Autism

Autism, or the Autistic Spectrum Disorder, is a developmental
psychological disorder that begins in the early stages of infancy and
affects a child's ability to develop social skills and engage in
social activities. Three current psychological/philosophical theories
attempt to explain autism as the result of certain cognitive
deficiencies. Each theory takes a different approach to the autistic
disorder and theorizes different causes. While no theory is without
its difficulties, each different approach to the autistic disorder has
played an important role in developing the philosophical understanding
of social cognition.

Autism is more prevalent, roughly four times more, in males than
females. As a disorder, it only has existed as a recognized clinical
entity for sixty years and recent research indicates that it is more
widespread in the population than is currently appreciated. Persons
with autism show various difficulties in social skills, cognitive
processing and other co-occurring behavioral and physical problems.
The latter include repetitive movements such as hand-waiving or
rocking, self-injurious behavior (in cases of extreme autism) and
problems with digestion. Autism has become a nationwide issue with
numbers of support groups, websites and research programs. Autism has
also become influential in many discussions within philosophical
psychology.

Autism has played a strong ancillary role in many debates concerning
social cognition, how it develops and its structure. Because persons
with autism lack the basic abilities to think about others,
understanding autism may give us a window into understanding much or
all of social cognition. Analogous to the role lesion studies and
other neuropsychological disorders play in our understanding of
cognition, brain structure and function and neural organization,
autism may provide valuable insight into social cognition. The study
of autism, with its specific constellation of behavioral and cognitive
deficiencies, may be able to highlight the structure, development and
nature of social cognition in general.

This article begins with the clinical definition of autism from the
DSM-IV, then discusses the role autism has played in three main
theories of cognition: Theory of Mind (hereafter ToM), Simulation
Theory and the Executive Control or Metacognitive theory. Finally,
there is a brief discussion of the role autism still plays in
understanding social cognition.

1. The Clinical Properties of Autism

Persons with autism show severely diminished or abnormal social
interaction and communication, as well as a restricted repertoire of
activities and interests (DSM-IV, p. 66). These symptoms can be mild,
seen in a lack of certain nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze
and gestures or any type of social interaction, or a more serious lack
of all reciprocal social interaction and other large impairments in
language development and language use. The autistic child may lack
close social ties or the abilities to act as "friends" normally with
other children. They also may prefer to play alone rather than with
others.

The DSM-IV provides the following checklist as a guide to diagnosing autism:

A. A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3), with at
least two from (1), and one each from (2) and (3):

1. qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested
by two of the following:

(a) marked impairment in the use of multiple non-verbal
behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures,
and gestures to regulate social interaction.

(b) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to
developmental level

(c) A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment,
interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., lack of showing,
bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)

(d) Lack of social reciprocity

2. qualitative impairments in communication as manifested in at
least one of the following:

(a) delay in, or total lack of, the development of
spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through
alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)

(b) in individuals with adequate speech, marked
impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with
others

(c) stereotyped and repetitive use of language or
idiosyncratic language

(d) lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or
social imitative play appropriate to developmental level

3. restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior,
interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the
following:

(a) encompassing preoccupation with one or more
stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal in
either intensity or in focus

(b) apparently inflexible adherence to specific,
nonfunctional routines or rituals

(c) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g.,
hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex body movements)

(d) persistent preoccupation with parts or objects

B. Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following
areas, with onset prior to age three years: (1) social interaction,
(2) language as used in social communication, or (3) symbolic or
imaginative play.

C. The disturbance is not better accounted for by Rett's disorder
or Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.

These guidelines intentionally lack specificity to account for the
wide variety of symptoms and severity found in cases of autism. One of
the more well-known cases of autism, is that of Temple Grandin, who
holds a PhD in animal science and teaches at Colorado State
University. Professor Grandin teaches classes and runs her own
business. These are not the kinds of accomplishments expected from a
person diagnosed with autism. The more stereotypical case is the child
who neither communicates with others nor seems to want to leave their
solitary world. Autism derives its name from the intense feeling one
gets of the "aloneness" of the autistic person. Even a brief survey of
the literature on autism would suffice to show that people diagnosed
with autism have varying degrees of impairment.

The clinical and diagnostic features of autism are given to give the
philosophical reader a more direct understanding of how clinicians
often view the disorder. While such issues are not typically germane
to philosophical discussions, they are important in understanding the
disorder.

