Adult Aspies are socially 11 years old?

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genly
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05 Nov 2011, 8:47 pm

More like a 5 year old.

Verdandi
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05 Nov 2011, 8:50 pm

swbluto wrote:

The Sally-Anne test definitely doesn't use "complex language" or language that's beyond most autistic kid's abilities.

Just read this for once:

http://affect.media.mit.edu/Rgrads/Arti ... odules.pdf

Quote:

Abstract: Researchers have hypothesized that autistics are missing core modules of the brain, critical neural tissue necessary for accomplishing various processes. In this article, we critically review the evidence supporting two such hypothesized deficits. We ask whether autistic brains lack a module for understanding the behavior of others (i.e., theory of mind) and whether they lack a module for processing faces. We illustrate that successful performance on theory of mind tasks depends on linguistic ability; therefore, it is not surprising that autistics are more likely to fail theory of mind tasks because a qualitative impairment in communication is one of the primary diagnostic criteria for autism. Similarly, we illustrate that autistics are less likely to fixate the eye region of facial photographs and that the amount of time spent fixating the eye region correlates with activation in the face processing “module”; therefore, it is not surprising that autistics are less likely to activate the putative face processing area. These illustrations cast doubt on the arguments that the autistic brain is missing the core modules responsible for understanding theory of mind and for processing faces.

swbluto wrote:

And, higher order tasks developed by Baron Cohen are not exactly linguistically "complex", and I'm pretty sure that linguistic ability was measured and controlled by researchers conducting the investigations to rule out the affect of "communication and language difficulties".

I'm pretty sure that linguistic ability wasn't as, per the paper I linked above, when linguistic ability was accounted for, autistic children scored much closer to neurotypical children - and even better on occasion.

Quote:

Recall the two key questions asked during the false belief task. The syntactic form of these two questions is one of the most complex in the English language. These sentences exhibit sentential complement constructions, in which a complement clause is embedded in the matrix clause. Indeed, all mentalizing statements require sentence complement constructions, which are some of the most complex syntactic structures in the English language.

Does performance on false belief tasks within the general population depend on linguistic sophistication? Correlational studies document significant correlations between language comprehension measures and performance on false belief tasks (Cutting & Dunn, 1999; Hughes & Dunn, 1997; Jenkins & Astington, 1996). Cross-linguistic studies, that is, studies comparing across different languages, document that children acquiring languages in which the analog of the English sentential complement structure is acquired earlier versus later demonstrate earlier versus later success on false belief tasks (de Villiers & de Villiers, 2000; Perez-Leroux, 1998). Longitudinal studies investigating which comes first—successful comprehension of complement structures or passing false belief tasks—document that successful comprehension of complement structures must occur first (de Villiers, 2000; de Villiers& Pyers, 1997).

Recall that a primary diagnostic criterion for autism is a qualitative impairment in communication that can be manifested by a “delay in or total lack of spoken language” (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). One of Tager-Flusberg’s longitudinal studies (Steele, Joseph, & Tager-Flusberg, 2003) investigated theory of mind among 57 children with autism between the ages of 4 to 14 years, at the start of the study. Over a one-year period, there were significant developmental improvements in theory of mind ability, and those improvements were primarily related to the children’s developing language abilities. Other cross-sectional studies have demonstrated the same relation: Theory of mind ability in autism is tightly coupled developmentally with language ability (Tager-Flusberg, 1997).

Furthermore, Tager-Flusberg and Sullivan (1994) have demonstrated that when autistic children are compared with non-autistic children who are matched to the autistic children’s language skills, the difference between autistic and non-autistic children in their success rate of passing first and second-order false belief tasks disappears. In other words, if one controls for language abilities, theory of mind deficits are not unique to autism. Moreover, if one creates a false drawing task that tests theory of mind without reliance on language, one finds that children with autism and children with deafness actually outperform children with normal hearing (Peterson, 2002).

