ToM deficit in autism

1
ToM deficit in autism

• Autism genetic neurodevelopmental disorder
• Main symptoms problems with social contact,
  communication and imagination
• Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith (1985) children
  with autism cannot solve false belief tasks
  (while children with Down Syndrome can)

2

• Theory of Mind
• not really a theory
• more like a mechanism, such as vision, language
  and memory
• Also called mindreading ability, mentalizing
• Develops early, some elements are present even
  before the child passes the false belief task,
  e.g. joint attention
• Have been shown to engage a specific area of the
  brain

3

• Temporo-parietal junction more activation for
  stories involving mental states than
  non-mentalistic stories (e. g. stories involving
  the weather)

4
ToM abilities in mammals

• Dogs are better mind-readers than chimpanzees
• Exp. points/taps/signals at one of the containers
  - dogs understand the signal
• Genetic component wolves reared by humans
  perform worse than dogs
• In the past 10 000 years, dogs were selected
  mostly based on their Theory of (Human) Mind
  abilities

5
Moral reasoning

• Piaget The moral judgment of the child (1932)
• Interviews about games rules
• Presented a moral dilemma, then asked the child
  to solve it

6
Kohlberg

• Modern reinterpretation of Piaget
• Level 1. Preconventional ( preoperational)
• Actions are judged by their outcome
• Level 2. Conventional ( concrete op.)
• Actions are judged by the intentions of the
  actor, social rules are becoming important
• Level 3. Postconventional ( formal op.)
• Rules can sometimes be broken in order to follow
  moral principles