Castelli, Fulvia; (2002) Non-language based theory of mind tests in individuals with autism. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The main focus of this thesis was to investigate the nature of stimuli that provoke the pervasive tendency of people to explain behaviour in terms of mental states (Theory of Mind). A series of experimental tasks was designed to test the "Theory of Mind deficit" hypothesis with high-functioning individuals with autism by using non-verbal stimuli in both behavioural and neuroimaging (PET) studies. The first three experiments explored the most familiar visual inputs that trigger the attribution of mental states, namely, emotional faces. Children with autism were as able as controls to recognise basic emotions. The fourth and fifth experiments explored the simplest forms of visual information for judging agents' intentions, namely, their motion pattern. Children with autism were as able as controls to attribute an intended goal to an agent in the presence of its unsuccessful outcome. However, they responded similarly to younger control children in the presence of a sudden change in the agent's motion direction. This result is compatible with a developmental delay in autism in the representation of goal-directed motion. The last two PET studies were based on the perception of silent computer animations. These animations depicted two interacting characters whose movement patterns evoked descriptions either in mentalistic terms or in behavioural terms. The first PET study identified brain activity in healthy volunteers while watching the animations. The second PET study investigated brain activity in a group of adults with autism during the same task. Verbal descriptions of the animations showed a mentalising deficit in the autism group. Neuroimaging findings revealed that the autism group showed reduced activation and reduced functional connectivity in several areas of the previously identified mentalising network. These findings are evaluated in the context of the metarepresentational model and the Theory of Mind deficit hypothesis of autism, and suggestions for further research are discussed.

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