A mind-reading puzzle: Autistic people are more efficient at a theory-of-mind task

Theory of Mind (ToM) is essential to adapt in social situations; however, a ToM deficit might be involved in autism. To better understand how ToM reasoning affects problem solving in autistic and non-autistic individuals, we compared autistic and non-autistic children and adults in a series of problems presented in social and non-social framings, using an adapted version of a classical referential communication task. In the social framing, participants were asked to anticipate the behavior of an agent who might ignore some components of the scene. In the non-social framing, the task required participants to consider and ignore similar features of the scene, but an agent was not involved. Simply framing the task as a social one increased the difficulty, particularly for non-autistic participants. Interestingly, the framing had less of an impact on autistic participants, who showed better performance in the social task relative to non-autistics and maintained similar performance across framings. We propose that autistic participants might have translated the social instructions into a general rule that proved more efficient in this situation. Our findings suggest a critical distinction between ToM understanding and the continuous use of a ToM strategy in repeated situations.

Automated summary

Theory of Mind (ToM) is crucial for social adaptation, but a ToM deficit may exist in individuals with autism. To investigate the impact of ToM reasoning on problem solving, autistic and non-autistic children and adults were compared in a referential communication task with social and non-social framings. Non-autistic participants experienced greater difficulty when the task was framed socially, while autistic participants showed better performance in the social task and consistent performance across framings. This suggests that autistic individuals may have employed a more efficient general rule based on social instructions. These findings highlight the distinction between ToM understanding and the continuous use of a ToM strategy in repeated situations.