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Coherence as an Explanation for Theory of Mind Task Failure in Autism
Author(s) -
Kamawar Deepthi,
Garfield Jay L.,
De Villiers Jill
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0017.00198
Subject(s) - connectionism , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , task (project management) , psychology , cognitive psychology , autism , cognitive science , epistemology , computer science , cognition , philosophy , developmental psychology , mathematics , economics , statistics , management , neuroscience
O’Loughlin and Thagard (2000) present a specific computational implementation of the idea that the problems encountered by a child with autism in classic False Belief tasks derive from a failure to maintain coherence among multiple propositions. They argue that this failure can be explained as a structural feature of a connectionist network attempting to maintain coherence. The current paper criticizes this implementation because it falsely predicts that the same children will have a parallel problem with the False Photographs task. The fact that the content of representations makes a difference while the structure remains constant casts doubt upon their claim.