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The relation between theory of mind and rule use: evidence from persons with autism‐spectrum disorders
Author(s) -
David Zelazo Philip,
Jacques Sophie,
Burack Jacob A.,
Frye Douglas
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
infant and child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.87
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1522-7219
pISSN - 1522-7227
DOI - 10.1002/icd.304
Subject(s) - theory of mind , psychology , autism spectrum disorder , metric (unit) , autism , relation (database) , asperger syndrome , response inhibition , task (project management) , cognition , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , operations management , management , database , computer science , economics
Cognitive complexity and control (CCC) theory, which is a theory of executive function and its development, provides a metric for comparing task demands across domains. This metric allowed us to examine the relation between theory of mind (ToM) and one aspect of executive function, rule use, in 22 individuals with autism‐spectrum disorders, including 12 severely impaired (VIQ⩽40; mean VMA=4.07 years; mean CA=17.47) and 10 mildly impaired (VIQ>40; mean VMA=6.15 years; mean CA=10.30) individuals. For severely impaired individuals, ToM performance was unrelated to rule use, r =−0.40, p >0.05). However, for mildly impaired individuals, the correlation between ToM and rule use was high, r =0.82, p <0.01). This latter finding challenges the hypothesis of a domain‐specific, ToM module, and suggests instead that poor performance on ToM tasks may be attributed to a more general difficulty using higher order rules to integrate 2 incompatible perspectives into a single system of inferences. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.