Skorich Daniel P, May Adrienne R, Talipski Louisa A, Hall Marnie H, Dolstra Anita J, Gash Tahlia B, Gunningham Beth H
Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2016 Mar;46(3):862-81. doi: 10.1007/s10803-015-2623-2.
We explore the relationship between the 'theory of mind' (ToM) and 'central coherence' difficulties of autism. We introduce covariation between hierarchically-embedded categories and social information--at the local level, the global level, or at both levels simultaneously--within a category confusion task. We then ask participants to infer the mental state of novel category members, and measure participants' autism-spectrum quotient (AQ). Results reveal a positive relationship between AQ and the degree of local/global social categorization, which in turn predicts the pattern of mental state inferences. These results provide preliminary evidence for a causal relationship between central coherence and ToM abilities. Implications with regard to ToM processes, social categorization, intervention, and the development of a unified account of autism are discussed.
我们探究了自闭症的“心理理论”（ToM）与“中心连贯性”困难之间的关系。在一个类别混淆任务中，我们引入了分层嵌入类别与社会信息之间的协变——在局部层面、全局层面或同时在两个层面。然后，我们要求参与者推断新类别成员的心理状态，并测量参与者的自闭症谱系商数（AQ）。结果显示，AQ与局部/全局社会分类程度之间存在正相关关系，而这反过来又预测了心理状态推断的模式。这些结果为中心连贯性与ToM能力之间的因果关系提供了初步证据。我们还讨论了这些结果对于ToM过程、社会分类、干预以及自闭症统一理论发展的意义。
