title: Approximating implicit and explicit mentalizing with two naturalistic video-based tasks in typical development and autism spectrum disorder.
abstract: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been proposed to show greater impairments in implicit than explicit mentalizing. To test this proposition, we developed two comparable naturalistic tasks for a performance-based approximation of implicit and explicit mentalizing in 28 individuals with ASD and 23 matched typically developed (TD) participants. Although both tasks were sensitive to the social impairments of individuals with ASD, implicit mentalizing was not more dysfunctional than explicit mentalizing. In TD participants, performance on the tasks did not correlate with each other, whereas in individuals with ASD they were highly correlated. These findings suggest that implicit and explicit mentalizing processes are separable in typical development. In contrast, in individuals with ASD implicit and explicit mentalizing processes are similarly impaired and closely linked suggesting a lack of developmental specification of these processes in ASD.
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence 'Languages of Emotion', Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195, Berlin, Germany, gabriela.rosenblau@yale.edu.
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rosenblau
authors.forename: Dorit
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kliemann
authors.forename: Hauke R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Heekeren
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dziobek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology; D014743:Videotape Recording; D055815:Young Adult