Abstract
Compared the performance of autistic and mentally retarded subjects, all of whom had passed a standard first-order test of false belief, on a new second-order belief task 12 autistic and 12 mentally retarded subjects, matched on verbal mental age (assessed by PPVT and a sentence comprehension subtest of the CELF) and full-scale IQ were given two trials of a second-order reasoning task which was significantly shorter and less complex than the standard task used in all previous research. The majority of subjects in both groups passed the new task, and were able to give appropriate justifications to their responses. No group differences were found in performance on the control or test questions. Findings are interpreted as evidence for the role of information processing factors rather than conceptual factors in performance on higher order theory of mind tasks.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (1987).Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder (3rd ed., rev.). Washington DC: Author.
Baron-Cohen, S. (1989). The autistic child's theory of mind: A case of specific developmental delay.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 285–298.
Baron-Cohen, S. (1993). From attention-goal psychology to belief-desire psychology: The development of a theory of mind, and its dysfunction. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.),Understanding other minds: Perspectives from autism (pp. 59–82). Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”?Cognition, 21, 37–46.
Bowler, D. M. (1992). “Theory of mind” in Asperger's syndrome.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 877–893.
Dawson, G., & Fernald, M. (1987). Perspective-taking ability and its relationship to the social behavior of autistic children.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 17, 487–498.
Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1988). Autistic children's understanding of seeing, knowing and believing.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 315–324.
Oswald, D. P., & Ollendick, T. (1989). Role taking and social competence in autism and mental retardation.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 19, 119–138.
Ozonoff, S., Pennington, B. F., & Rogers, S. J. (1991). Executive function deficits in high-functioning autistic individuals: Relationships to theory of mind.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32, 1081–1105.
Ozonoff, S., Rogers, S. J., & Pennington, B. F. (1991). Asperger's syndrome: Evidence of an empirical distinction from high-functioning autism.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32, 1107–1122.
Perner, J. (1988). Higher-order beliefs and intentions in children's understanding of social interaction. In J. W. Astington, P. L. Harris, & D. R. Olson (Eds.),Developing theories of mind (pp. 271–294). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Perner, J., Frith, U., Leslie, A. M., & Leckam, S. (1989). Exploration of the autistic child's theory of mind: Knowledge, belief, and communication.Child Development, 60, 689–700.
Perner, J., & Wimmer, H. (1985). “John thinks that Mary thinks that...” Attribution of second-order beliefs by 5-to 10-year-old children.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 39, 437–471.
Prior, M., Dahlstrom, B., & Squires, T. (1990). Autistic children's knowledge of thinking and feeling states in other people.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 31, 587–602.
Reed, T., & Paterson, C. (1990). A comparative study of autistic subjects' performance at two levels of visual and cognitive perspective taking.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 20, 555–568.
Semel, E., Wiig, E., & Secord, W. (1987).Clinical evaluation of language fundamentals—Revised. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corp.
Sullivan, K., Zaitchik, D., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (1994). Preschoolers can attribute second-order beliefs.Developmental Psychology, 30, 395–402.
Tager-Flusberg, H., & Sullivan, K. (1994). Predicting and explaining behavior: A comparison of autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception.Cognition, 13, 103–128.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (1RO1 DC 01234). We thank Jason Barker for his extensive help with this study. We are also very grateful to the schools where the study was conducted including the League School, and the public school systems in the following towns in Massachusetts: Hanover, Hanson, Hingham, Milton, Plymouth, and Rockland. We offer special thanks to Alan Dewey, Mary Dollar, Sandy D'Giacomo, Herman Fishbein, William Griffin, Nancy Kearns, Judy Monahan, Debbie Newhall, Cay Riley, Robert Sherman, and Kathy Staska for their continued support of our research.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tager-Flusberg, H., Sullivan, K. A second look at second-order belief attribution in autism. J Autism Dev Disord 24, 577–586 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172139
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172139