Animal faux pas: two legs good four legs bad for theory of mind, but not in the broad autism spectrum
Abstract
Research shows that the general population varies with regards to both autistic traits and theory of mind (ToM) ability. Other work has shown that autistic individuals may not under-perform on ToM tests when the agent of evaluation is anthropomorphic rather than typically human. Two studies examined the relation between ToM and autistic trait profiles in over 650 adults using either the standard Faux Pas Recognition Test (FPT) or an anthropomorphised version (FPTa). Results showed that autistic trait profiles were related to faux pas detection ability in the FPT but not the FPTa. Furthermore, while those with the broad autism phenotype scored significantly worse than those who were typically developed on the FPT, scores did not significantly differ on the FPTa. These findings add to a growing body of work suggesting that ToM ability is not at a global deficit in those on the autistic spectrum, but may relate to the mindreading of specifically human agents.Citation
Atherton, G and Cross, L. (2019) Animal Faux Pas: Two Legs Good Four Legs Bad for Theory of Mind, but Not in the Broad Autism Spectrum, Journal of Genetic Psychology, 2019, DOI 10.1080/00221325.2019.1593100.Publisher
Taylor & FrancisJournal
Journal of Genetic PsychologyType
Journal articleLanguage
enISSN
0022-1325ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1080/00221325.2019.1593100
Scopus Count
Collections
The following licence applies to the copyright and re-use of this item:
- Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States