Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Neuroscience and Mental Health Innovation Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2024 Feb;77(2):287-297. doi: 10.1177/17470218231165251. Epub 2023 May 18.
It has long been theorised that there is a direct link between individual differences in social cognition and behaviour. One of the most popular tests of this theory has involved examination of Theory of Mind (ToM) difficulties in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, evidence for associations between ToM and social behaviour is mixed, both when testing the ToM explanation of ASD and when investigating individual differences in ToM in the general population. We argue that this is due to methodological limitations of many ToM measures, such as a lack of variability in task performance, inappropriate non-ToM control tasks, and a failure to account for general mental ability. To overcome these issues, we designed a novel task, which probed individual differences in ToM fluency through mental state attribution in response to cartoons (Cartoons Theory of Mind [CarToM] task). This task, enabling the linear combination of speed and accuracy, was used to quantify ToM ability and its association with self-reported (a)typical social behaviour in adults with and without ASD. In a large sample ( = 237), we found that having an ASD diagnosis and higher autistic traits predicted lower ToM ability, even after accounting for performance on a well-matched non-ToM condition and general mental ability. Overall, our findings provide fresh support for the existence of a link between individual differences in social cognition (specifically, ToM) and behaviour (specifically, autism). This has implications for social-cognitive theory and research, allowing large-scale, online assessment of individual differences in ToM in clinical groups and the general population.
长期以来，人们一直认为个体在社会认知和行为方面的差异之间存在直接联系。检验这一理论的最流行的测试之一涉及到对自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中的心理理论（ToM）困难的检查。然而，在测试 ASD 的 ToM 解释以及在一般人群中研究 ToM 的个体差异时，ToM 与社会行为之间的关联证据是混杂的。我们认为，这是由于许多 ToM 测量方法存在方法学上的局限性，例如任务表现缺乏可变性、不适当的非 ToM 对照任务，以及未能考虑一般心理能力。为了克服这些问题，我们设计了一种新的任务，通过对卡通片（Cartoons Theory of Mind [CarToM] 任务）的心理状态归因来探测个体在 ToM 流畅性方面的差异。这个任务可以通过速度和准确性的线性组合来量化 ToM 能力及其与 ASD 患者和非 ASD 患者的自我报告的（非典型）社交行为之间的关联。在一个大样本中（n=237），我们发现，患有 ASD 诊断和较高的自闭症特征预测了较低的 ToM 能力，即使考虑到匹配良好的非 ToM 条件和一般心理能力的表现也是如此。总的来说，我们的研究结果为社会认知（特别是 ToM）和行为（特别是自闭症）个体差异之间存在联系提供了新的支持。这对社会认知理论和研究具有启示意义，允许在临床群体和一般人群中对 ToM 的个体差异进行大规模、在线评估。