2. Autism and Theory of Mind

Autism has played an important role in theories of cognition in
philosophical psychology. The first approach with which we will deal
is the Theory of Mind [ToM] approach to development and its treatment
of autism. The phrase "ToM approach" is used as a general marker for
that family of theories that takes our knowledge of other minds to be
innate and basic (See Baron Cohen, 1995; Carruthers, 1996; and
Botterill & Carruthers, 1999 for related ToM views on development and
autism). Further, the ToM approach often holds that ToM cognition is
subtended by modules of a sort. The work of Simon Baron-Cohen is
seminal and is generally taken to be the locus classicus of these
approaches.

The following example with help us to better understand the type of
socio-cognitive knowledge many theories of social cognition attempt to
explain. Imagine two close friends have just come back from a night of
trick-or-treating one Halloween and have commenced surveying the candy
they received. Sam, being an aficionado of hard candy, begins to
gather all those types of pieces into a pile. Sam's compatriot Alice,
on the other hand, is a connoisseur of chocolate and he is reminded of
this when he sees her collecting all the chocolates into a pile. As
Sam separates his candies from one another he mentions to Alice that
he would be willing to trade his chocolates for her candies.

This interaction depends upon the one person representing to
themselves the preferences of another. This is the sort of knowledge
that the that ToM studies. Sam knows that Alice likes chocolate. Alice
knows that Sam has chocolates and might be willing to trade. As this
example shows, understanding and recognizing the preferences, desires
and beliefs of others plays an important role in our interactions.

Baron-Cohen (1995) believes that our ability to mindread, or
understand the beliefs and desires of others and how they influence
subsequent behavior, is the result of four separate modules/mechanisms
working together in order to produce beliefs about what others know.
The mindreading system is broken down into the following four modules,
ID- the Intentionality Detector, EDD- Eye Direction-Detector, SAM- the
Shared Attention Mechanism, and the ToMM-Theory of Mind
Module/mechanism. Each of these four mechanisms line up, roughly, with
properties in the world, which are: volition (desires), perception,
shared attention and epistemic states (knowledge and belief).

The first mechanism Baron-Cohen describes is the Intentionality
Detector (ID) (Baron-Cohen, 1995, p. 32). The ID is a perceptual
device that interprets the motion of objects in terms of primitive
volitional mental states like goal and desire. A more general
rendering of this sort of interpretation would be "Object
wants/desires x." Humans use this because it makes sense of basic
animal behaviors like approach and avoidance. In order to interpret
motion in this way, one needs only two conceptual states: want and
goal. The ID is activated whenever there is any perceptual input that
might be identified as an agent. We also interpret certain stimuli in
the modality of touch, sound, and other modalities in an intentional
fashion (Baron-Cohen, 1995, p. 36). If we back up into something we
may take it to be a person, and thus say "pardon me." Only after we
verify that it is not a person do we look around to make sure no one
was watching us talk to no one in particular.

The second device is the Eye Detection Device (EDD) (Baron-Cohen,
1995, p. 38). The EDD works only through the visual sensory mode. It
has three functions: detecting the presence of eyes or eyelike
devices; computing which direction the eyes are pointing; and
inferring that if another organism's eyes are directed toward a thing,
then it sees that thing. It is important on Baron-Cohen's view that
the third function be seen as giving the organism with the EDD the
ability to posit mental states about the organism it is viewing. A new
mental state, "one of knowing or believing that some other creature
may have visual access to" is added to the basic/primitive mental
states of the child. The second and third functions of the EDD are
important for Baron-Cohen. Baron-Cohen believes that it is highly
adaptive to be able to make a judgment about another being's
knowledge, such as when the tiger has prey in its sights (see
Baron-Cohen, 1995 pp. 32-36). If one calculates that the tiger has its
eyes trained on a friend, and one uses their knowledge that eyes are
used to see (extrapolation from self and third function of the EDD),
then one should realize that the tiger sees one's friend and probably
will want to attack. This is called a dyadic representation: Agent
sees X. The ID and EDD can form dyadic representations that are
relations between two objects or people. It resembles the story told
about the tiger. With the ID one can interpret the tiger as an agent.
If the agent sees ones friend, and eating is a desire of the tiger,
then one might realize that my friend is in danger.

