Happé F G
MRC Cognitive Development Unit, London, UK.
Cognition. 1993 Aug;48(2):101-19. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(93)90026-r.
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., beliefs, intentions); a lack of "theory of mind". According to relevance theory, then, autistic people should have specific difficulties with the use of language for communication. Relevance theory allows precise predictions about the levels of communicative competence that should be possible with either no, first-order only, or second-order theory of mind ability. Three experiments are reported which tested predictions following from the analysis of figurative language in terms of relevance and theory of mind, in able autistic and normal young subjects. The results lend support to relevance theory. In addition, the findings suggest that some autistic subjects are eventually able to attribute mental states. Lastly, the results demonstrate close links between social and communicative understanding in autism and normal development.
斯珀伯和威尔逊（1986）的关联理论明确了理解意图在人类交流中的作用。据推测，自闭症患者在归因此类心理状态（如信念、意图）的能力方面存在特定的、典型的缺陷，即缺乏“心理理论”。那么，根据关联理论，自闭症患者在使用语言进行交流时应该会遇到特定的困难。关联理论能够对在没有心理理论能力、仅有一阶心理理论能力或二阶心理理论能力的情况下可能达到的交际能力水平做出精确预测。本文报告了三项实验，这些实验在有能力的自闭症和正常的年轻受试者中，根据关联和心理理论对 figurative language 的分析来测试相关预测。结果支持了关联理论。此外，研究结果表明一些自闭症受试者最终能够归因心理状态。最后，结果证明了自闭症患者的社会理解和交际理解与正常发展之间存在紧密联系。
