autism and schizophrenia

Post Reply New Topic

my friend max has been diagnosed with aspergers and schizophrenia. he is alot more troubled by the schizophrenia symptoms.

They can be linked at the cognitive psychological level. Chris Frith suggests schizophrenia is caused by an overactive theory of mind, that rather than being unable to assign mental states to others, schizophrenics instead assigns false and exaggerated mental states to others, hence hearing voice and paranoia.

Francesca Happe links Asperger's Syndrome to Schizophrenia by arguing people with Asperger's syndrome also have an over active theory of mind rather than a deficit theory of mind. She points out that adults with Asperger's Syndrome generally pass theory of mind tests and often have co-morbid conditions that would require a theory of mind, so lacking a theory of mind simply does not fit. The idea is that both classical autistics and people with Asperger's syndrome initially lack a theory of mind, hence why children of both kinds fail theory of mind tests, but that while classical autistics never develop a theory of mind, people classified as Asperger's syndrome actually develop an overactive theory of mind. This would make them similar to schizophrenics, who initially have a theory of mind but then develop an overactive one.

I'm fairly convinced by this, it has flaws but so does claiming people with Asperger's syndrome lack theory of minds, given that they pass theory of mind tests. However, if this is true you must remember this is cognitive psychology and there are strong arguments either way to suggest cognitive psychology reflects or does not reflect some further physical difference.

I'd like to read more about this. I have been described as hyper-vigilant when it comes to reading body language. If I miss it, it's because I'm too anxious to look at the person directly. However, seeing it and understanding it are two different things. I can't tell you how many times I've seen "the look" and known immediately that I've said or done something wrong but not know what or why.

I understand the paranoia part. But how would you explain hearing voices? I mean yes, exagerated theory of mind can lead them to falsely believe someone is trying to poison them. But if you take a "normal" person who believes the same due to that being a reality (let's say, for example, he was captured by terrorists), that won't lead him to hear voices, despite the profound content of his (realistic) belief. So why would false belief with similar content cause a schizophrenic to hear voices?

The other thing I am wondering about is how would you explain why in some cases schizophrenics experience periodic psychotic epizodes, and their paranoia is mostly limitted to those epizoded? If paranoia is merely a consequence of psychological parameters, such as theory of mind, it would imply that it should be more constant (incidentally, this is true for Paranoid Personality disorder, which is often speculated to be related to schizophrenia; but that is not true for schizophrenia itself). How does the book you read adress this?



I understand that there might be individual cases where theory of mind happened to be lacking in a child and later on it happened to be exagerated instead of lacking. But you seem to be saying that it is a pattern rather than a coincidence. So how would you explain the pattern of correlation between seemingly opposite phenomena?

I do have a guess on an answer. Few years ago in a Barns and Noble I read that in DSM 3 (as opposed to DSM 4) paranoia was one of the symptoms of Schizoid Personality Disorder. However, the book argued that Schizoid Personality might still be a mild variant of autism as opposed to schizophrenia. They claimed that paranoia is a result of "theory of mind gotten wrong". Now, is that the sort of argument that you read as well? Are you saying that aspies have "exagerated" theory of mind not because it is over-developped (it isn't), but because they "got it wrong"?



Passing theory of mind tests means that they have some theory of mind, but it might still not be as developped as for NT-s. After all, theory of mind tests are very elementary and are designed for a five year old. So to say that passing them means you have theory of mind is like saying that if someone passes simple arithmetic tests, they can do college level calculus.

I think that aspies do lack theory of mind since they often have difficulties reading people. It is true that in some cases aspies might also come off as too suspicious due to that very thing and turn ppl off that way (for example, that is definitely the case with me), but that is far from the only way by which they turn people off. They have a host of other issues many of which are due to them being too naive rather than too paranoid. The latter suggests that they still might lack theory of mind at least in some aspects.

I'm guessing that even if what causes the condition is constant the affects can fluctuate, just like how I normally can do passable conversation but sometimes without any obvious explanation I cannot get past a few exchanges, no idea why but sometimes I go way beyond blank and this will last an entire evening. So just as AS fluctuates despite having a constant lack/overactive theory of mind, so might schizophrenia fluctuate to the point the paranioa or psychosis. As for hearing voices I can't remember, you'd have to read the article, it's on google book, I'll track it down later.



Happe argues congnitive mechanisms develop interdependently, consequently if one fails to develop others may also fail to develop properly. Imagine a cognitive mechanism needs to develop alongside theory of mind and a third independently developing cognitive mechanism. Well that first cognitive mechanism will not develop properly initially in either austistics or AS because they lack a theory of mind. However, when theory of mind does develop in AS you'd also need for that third cognitive mechanism to develop simultaneously but of course it has already developed long ago, meaning the first cognitive mechanism still fails develop despite AS having a theory of mind. Hence shared similarities beyond of autistics and AS despite the differences over theory of mind.


The over-developed intends to account for many of the eccentricities AS people have and for the co-morbidity. If we are to make a distinction between a theory of mind developing too much and it developing badly, I'm guess it is either that AS developing all aspect of theory of mind but some too strongly VS AS developing some aspect of theory of mind but not all or some not working as effectively as normal. I guess either would account for eccentricities and co-morbidity but it is a question impossible to answer without a clear picture of what makes up a theory of mind mechanism, a question I'm uncertain makes sense under cognitive psychology.


I guess the idea is that AS people put too much effort into trying to read people, granted subconsciously but they are always looking for motive that are not there and then panicking when they cannot find them or misunderstanding people if they assign false motives.

Admittedly, all of this is highly speculative, the answers will lie in properly assessing cognitive psychology, exactly what it is doing and what it is getting at, and I'm uncertain anyone has those answers. You raise some good objections though, and I'll post links to google books later.

The Chris Frith Article is on Google Books here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=o9XX ... q=&f=false, Page 65 called Elective Affinities in Schizophrenia and Childhood Autism.
The Franseca Happe Book is also on Google Books here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=o9XX ... q=&f=false
The relevant pages are alas missing, with the bit I was referencing starting on page 98. I'd strongly recommend the book, as although it claims to be an introduction to psychological theories of autism is more like a critical summery, if unfortunately at the length of an introduction.