The third mechanism we will deal with is the shared attention
mechanism, or SAM (Baron-Cohen, 1995 pp. 44-50). The SAM's sole
function is building triadic representations. The triadic
representation expresses a relation between object, Self, and agent.
The representation is put generally thus: [I-see- (tiger-sees my
friend)]. The SAM compares input from the ID and the EDD and forms
these triadic representations. Continuing the tiger example, with a
slight modification, will help. If one sees the tiger prowling (ID),
sees your friend some yards away, and sees that the tiger is in a
position to see your friend (EDD), the SAM can now extrapolate that
both the tiger and you see your friend. Furthermore, if you know that
tigers like to hunt humans, you might then warn your friend of his
impending lunch date.

In this scenario the SAM makes available the ID's inference that the
tiger has a goal, which one interprets through experience, to the EDD
and then reads the eye direction in terms of the agent's inferred
goals. With this information one might surmise, according to the
example, that the tiger would, more than likely, eat your buddy. After
reaching this conclusion one may yell to try and warn your friend of
her danger. With all of this in place we can see that this use of
primitive representations could be very adaptive and helpful in
navigating through a world that has agents who act with goal directed
activity.

The final mechanism in Baron-Cohen's architecture is the Theory of
Mind Module/Mechanism (ToMM) (Baron-Cohen, 1995 pp. 50-55). The ToMM
has a number of distinct functions. The ToMM is a cognitive system
that allows the human to posit a wide range of mental states from
observed behavior— to employ a theory of mind in parsing the behavior
of others. We learn that upon seeing a desired item, ceteris paribus,
people will likely try to get that item. We also learn that people can
often misrepresent the world and that these false-beliefs might lead
to behaviors that are explainable only in terms of this false belief.
The ToMM is the one mechanism/module that we can utilize in order to
understand and codify what we learn about mental/epistemic states. The
ToMM gives us the ability to represent epistemic states. These
epistemic states include believing, pretending, and dreaming. The
final responsibility of the ToMM is be able to put the various
epistemic states together to allow us to understand how these pieces
work together in mental life. The ToMM has a grand job according to
Baron-Cohen: "It has the dual function of representing the set of
epistemic mental states and turning all this mentalistic knowledge
into a useful theory" (Baron-Cohen, p. 51).

The ToMM has multiple functions. It first processes representations of
propositional attitudes of the form: [Agent-Attitude-"Proposition"].
An example is "Selma believes that it is wintery." This is a different
ability than having a mental representation of, "It is wintery today."
It differs because one's belief about Selma is a representation of
what one takes her to believe about the world. Having these sorts of
representations is crucial to the ability to represent epistemic
mental states. The ToMM also allows us to infer that a person will
attempt to obtain what they desire if they believe that they are
likely to succeed.

For many ToM researchers, the problems persons with autism show in a
variety of ToM tasks is evidence for the innate basis of our
cognitions about other minds. For example, persons with autism do
poorly on the false-belief task. Persons with autism typically use
less mental state attribution in their speech compared with average
functioning persons and IQ matched developmentally delayed children.
Persons with autism also fail to recognize surprise based emotions in
others (Harris, 1989). However, persons with autism do show preserved
cognitive function in areas as diverse as mathematics, music and
mnemonic capacities. These preserved cognitive abilities in persons
with autism support a dissociation which furthers the case that ToM
knowledge is separate, and thus likely etiologically different, from
other cognitions.

The ToM approach generally finds socio-cognitive knowledge to be
innate and highly structured. It is not without its problems, however.
Some argue (Fodor, 1998) that the modularity relied upon as a basis
for the explanation is not plausible given the nature of modules.
Further, persons with autism show a wide range of socio-cognitive
abilities (high and low functioning persons with autism) that seems to
be further evidence against the modular nature of social cognition. As
a result, some argue that other theories provide better explanations
of the autistic disorder.

3. Executive Control/Metacognitive Approaches to Autism

An alternative to the ToM view of knowledge and development is known
as the Executive Control or Metacognitive theory. Executive Control
Theorists propose that our ability to understand the mental states of
others is the result of the development and use of more general
cognitive and metacognitive processes such as metarepresentation, the
self monitoring cognitive activity and problem solving.
Metarepresentation is the ability that our minds have to represent a
representation or have beliefs about beliefs. So, on Executive Control
theory, to represent to myself a belief state of someone else, i.e. "I
believe my friend sees my chocolate is in the bowl," one does so with
the understanding that one is representing the belief state of
another. According to the Executive Control view, these highly complex
cognitions require certain cognitive resources which develop over time
and practice. Furthermore, the ability to represent the mental states
of others is not native. The metarepresentation of another's epistemic
state is the result of applying general cognitive strategies and
abilities within a specific domain.

