recognition memory, self-other source memory, and theory-of-mind in children with autism spectrum disorder.

This study investigated semantic and episodic memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using a task which assessed recognition and self-other source memory. Children with ASD showed undiminished recognition memory but significantly diminished source memory, relative to age- and verbal ability-matched comparison children. Both children with and without ASD showed an "enactment effect", demonstrating significantly better recognition and source memory for self-performed actions than other-person-performed actions.

Language and theory of mind in autism spectrum disorder: the relationship between complement syntax and false belief task performance.

This study aimed to test the hypothesis that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) use their knowledge of complement syntax as a means of "hacking out" solutions to false belief tasks, despite lacking a representational theory of mind (ToM). Participants completed a "memory for complements" task, a measure of receptive vocabulary, and traditional location change and unexpected contents false belief tasks. Consistent with predictions, the correlation between complement syntax score and location change task performance was significantly stronger within the ASD group than within the comparison group.

Delayed self-recognition in children with autism spectrum disorder.

This study aimed to investigate temporally extended self-awareness (awareness of one's place in and continued existence through time) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using the delayed self-recognition (DSR) paradigm (Povinelli et al., Child Development 67:1540-1554, 1996). Relative to age and verbal ability matched comparison children, children with ASD showed unattenuated performance on the DSR task, despite showing significant impairments in theory-of-mind task performance, and a reduced propensity to use personal pronouns to refer to themselves.

Temporal cognition in children with autistic spectrum disorders: tests of diachronic thinking.

Impaired diachronic thinking-(the propensity and capacity to think about events spreading across time)-was demonstrated in a 2-Phase study in which children with autism were compared with age and ability matched controls. Identical tests of diachronic thinking were administered in both phases of the study, but to different participant groups, with the same results. The marked impairments shown are therefore robust.