Ronald Angelica, Viding Essi, Happé Francesca, Plomin Robert
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
Soc Neurosci. 2006;1(3-4):412-25. doi: 10.1080/17470910601068088.
Identifying the causal processes involved in theory of mind (ToM) development during childhood is an important goal for social neuroscience. This study aimed to investigate, for the first time, the extent to which individual differences in ToM are influenced by genes and environment in middle childhood, and to assess how ToM is linked to autistic-like behaviors and verbal ability. Over 600 9-year-old twin pairs from a subsample of the Twins Early Development Study were assessed on an advanced test of ToM and on verbal ability. Parents, teachers, and the children themselves provided ratings of the twins' autistic traits (social impairments, communication impairments, and restricted repetitive behaviors and interests), using an abbreviated version of the Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test. Autistic traits, particularly communication impairments, significantly predicted ToM performance. Verbal ability showed the strongest phenotypic association with ToM. Twin model-fitting was employed to investigate the causes of this association. Much of the variation in ToM ability and in verbal ability was explained by environmental influences, with modest heritabilities for each, but their association was almost fully explained by shared genetic effects. The possible neural basis underlying this association is discussed.
确定童年时期心理理论（ToM）发展过程中的因果机制是社会神经科学的一个重要目标。本研究首次旨在调查童年中期ToM的个体差异受基因和环境影响的程度，并评估ToM与自闭症样行为和语言能力之间的联系。对来自双胞胎早期发展研究子样本的600多对9岁双胞胎进行了一项先进的ToM测试和语言能力测试。父母、教师和孩子本人使用儿童阿斯伯格综合征测试的简化版本，对双胞胎的自闭症特征（社交障碍、沟通障碍以及受限的重复行为和兴趣）进行了评分。自闭症特征，尤其是沟通障碍，显著预测了ToM表现。语言能力与ToM表现出最强的表型关联。采用双胞胎模型拟合来研究这种关联的原因。ToM能力和语言能力的大部分变异是由环境影响解释的，二者的遗传度都不高，但它们之间的关联几乎完全由共享基因效应解释。本文还讨论了这种关联可能的神经基础。