On the Executive Control approach the mind is a domain general
information processor able to utilize a wide variety of cognitive
resources across a number of domains in solving problems. Executive
Control models of cognition and cognitive development state that most
of our upper level cognitive abilities are subtended by the same basic
sets of cognitive resources. Our ability to pretend, to problem solve
and anticipate the actions of others based on inferred thoughts we
take a person to have all stem from basic general cognitive abilities.
We use the same sets of cognitive resources to solve problems in math,
the social arena and learning our own phone number. Understanding
others' behaviors in a social setting is particular problem that
humans must face. In order to understand this arena, we simply use
these other cognitive skills within the social domain.

Executive Control models rely on a traditional psychological division
of labor in the mind that separates memory into long-term memory (LTM)
and short-term or working memory (STM). We also have certain cognitive
abilities such as the development and use of certain problem solving
strategies and the ability to metarepresent. In addition to the
strategies one uses to solve problems, one must also be able to
generate a plan or method of solving problems that one can implement.
As such, the mind is generally able to organize and reorganize
activities as a person solves a problem. "Executive function is
defined as the ability to maintain appropriate behaviors such as
planning, impulse control, inhibition of prepotent but relevant
responses, set maintenance, organized search, and flexibility of
thought and action" (Ozonoff, et al., 1991, p. 1083). For example,
since Alice (a teacher) knows that she wants to be home by 3:00 this
afternoon, she realizes that she must finish up the writing she's
scheduled for today. She must also meet with students. If she realizes
that student meetings tap her energy leaving her unsuitable for
writing, she must then plan to write before meetings if she wants to
accomplish her goals.

According to the executive control model, in certain problem solving
situations we are able to monitor our strategies for result and
economy and make changes with these goals in mind. In the above case,
Alice might simply schedule meetings on days that she does not intend
to write so that she might more effectively write on the other days.
We can also monitor our performance in reaching certain goals. If it
turns out that the division-of-academic-labor plan is not working,
Alice may alter that plan. She might even inhibit the tendency they
have to allow other factors of their job to take time away from
writing. If she stumbles onto a procedure that works well in getting
them "primed" to write, she might adopt its use. There are many tests
used to evaluate our executive control abilities, but the problem
confronting experimentalists is that it is often hard to develop a
task that reliably taps one set of skills or abilities. However, there
are some direct tests, one of the more famous of which is the Tower of
Hanoi Puzzle, which researchers rely on to test executive abilities.

In the Tower of Hanoi tests, participants follow certain rules in
order to accomplish the task of moving the stack of discs from one
area to the next. Imagine that you are presented with three poles the
rightmost of which has three discs of differing sizes. The goal is
then to move the configuration of discs you are presented with,
largest disc on the bottom followed by the next smallest on top and
then the smallest on top of that, to the leftmost pole. You are told
that while you accomplish this task you can only move one disc at a
time, you cannot place a larger disc onto a smaller one and that you
need to accomplish the move in the fewest possible number of moves
possible. As you might imagine, initial solutions usually involve
mistakes and a great many more moves than is necessary. Persons with
poor executive control (children, patients with certain frontal lobe
problems, persons with autism, etc.) typically perform poorly on the
Tower of Hanoi task. The reason for these failures is clear, according
to the Executive Control theorist.

To perform well on the tower task requires the ability to plan a
solution. It also requires remembering all the necessary rules that
constrain choice. This task also measures the inhibition of prepotent
responses, the first of which is to just start moving the discs over
to the leftmost pole. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the
wisest first move. If it is the case that persons with autism
typically do poorer on this task, this shows that they have poor
executive control abilities. There has been some early research that
showed persons with autism to do poorly on executive control tasks
(Ozonoff, S., Pennington, B. and Rogers, S., 1991), but recent
research is beginning to weaken this conclusion (Ozonoff, S. and
Strayer, D., (2001).

