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标题：Atypical reasoning about living things in children with autism or Asperger syndrom
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作者：Nathalie Bedoin ; Elodie Vulliez
期刊名称：Revue de Neuropsychologie Neurosciences Cognitives et Cliniques
印刷版ISSN：2101-6739
电子版ISSN：2102-6025
出版年度：2009
卷号：1
期号：4
页码：279-287
DOI：10.1684/nrp.2009.0048
出版社：John Libbey Eurotext
摘要：Figures See all figures Authors Nathalie Bedoin , Elodie Vulliez Laboratoire dynamique du langage, UMR 5596 CNRS, Université de Lyon, Service de rééducation, Hôpital Marrel, Rive de Gier Key words: autism, concept, development, teleology, theory of mind DOI : 10.1684/nrp.2009.0048 Page(s) : 279-87 Published in: 2009 This research investigates atypical conceptual knowledge and explanatory systems of high-functioning autistic and Asperger children. Despite the absence of mental retardation, they suffer from a deficit in Theory-of-Mind (ToM). We assume that many aspects of their intuitive theories are unclear, not only regarding the understanding of false believes as assessed by standard procedures. We propose a new test, which has been previously used to address intuitive knowledge of normal adults about within- and between-species living things interactions (Bedoin & Vulliez, 2008). Subjects were required to decide if they accepted or refused various teleological assertions to account for the physical appearance or functional characteristics of animals or plants. We tested 8 high functioning autistic and Asperger children (mean age = 12 years), 8-to-9-year-old healthy children (n = 20), and 11-year-old healthy children (n = 20). The analysis revealed that every group agreed to account for animals’ characteristics (but not plants’ characteristics) by evoking the benefit provided to young subjects of their species (but not outside their species). However, 11-year-old controls, like normal adults, but not patients, were inclined towards explanations that evoked an advantage for other species to motivate the existence of attributes in plants, but not in animals. This teleological bias led to reason about plants as if they were artefacts. It compensated perhaps for a lack of knowledge about vegetal kinds. The patients were not biased by this inter-categorical teleological reasoning, which is known to be associated with the notion of intention, that they almost ignore due to their deficit in ToM. Additionally, the prominence of their biological theory about the natural world might have precluded this bias. Therefore, the ToM deficit and the prominence of folkbiology in the autism spectrum disorder lead to atypical believes about interactions among living things and the natural world balance.
关键词：autism; concept; development; teleology; theory of mind