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05 Nov 2011, 8:52 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

swbluto wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

If what this study said is true......wouldn't adults with AS socialize better with 11 year olds than other adults or people in their late teens? I don't know about anyone else but I doubt I would have much in common with an 11 year old socially or otherwise. That could just be me of course though.

Actually, I get along perfectly with semi-autistic guys in their late teens. I just don't see those kind of people at college everyday, though.

When you get to the "11 year old" range, a difference in language ability becomes an issue as well as a difference in life experiences and background.

well yeah thats why I find this kind of confusing....I mean in which way does the average adult with AS behave like an 11 year old socially?

It's not a matter of "behavior", it's a matter of perception and comprehension, like, how well can you understand what other people are thinking, what their beliefs/expectations are and what their intentions are? The average aspie might have the same ability to understand *that* as an 11-13 year old or something like that.

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05 Nov 2011, 8:54 pm

swbluto wrote:

A proper description will come in due time but, it might turn out to be too advanced/complex for humans' puny brains. :lol:

But, when it does come out, rest assured that it will be possible to map it to NT cognitive development.

I somehow doubt that.

Quote:

Oh, well, that's different. That's less a matter of "capability" unlike with autism.

Well, that's certainly a compelling argument. There's research that indicates NTs actually kind of suck at reading each other and frequently get it wrong, and "that's different?" If NTs get it wrong somewhat frequently, what exactly does ToM do?

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05 Nov 2011, 9:02 pm

Verdandi wrote:

swbluto wrote:

Well, parts of autistic cognition ARE a diminished form of NT cognitive development, so it seems perfectly fine to 'describe cognitive limitations' by relating them to a mental age (Such as, "Has the ToM mental ability of an 11 year old."). Yes, there are many parts to autistic cognition that are "different", but there are fairly crucial ones that are more a matter of quantity than quality.

Autistic brains tend to have many shorter connections as compared to NTs who tend to have fewer, longer connections. This impacts autistic cognition in multiple ways, but it doesn't give you anything like "the ToM mental ability of an 11 year old." No one even knows where "ToM" is located in the brain, or how to properly describe how it works. In research that doesn't involve autistic people, the fact that many people are often wrong about what other people are thinking gets a lot of discussion (for example, the concept of "fundamental attribution error" - a favorite pastime among just about everyone that never seems to get mentioned when discussing autistic theory of mind).

Widespread belief in somewhat silly conspiracy theories also seems to confirm that NT theory of mind isn't that great. I find that a lot of conspiracy theories don't make a lot of sense if you put yourself inside the mind of the conspirator. In the minds of NT conspiracy theory believers, conspirators have a superhuman ability to manipulate our perceptions and mislead us. The supposed plans and schemes of conspirators also seem to violate occam's razor a lot.

Perhaps they just discard what their ToM is telling them when a baised analysis is more useful or interesting.

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05 Nov 2011, 9:08 pm

swbluto wrote:

Mdyar wrote:

swbluto wrote:

I got your point and I agree that "social perceptions" can't be "directly mapped" (There are multiple areas that are involved in social perceptions such as experience, language ability/awareness, emotional recognition, etc.). Now, I'm questioning whether you got mine -- that, yes, there's *something* that probably can be directly mapped to NT ages, and I'm guessing that something is something like "complexity" or some element of "social awareness" or "social comprehension". It might not be easily measured in adults but there's probably something that's directly associated with the type of "ToM ability" that's measured by the Sally-Anne test, whether that be "social imagination" or "social working memory" or something else. It's clear that cognitive deficits related to social thinking don't disappear in aspie adults, so there is *something*.

Something to consider is that some ASD 5 year olds do work out the Sally Test. And some ASD adults cannot work it out even at 50.

Well, yeah, it's not like ToM deficits are the only symptom in ASDs but it is a central one to most ASD individuals. The forum users with a better ToM are probably the ASD individuals who "do better" on the forums, on average.

Quote:

It shows something on average, but generally why can't the ToM be bridged and crossover into another perspective? From the accounts on the board, it looks like it is 'hidden,' or a subconscious urge to not see the others' perspective... to answer it "wrong." But intellectually know it's the other way--- thus to be torn between the two choices. Whatever it is, it comes from behind the scenes, thus not arising from an intellectual confusion.