Other tests of Executive Control function include a variety of card
sorting tasks that require the participant to sort the cards based on
color, shape, category, etc. Participants are not told the rule for
sorting that will be used during the test. They must figure it out as
a result of the response from the experimenter affirming or denying
the given response. For example, a set of cards will have animals and
artifacts that are colored either red or blue. If the rule the
experimenter is using is based on color, the participant, provided
there are no conditions preventing the learning of the rule, will
figure that the proper rule is "like colored cards with like colored
cards." However, at a certain point during the test, after the
participant has shown they are using the proper rule, the rule changes
and requires that we sort according to object type (artifact or
natural object). In order to succeed, the participant must become
aware of this rule change and alter their responses accordingly. This
test focuses on strategy, perseverance, and the inhibition of
prepotent responses and flexibility of action. As with the Tower of
Hanoi puzzle, persons with poor overall executive control do poorly on
such tasks. While the abilities tested in the Tower of Hanoi and card
sorting tasks are certainly necessary for the development of our
understanding of other minds, they do not represent the full
complement of skills required for awareness of the thoughts of others.
There are still other abilities and skills necessary.

On the Executive Control theory, social knowledge comes from our
ability to pretend which allows us to metarepresent. Pretence, for
many Executive Control theorists, is critically important to the
development of metarepresentation (Jarrold et al., 1993). The skills
involved with pretence are exactly the same skills required when we
begin to think about other minds. When we engage in pretence we are
able to divorce the representation of the object from the object
itself: the representation becomes decoupled. This allows children the
crucial move that separates representation from the object. Once this
ability is practiced, the child then realizes that the representation
of the object is different from the object itself. Upon the
realization that the mind represents and can have representations
about the world that are not tied directly to the world (i.e.
pretending the hall runner is a parking lot for cars) they are then
able to metarepresent a variety of epistemic states.

In order to self-represent the belief state of another, children must
be able to understand that they themselves hold representations of the
world. They further understand that others have the same types of
relations to the world with their thoughts. Children can then create a
metarepresentation of the person who has some sort of perceptual
contact with the world and then, based on that metarepresentation, can
predict what that person would do in a given situation. For instance,
if Sam knows that Alice saw him hide his candy in the box under his
bed, then he could suspect that she might go to the hiding spot if she
wants some chocolate. Such metarepresentational abilities also allow
us to recognize the so-called "false-belief" states of others. Sam
must be able to recognize that Alice saw him put the chocolate in the
box under his bed, know that he changed the hiding spot unbeknownst to
her and realize that she wouldn't know that the hiding spot had
changed since she never saw me move the chocolate. She would have a
false-belief based on his particular epistemic relation to the word
that he realizes to be inaccurate. Understanding that someone has a
false belief also requires that the user have cognitive control over
the contents of his mind so that he does not confuse his own beliefs
about the world with what they take others to believe. Only after
these ancillary abilities are developed can the child succeed in
recognizing the false-beliefs of others. Note that these complex
chains of thought require a large working memory span that tracks not
only my wants (to keep the chocolate for myself), but also the desires
and beliefs of another (Alice wants the chocolate and believes it's
where Sam first hid it).

A result of this particular view about cognition, development and our
metarepresentational abilities is a markedly different approach and
explanation of the disorder autism than we encountered with the ToM
approach. Instead of taking the root problem of autism to be due to a
failure of some mechanism/module dedicated to the processing of
certain social stimuli, the metacognitive approach finds that autism
is the result of an inadequate working memory, which allows us to
metarepresent (Keenan, 2000). The autistic disorder is the result of a
failing of the Executive Control mechanism responsible for inhibiting
certain responses, problems in working memory, recall and inflexible
and perseverative problem-solving strategies (Ozonoff, et al., 1991).
The failure of persons with autism on typical false-belief tasks is
the result of being unable to differentiate their own views from
another's during recall (Hughes, 2002). They might also adopt the
improper strategy of relying on their own personal beliefs, either by
confusing which set of beliefs belongs with whom or simply forgetting
which belief is theirs, in answering questions about others' beliefs.
The problem facing persons with autism and causing their suite of
behavioral problems is thus a general inability to accurately store
and recall information rather than a specific focal deficit in
understanding mental states.

4. Autism and Simulation Theory

Simulation Theory (ST) is usually offered in contrast to other
approaches and has is supported more by philosophers than
psychologists. While ST traditionally received less critical notice
than competing approaches, recently a variety of researchers have
ardently and eloquently defended it (such as Alvin Goldman, Robert
Gordon and Gregory Currie, Paul Harris and Ian Ravenscroft). ST may be
more likely to explain socio-cognitive abilities since it is not laden
with the theoretical commitments of ToM and utilizes some of the
strengths of the executive control theory.

