title: Behavioral measures of implicit theory of mind in adults with high functioning autism.
abstract: Theory of mind (ToM) research has shown that adults with high functioning autism (HFA) demonstrate typical performance on tasks that require explicit belief reasoning, despite clear social difficulties in everyday life situations. In the current study, we used implicit belief manipulations that are task-irrelevant and therefore less susceptible to strategies. In a ball-detection task, it was shown that neurotypical individuals detect a ball faster if an agent believed the ball was present. We predicted that adults with high functioning autism (HFA) would not show this effect. While we found a numerical difference in the hypothesized direction, we did not find a reliable group effect. Interestingly, the implicit ToM-index showed a strong negative correlation with both self-reported and observational measures of social difficulties in the HFA group. This suggests that the relationship between implicit ToM reasoning and the symptomatology of HFA might be subtler than assumed.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Experimental Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium.
authors.forename: Eliane
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Deschrijver
authors.affiliation: a Department of Experimental Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium.
authors.forename: Lara
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bardi
authors.affiliation: b Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium.
authors.forename: Jan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Wiersema
authors.affiliation: a Department of Experimental Psychology , Ghent University , Ghent , Belgium.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brass
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012938:Social Perception; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Belief reasoning; Explicit theory of mind; High functioning autism; Implicit theory of mind