scholarly journals Detecting agents

2003 ◽  
Vol 358 (1431) ◽  
pp. 549-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan C. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Representational System ◽  
Input System ◽  
Advanced Theory Of Mind ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Communicative Abilities

This paper reviews a recent set of behavioural studies that examine the scope and nature of the representational system underlying theory–of–mind development. Studies with typically developing infants, adults and children with autism all converge on the claim that there is a specialized input system that uses not only morphological cues, but also behavioural cues to categorize novel objects as agents. Evidence is reviewed in which 12– to 15–month–old infants treat certain non–human objects as if they have perceptual/attentional abilities, communicative abilities and goal–directed behaviour. They will follow the attentional orientation of an amorphously shaped novel object if it interacts contingently with them or with another person. They also seem to use a novel object's environmentally directed behaviour to determine its perceptual/attentional orientation and object–oriented goals. Results from adults and children with autism are strikingly similar, despite adults' contradictory beliefs about the objects in question and the failure of children with autism to ultimately develop more advanced theory–of–mind reasoning. The implications for a general theory–of–mind development are discussed.

scholarly journals Comparison of the Advanced Theory of Mind Skills in Turkish Children with Autism and Typically Developing Children

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-316
Author(s):  
Alev Gİrli
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Turkish Children ◽  
Social Impairments ◽  
Advanced Theory Of Mind ◽  
The Social ◽  
Strange Stories Test

Theory of mind (ToM) has been applied in an attempt to explain the social impairments that characterize children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, an examination of several Turkish ToM studies revealed that ToM belief tests often have been used inappropriately to assess typically developing (TD) children and those adult versions of the Eyes Test and other ToM tests have been used inappropriately to assess adults with psychiatric disorders. Among the studies examined, none had used advanced ToM tests such as the Eyes Test and the Strange Stories Test to compare TD children and children with autism. The objective of this study was to examine the ToM levels attained by children with autism and TD children between the ages of 7 and 13 years, using the advanced ToM Strange Stories and Eyes tests. Compared with ASD children, TD children achieved higher scores on the Eyes and Strange Stories tests.

scholarly journals Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Can Attribute False Beliefs in a Spontaneous-Response Preferential-Looking Task

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Glenwright ◽  
Rose M. Scott ◽  
Elena Bilevicius ◽  
Megan Pronovost ◽  
Ana Hanlon-Dearman
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Children With Asd

An established body of literature indicates that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty understanding figurative language due to a deficit in theory of mind, or the ability to consider the beliefs of other people. Children with ASD tend to similarly fail traditional theory of mind tasks, which assess their ability to represent false beliefs. Our claim is, however, that these tasks involve cognitive processing demands that might mask false belief understanding because they require elicited responses. We examined whether children with ASD demonstrate false-belief understanding when tested with a spontaneous-response false belief task that measures children’s eye gaze durations. The two child participant groups were composed of 20 males with ASD (aged 3–9 years) and 20 typically developing males (aged 2–5 years) who were individually matched according to verbal mental age. Children with ASD and typically developing children listened to a change-of-location story accompanied by a book with matching and non-matching pictures. The final page showed the character searching for her object in a location that was either consistent or inconsistent with her belief. Both groups of children looked reliably longer at the belief-consistent picture, regardless of whether the character’s belief was true or false, though children with ASD were slower to do so. We suggest that a spontaneous-response assessment technique can potentially reveal figurative language comprehension in children with ASD in future research.

scholarly journals Scaling of Early Social Cognitive Skills in Typically Developing Infants and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (11) ◽  
pp. 3988-4000
Author(s):  
Katherine Ellis ◽  
Philippa Lewington ◽  
Laurie Powis ◽  
Chris Oliver ◽  
Jane Waite ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Sequence ◽  
Shared Intentionality

Abstract We delineate the sequence that typically developing infants pass tasks that assess different early social cognitive skills considered precursors to theory-of-mind abilities. We compared this normative sequence to performance on these tasks in a group of autistic (AUT) children. 86 infants were administered seven tasks assessing intention reading and shared intentionality (Study 1). Infants responses followed a consistent developmental sequence, forming a four-stage scale. These tasks were administered to 21 AUT children (Study 2), who passed tasks in the same sequence. However, performance on tasks that required following others’ eye gaze and cooperating with others was delayed. Findings indicate that earlier-developing skills provide a foundation for later-developing skills, and difficulties in acquiring some early social cognitive skills in AUT children.

Performance of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder on Advanced Theory of Mind Tasks

Autism ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ella Brent ◽  
Patricia Rios ◽  
Francesca Happé ◽  
Tony Charman
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Advanced Theory Of Mind

scholarly journals How Do Children Reason About Mirrors? A Comparison Between Adults, Typically Developed Children, and Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Soranzo ◽  
Marco Bertamini ◽  
Sarah Cassidy
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
The Other ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Teddy Bear ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The Right ◽  
And Inversion

The information about what one can see and what other people can see from different viewpoints is important. There are circumstances in which adults and children make systematic errors when predicting what is visible from their own or others’ viewpoints. This happens for example when reasoning about mirrors. We explored differences among three developmental groups: young adults (N=60) typically developing children (N=30); and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, N=30). We used an illustration of a top-down view of a room with a mirror on a wall (Room Observer and Mirror Perspective test: ROMP). Participants selected (circled on paper) which objects behind the observer in the room were visible, reflected from the mirror and from a given position (viewpoint). For half of each group, the observer in the room was described as a teddy bear; for the other half, it was described as a child. Overall, there were many errors in all groups, which we separate in errors of ignoring the viewpoint (same response to all three locations) and inversion errors (choosing objects on the left instead of the right or vice versa). In addition to the overall task difficulty, the ASD group made relatively more mistakes of ignoring the viewpoint compared to the other groups and underestimated how many objects were visible in the teddy bear condition that is when the viewpoint was an inanimate object. We suggest that this is related to a delay in theory of mind (ToM) development.

Limitations in social anticipation are independent of imaginative and Theory of Mind abilities in children with autism but not in typically developing children

Autism ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 604-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Jozef Angus ◽  
Marc de Rosnay ◽  
Patty Lunenburg ◽  
Mark Meerum Terwogt ◽  
Sander Begeer
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children

scholarly journals Theory of mind in children with and without autism spectrum disorder: Associations with the sibling constellation

Autism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole L Matthews ◽  
Wendy A Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Multiplex Families ◽  
Sibling Constellation ◽  
Older Siblings

The two prior studies that have examined associations between the sibling constellation and theory of mind in autism spectrum disorder yielded discrepant findings. Thus, efforts to better understand the sibling–theory of mind link in autism spectrum disorder are necessary. This study examined a sample of prekindergarten- and kindergarten-aged (i.e. 4–6 years) typically developing children ( n = 39) and verbal children with autism spectrum disorder ( n = 61). Sibling presence, number of siblings, and having younger and older siblings were positively associated with theory of mind in typically developing children, but not in the full sample of children with autism spectrum disorder. However, in the subgroup of children with autism spectrum disorder without sibling recurrence, the presence of at least one older sibling was positively associated with theory of mind. Findings expand previous limited research on the sibling–theory of mind link in children with autism spectrum disorder by demonstrating a potential difference in the influence of the sibling constellation between children from simplex and multiplex families.

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