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Originally published in Science Express on 16 July 2009
Science 14 August 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5942, pp. 883 - 885
DOI: 10.1126/science.1176170
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Reports

Mindblind Eyes: An Absence of Spontaneous Theory of Mind in Asperger Syndrome

Atsushi Senju,1,* Victoria Southgate,1 Sarah White,2 Uta Frith2,3

Adults with Asperger syndrome can understand mental states such as desires and beliefs (mentalizing) when explicitly prompted to do so, despite having impairments in social communication. We directly tested the hypothesis that such individuals nevertheless fail to mentalize spontaneously. To this end, we used an eye-tracking task that has revealed the spontaneous ability to mentalize in typically developing infants. We showed that, like infants, neurotypical adults’ (n = 17 participants) eye movements anticipated an actor’s behavior on the basis of her false belief. This was not the case for individuals with Asperger syndrome (n = 19). Thus, these individuals do not attribute mental states spontaneously, but they may be able to do so in explicit tasks through compensatory learning.

1 Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK.
2 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
3 Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus University Hospital, Norrebrogade 44, Building 10 G, 800 Aarhus C, Denmark.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: a.senju{at}bbk.ac.uk

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