In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them. A theory of mind includes the knowledge that others' beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, and thoughts may be different from one's own. Possessing a functional theory of mind is crucial for success in everyday human social interactions. People utilize a theory of mind when analyzing, judging, and inferring others' behaviors. The discovery and development of theory of mind primarily came from studies done with animals and infants. Factors including drug and alcohol consumption, language development, cognitive delays, age, and culture can affect a person's capacity to display theory of mind. Having a theory of mind is similar to but not identical with having the capacity for empathy or sympathy.
Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen is a British clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow of Trinity College.
A block design test is a subtest on many IQ test batteries used as part of assessment of human intelligence. It is thought to tap spatial visualization ability and motor skill. The test-taker uses hand movements to rearrange blocks that have various color patterns on different sides to match a pattern. The items in a block design test can be scored both by accuracy in matching the pattern and by speed in completing each item.
Mind-blindness, mindblindness or mind blindness is a theory initially proposed in 1990 that claims that all autistic people have a lack or developmental delay of theory of mind (ToM), meaning they are unable to attribute mental states to others. According to the theory, a lack of ToM is considered equivalent to a lack of both cognitive and affective empathy. In the context of the theory, mind-blindness implies being unable to predict behavior and attribute mental states including beliefs, desires, emotions, or intentions of other people. The mind-blindness theory asserts that children who delay in this development will often develop autism.
The Sally–Anne test is a psychological test originally conceived by Daniel Dennett, used in developmental psychology to measure a person's social cognitive ability to attribute false beliefs to others. Based on the earlier ground-breaking study by Wimmer and Perner (1983), the Sally–Anne test was so named by Simon Baron-Cohen, Alan M. Leslie, and Uta Frith (1985) who developed the test further; in 1988, Leslie and Frith repeated the experiment with human actors and found similar results.
Christopher Donald Frith FRS, FMedSci, FBA, FAAAS is a British psychologist and professor emeritus at the Wellcome Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London. He is also an affiliated research worker at the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, an honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy and a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
The weak central coherence theory (WCC), also called the central coherence theory (CC), suggests that a specific perceptual-cognitive style, loosely described as a limited ability to understand context or to "see the big picture", underlies the central issue in autism and related autism spectrum disorder. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, repetitive behaviours, restricted interests, and sensory processing issues.
Dame Uta Frith is a German-British developmental psychologist and emeritus professor in cognitive development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London (UCL). She pioneered much of the current research into autism and dyslexia. Her book Autism: Explaining the Enigma introduced the cognitive neuroscience of autism. She is credited with creating the Sally–Anne test along with fellow scientists Alan Leslie and Simon Baron-Cohen. Among students she has mentored are Tony Attwood, Maggie Snowling, Simon Baron-Cohen and Francesca Happé.
Alan M. Leslie is a Scottish psychologist and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive science at Rutgers University, where he directs the Cognitive Development Laboratory (CDL) and is co-director of the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science (RUCCS) along with Ernest Lepore.
Geraldine Dawson is an American child clinical psychologist, specializing in autism. She has conducted research on early detection, brain development, and treatment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and collaborated on studies of genetic risk factors in autism. Dawson is William Cleland Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and professor of psychology and neuroscience, former director, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and founding director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development at Duke University Medical Center. Dawson was president of the International Society for Autism Research, a scientific and professional organization devoted to advancing knowledge about autism spectrum disorders. From 2008 to 2013, Dawson was research professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was chief science officer for Autism Speaks. Dawson also held the position of adjunct professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and is professor emerita of psychology at University of Washington. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Society, American Psychological Association, International Society for Autism Research, and the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
The relationship between autism and memory, specifically memory functions in relation to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is an ongoing topic of research. ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by social communication and interaction impairments, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior. In this article, the word autism is used to refer to the whole range of conditions on the autism spectrum, which are not uncommon.
Empathy quotient (EQ) is a psychological self-report measure of empathy developed by Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. EQ is based on a definition of empathy that includes cognition and affect.
Beate Marianne E Hermelin,, affectionately known as Ati, was a German-born experimental psychologist, who worked in the UK and was a pioneer in the experimental study of autism. Her numerous scientific publications span five decades.
Neil O'Connor was an experimental psychologist, born in Geraldton, Western Australia. He died in 1997 after a traffic incident.
Francesca Gabrielle Elizabeth Happé is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. Her research concerns autism spectrum conditions, specifically the understanding social cognitive processes in these conditions.
Wild Boy is a 2003 novel by English author Jill Dawson and published by Sceptre. Set in Paris at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it is a fictional retelling of the story of Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron.
The history of autism spans over a century; autism has been subject to varying treatments, being pathologized or being viewed as a beneficial part of human neurodiversity. The understanding of autism has been shaped by cultural, scientific, and societal factors, and its perception and treatment change over time as scientific understanding of autism develops.
David Christopher Miedzianik is an English autistic poet and writer. His writings portray the more difficult aspects of autism. Additionally, most of his poems focus on social difficulties that he experiences. He is unemployed, but writes about how he wants to work and find love. Miedzianik writes about specific examples pertaining to those desires. Miedzianik's works have been extensively analyzed by noted autism researchers, who describe his writing as thoughtful, sophisticated, and displaying an unusually strong awareness of his social difficulties.
Caetextia is a term and concept first coined by psychologists Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell to describe a chronic disorder that manifests as a context blindness in people on the autism spectrum. It was specifically used to designate the most dominant manifestation of autistic behaviour in higher-functioning individuals. Griffin and Tyrell also suggested that caetextia "is a more accurate and descriptive term for this inability to see how one variable influences another, particularly at the higher end of the spectrum, than the label of 'Asperger's syndrome'".
The theory of the double empathy problem is a psychological and sociological theory first coined in 2012 by Damian Milton, an autistic autism researcher. This theory proposes that many of the difficulties autistic individuals face when socializing with non-autistic individuals are due, in part, to a lack of mutual understanding between the two groups, meaning that most autistic people struggle to understand and empathize with non-autistic people, whereas most non-autistic people also struggle to understand and empathize with autistic people. This lack of understanding may stem from bidirectional differences in communication style, social-cognitive characteristics, and experiences between autistic and non-autistic individuals, but not necessarily an inherent deficiency. Recent studies have shown that most autistic individuals are able to socialize, communicate effectively, empathize well, and display social reciprocity with most other autistic individuals. This theory and subsequent findings challenge the commonly held belief that the social skills of autistic individuals are inherently impaired, as well as the theory of "mind-blindness" proposed by prominent autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen in the mid-1980s, which suggested that empathy and theory of mind are universally impaired in autistic individuals.