Simulation Theory holds that one's knowledge of other minds is related
to some sort of capacity to imagine or simulate the beliefs, desires
and intentions of another and predict what they would do if one were
to act in accordance with the simulated propositional attitudes. For
Currie and Ravenscroft (2002, p. 52) each person is able to
imaginatively project themselves into the place of another person and
"generate within ourselves states of imagining that have as their
counterparts the beliefs and desires of someone whose behavior we want
to predict." For Goldman (2006) mindreading begins with a basic
"like-me" judgment based on low-level face based emotion recognition
abilities. Using a basic "like-me" judgment, we can sense how others
are feeling by the facial display of another. Seeing someone display
the disgust face activates in our brains the same motor neuron paths
as are active when we experience disgust. Through the use of special
mirror-neurons, the brain is wired to fire those motor pathways it
sees in others.

A main point of contention between the "theory"-theorists and the
simulation theorists resides in what exactly the "like-me" consists.
For the former, the judgment relies on theoretical assumptions, thus
vindicating a theoretical component to social cognition; for the
latter, it is the result of basic processes, neural or otherwise. The
"like-me" judgment is at the heart of Goldman's (2006) claim that
simulation is the basic method through which we understand others.
Regardless of what the "like-me" me judgment is or requires, the
evidence for neonatal mimicry relies on studies that have proven
difficult to replicate.

For both Currie and Ravenscroft (2002) and Goldman (2006) simulative
abilities are fueled by a very basic perceptual ability to recognize
emotions in others. In order to recognize how others are feeling, the
infant must be able to cue into social stimuli. Once the infant can
see these cues, they can begin to mimicking certain features of the
emotional expression. Once they begin to mimic the expression, they
begin to generate the affect states involved in the mimicked display.
According to Currie and Ravenscroft, once these feats are accomplished
the infant can assume that if the perceived creature is in a state,
and the infant knows what that state feels like, whatever they feel is
felt by other. The infant makes a very basic "like me" judgment and,
from that judgment, an understanding of others begins. As the children
begin to track eye-gaze and use proto-declarative pointing, they begin
to develop more sophisticated ways of understanding that aids them in
understanding and predicting the behavior of others.

There is an important difference in focus between Goldman's and Currie
and Ravnecroft's versions of ST. For Goldman, prediction of behavior
does not require a feeding in of propositional attitudes or mental
states into one's own cognitive system. In understanding another's
mental states, one mirrors those behaviors or facial expressions. In
so doing, one comes to an unmediated understanding of how the other
feels. For ST theorists like Currie and Ravenscroft, one places the
pretend mental states into imagination and then allows the cognitive
system run "offline" and generate predictions. This difference is
important for theorists like Goldman who base simulation off certain
neural functioning like mirroring.

Our ability to predict others' behavior requires an act imagination to
run the simulation. Our imagination provides the mental area in which
we can simulate the role beliefs would play in certain inferential
practices of an entertained person. If one imagines that another is
hungry, then one might believe that they will go get lunch. One does
this because when one believes themselves to be hungry they go get
lunch. One plugs in supposed beliefs and desires and then runs a
simulation as to what these states would cause them to do in that
situation. Goldman (2006) allows that something like the above process
occurs when we attempt to understand other's mental states, but he
thinks that this is an upper-level cognitive process and should be
seen as importantly different from the lower level "like-me" judgment.
The former processes require the lower level mirroring tasks.

In order for one to properly predict another's behavior based on the
simulation of another's thoughts or behavior, certain assumptions must
be made. When one simply thinks "What would I do in this situation" in
order to allow the proper inferential chain to go through, one must
assume that self and the target are roughly equivalent in a number of
important respects. If one lacks basic assumptions about others, or
for some other reasons believes that the target is different in
important respects, one must augment the simulation with this
information so as to have accurate predictions of the other's
behavior. One must disregard or replace certain basic assumptions that
they might entertain in a normal case. Thus, the type of simulation
one must perform becomes more complex.

In a typical case, one would predict that their friend, whom they know
is hungry will likely attempt to go get lunch if the opportunity
presents itself. One can make this judgment based on the fact that
they would do the same thing in the situation. One plugs in the
relevant information and runs a simulation. However, if one knows that
their friend is on a diet, they have to take that into account when
simulating their behavior. One cannot simply run the simulation using
their own particular beliefs, as they are not on a diet. Details of
this sort are crucial in understanding and predicting behavior.

