title: "Making it explicit" makes a difference: evidence for a dissociation of spontaneous and intentional level 1 perspective taking in high-functioning autism.
abstract: The ability of perspective taking is a fundamental aspect of social cognition. The ability to decide, what another person can or cannot see is referred to as "level 1 perspective taking." This is thought to be a process that we can make use of intentionally, but which also takes place spontaneously. Autism is characterized by impairments of social interaction, which are thought to be related to deficits in implicit rather than explicit perspective taking. In order to assess both levels of processing with regard to perspective taking, we employed an established task in patients and controls. Our results demonstrate that both groups engage in spontaneous level 1 perspective taking. In contrast to controls, however, patients reacted more slowly if they had to verify the other's as compared to their own perspective, which shows that participants with high-functioning autism have selective difficulties in explicit, but not implicit, level 1 perspective taking. These findings demonstrate that while spontaneous level 1 perspective taking appears to be intact in autism, this ability is impaired in patients when used explicitly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany; Center for Cognitive Science, University of Freiburg, Germany. Electronic address: s.schwarzkopf@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schwarzkopf
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Leonhard
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schilbach
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany; Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine, Cognitive Neuroscience (INM3), Research Center Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vogeley
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Bert
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Timmermans
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D020817:Asperger Syndrome / Q000523:psychology; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013028:Space Perception; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: Asperger syndrome; Attention shift; High-functioning autism; Implicit processing; Visuospatial level 1 perspective taking