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Advancing Advanced Mind‐reading Tests: Empathic Accuracy in Adults with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder
Author(s) -
Roeyers Herbert,
Buysse Ann,
Ponnet Koen,
Pichal Bert
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/1469-7610.00718
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , pervasive developmental disorder , feeling , reading (process) , theory of mind , conversation , empathy , asperger syndrome , cognition , social cognition , developmental disorder , cognitive psychology , autism , social psychology , communication , neuroscience , political science , law
Research using advanced but static mind‐reading tests with high‐functioning adults with a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) provided evidence for subtle social cognitive deficits. In the present study, adults with PDD were unimpaired on such tasks, relative to individually matched normal controls. Significant differences between the two groups were, however, found on a more naturalistic empathic accuracy task developed for this study. Participants viewed two videotaped interactions that both depicted a male and female stranger having an initial conversation and were asked to infer the unexpressed thoughts and feelings of the four targets. Subjects with PDD performed significantly worse on the second video. These findings suggest that the mind‐reading deficit of a subgroup of able adults with PDD may only be apparent when a sufficiently complex naturalistic assessment method is being used.