On Currie and Ravenscroft's version of ST, autism is the result of an
inability to properly use imagination in the problem solving process,
specifically, the process of placing ourselves, imaginatively, into
the place of another. However, the problem facing persons with autism
is not a complete inability to place themselves imaginatively in the
situation of another. Rather, it is a difficulty in developing the
skills necessary to practice the imaginative replacement.

Placing yourself in someone's position, as detailed above, requires
that you allow certain belief or desire states that you do not have to
become active. We must set aside our own "mental economy" and allow
the entertained propositional states to guide our beliefs of what that
person might do. As with the earlier example of eating when hungry,
since one is not on a diet, one must set aside their own responses and
think "as if" they were. Thus, one would choose to not eat in the face
of the hunger. Part of the difficulty persons with autism face is they
are simply unable to make the proper adjustments to their own mental
economy to allow the imagined belief states to play the proper role in
simulating another's beliefs. Persons with autism simply find it too
difficult to simulate another person's belief or desire states. Currie
and Ravenscroft claim that the reason that persons with autism cannot
simulate others is that they were never able to develop those
abilities that allow for complex simulations to occur.

The reason persons with autism lack the development and use of ToM
abilities is that they lack the "quasi-perceptual capacity for emotion
recognition" (Currie and Ravenscroft, 2002 p. 159). They take the
ability to recognize emotions to be something that is native or that
surfaces early in development. Since persons with autism do not pick
up on the basic emotional cues, they lack one of the primary inputs
that allow simulation to occur. According to the authors, a young
child perceives another's emotional state, mimics those facial/bodily
expressions and, based on how that mimicked facial expression feels to
them as they perform it, thereby know what it feels like to be in that
state. Since a person with autism does not even cue into these basic
emotional states, they are never in a position to make the proper
"like-me" reasoning and they never begin the basic mimicry that sets
the whole simulative process into motion. The effects of this simple
inability to recognize and simulate other's emotional states are
far-reaching.

Thus, autism, for Currie and Ravenscroft (2002), is an imaginative
disorder. There are Executive Control problems like those mentioned in
Executive Control models, but these problems come after and as a
result of the inability to pick up on the basic perceptual content
that cues us in to the mental states of others.

For a simulation theorist like Goldman (2006) the root of the autistic
disorder is to be found in basic mirror-neuron dysfunction. Goldman
bases his view off studies that show persons with autism are less apt
in imitative abilities than average persons. Goldman cites further
evidence that seems to indicate that the mirror neurons that allow
simulation to occur are not functioning (Goldman, 2006 p. 206). The
evidence for the mirror neuron dysfunction is tentative and Goldman
notes this. But ST theorists find that the recent research into mirror
neuron function and the role that these neurons play in a host of
social behaviors such as mimicry, and thinking about others thoughts
and actions are important signs that the theory is more supported than
the rival "theory"-theory approach.

5. Conclusion

Autism remains an intriguing disorder that is only partially
understood. No theory can claim to be the most widely accepted and
each has its own difficulties. "Theory"-theory needs to find ways to
deal with much of the new research on where and how certain tasks are
performed in the brain. Some of this research, as Goldman (2006)
notes, seems to violate the modularity basis that "theory"-theory
requires. Further, the "theory"-theorists' like Baron-Cohen have
retreated from their theoretical commitments and offered alternative
views of the autistic disorder (Baron-Cohen, 2002). Simulation theory
and Executive Control theory often rely on the claim that the
executive control abilities are dysfunctional in persons with autism
and some recent research calls this into question (Ozonoff, S., and
Strayer, D., 2001; Hughes, C., 2002).

Some recent research has tried to blend together the theoretical
tenets of all of the approaches (Cundall, 2006; Keenan, 2000) forming
a hybrid version of the theories and often a détente between
"theory"-theory and simulation theory can be found. Researchers like
Goldman think theoretical reasoning about other's mental states is
likely, but not the basic form of socio-cognitive thought.
"Theory"-theorists often note that something like simulation is used,
but it is only a later developmental ability in social cognition.
Other researchers, Rittscher, et al, (2003) are avoiding some of the
more theoretical disputes and have simply begun to investigate how
socio-cognitive information is processed in the brain. Autism still
presents any researcher interested in explaining socio-cognitive
development an interesting challenge and any theory that purports to
explain socio-cognitive structure and development will need to offer
an explanation of the disorder.

6. References and Further Reading

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Carruthers, P., (2003). Review of Currie and Ravenscroft's Recreative
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