title: Nonspecificity and theory of mind: new evidence from a nonverbal false-sign task and children with autism spectrum disorders.
abstract: Understanding of false belief has long been considered to be a crucial aspect of "theory of mind" that can be explained by a domain-specific mechanism. We argue against this claim using new evidence from a nonverbal false representation task (false-sign task) with typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Experiments 1 and 2 showed that typically developing children (mean age=62.67months) were equivalent in their performance across nonverbal and verbal forms of both the false-belief and false-sign tasks. Results for these two misrepresentation tasks differed from the results of an outdated representation task ("false"-photograph task). Experiment 3 showed that children with ASD had difficulties with the false representation tasks, and this could not be explained by executive functioning or language impairments. These findings support the view that children with ASD might not have a specific theory-of-mind deficit.
authors: Wales Autism Research Centre, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK. Electronic address: llsi@hku.hk.
authors: Lai-Sang
authors: LS
authors: Iao
authors: Wales Autism Research Centre, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK.
authors: Susan R
authors: SR
authors: Leekam
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D056345:Theory of Mind
keywords: Autism spectrum disorders; Executive function; False sign; Language; Representational understanding; Theory of mind