Search research articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Videos

Does the autistic child have a metarepresentational deficit?

S R Leekam¹, J Perner

¹Institute of Social and Applied Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K.

|September 1, 1991

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Cold plasma treatment influences the physiological parameters of millet.

Photosynthetica·2024

Same author

Haem-responsive gene transporter enables mobilization of host haem in ticks.

Open biology·2021

Same author

The development of change blindness: children's attentional priorities whilst viewing naturalistic scenes.

Developmental science·2009

Same author

Eye-movements reveal attention to social information in autism spectrum disorder.

Neuropsychologia·2008

Same author

Do people with autistic spectrum disorder show normal selection for attention? Evidence from change blindness.

British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953)·2006

Same author

A theory of implicit and explicit knowledge.

The Behavioral and brain sciences·2001

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Autistic children can understand false photographs, challenging the idea they lack metarepresentational ability. This suggests their difficulties with theory of mind may stem from other cognitive factors.

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Background:

The "theory of mind" (ToM) is crucial for social understanding.
A prominent hypothesis suggests autistic children have a "metarepresentational" deficit, impacting ToM.
This deficit is theorized to impair both mental and external representations.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether autistic children's difficulties with "theory of mind" stem from a "metarepresentational" deficit.
To test the hypothesis that a "metarepresentational" deficit affects understanding of external representations like photographs.

Main Methods:

Autistic children and neurotypical children (3-4 years old) completed a "false photograph" task.
This task, adapted from false belief tasks, assesses understanding of representations that misrepresent reality.

Related Experiment Videos

Performance was compared between the false photograph task and standard false belief tasks.

Main Results:

Neurotypical children found both false belief and false photograph tasks equally difficult.
Autistic children successfully passed the false photograph task.
Autistic children, however, failed the false belief task.

Conclusions:

The findings challenge the "metarepresentational" deficit theory (Leslie, 1987, 1988) as the sole explanation for autistic children's ToM difficulties.
Autistic children's ability to understand false photographs suggests a more nuanced understanding of "metarepresentation" is required.
Further research is needed to explore alternative explanations for ToM deficits in autism, considering different definitions of "metarepresentation" (e.g., Pylyshyn, 1978).