It may be a reverse in something neuronal, like a dyslexia.

Wait, so you're saying that aspies who do get the Sally-Anne wrong at a young age is not because they don't know any better, it just can't "express itself"? Well, even if that's the case, the only thing that people see is the expression, so it's still just as debilitating.

The inclination is 'to believe' she will go to box with the ball in it. As Verdandi noted, it may just be language, as born out it in adults who take the extra time to reach the conclusion. There is a user here that noted the immediate reaction is to answer it wrong, though knowing it is the other way.....Reason I posited " a subconscious urge." The thing is though, if it is language, then the odds would be a coin toss on getting it right. It would be random, heads or tails; no pattern, but why a consistent wrong answer? Maybe because by default it is the clearest easiest one? It may be a red herring....as I don't know the language difficulties with spectrumites and there may be a huge translation of language going on here, say from words to pictures and back.

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05 Nov 2011, 9:39 pm

marshall wrote:

That's entirely possible. Confirmation bias is a real thing that most people experience at least at some point.

I actually find conspiracy theories somewhat interesting to read about (I got sucked into The Illuminatus! Trilogy ages ago) and fun to play with in terms of storytelling and games and such.

There's an article about this kind of thing:

People with AS less likely to see purpose behind the events in their lives

It focuses on religion, but I think it's applicable to a wide variety of things. This particular kind of thinking actually surprised me a lot - I had encountered it many times, but always treated it as an isolated thing, not a systematic type of thought. I suspect that the tendency to do this is sometimes advantageous and sometimes not. I suspect the tendency to not do this is sometimes advantageous and sometimes not. But the latter will generally be presented as an impairment because it is not like how NTs approach things.

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05 Nov 2011, 9:44 pm

swbluto wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

swbluto wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

well yeah thats why I find this kind of confusing....I mean in which way does the average adult with AS behave like an 11 year old socially?

well yeah did the article go into detail about what constitutes good understanding of what other people are thinking, beliefs/expectations are or what their intentions are? I mean for me its just different......so I don't think my comprehension of those things can be mesured that way. I can usually sense if someone has bad intentions even before I've seen proof of their bad intentions...I don't base it on facial expressions, body language, tone of voice I can recognize a lot of that just fine but I have to conciously think about it so I can't very well focus on it in conversation or I will miss out on what is being said.

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05 Nov 2011, 9:44 pm

Mdyar wrote:

I am not entirely certain that it is all language, but I think that the research so far is flawed and tends to be biased toward certain conclusions.

Like, if you show me a photograph and ask "What are people doing in that?" I usually don't have an answer, whereas an NT might, even if the answer is wrong. That is definitely meaningful.

I looked back at my earlier posts - and I am not trying to just be disagreeable. Apologies if I came across as badly. I do have strong feelings about the topic, but I don't really know any answers.

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05 Nov 2011, 9:55 pm

This is about the Sally-Anne test? Every time this topic comes up, I post that I would not have given a first thought to any of Sally's, Anne's, the testtaker's, or the testgiver's thoughts. All thoughts would have been about where the farking ball is. When I was a kid, that is, not now.

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05 Nov 2011, 10:01 pm

Mdyar wrote:

I think autistic kids don't pay attention to the social content of the story. Little NT kids are enthralled with people playing tricks or teasing. When adults play with little NT kids they may play little tricks to get a laugh. Autistic kids usually aren't interested in that kind of play.

NT children might not actually work out in full what knowledge is in the mind of Sally at given times. That's a more difficult task. I bet they just pick up that by moving the ball Ann is trying to trick Sally. Therefore they predict that Sally will pick the wrong basket. Meanwhile, an autistic kid has no idea why Ann moved the ball. Autistic kids aren't going to attribute intent unless they're prompted to do so. There are other studies I recall that show how autistic people are less likely to attribute intent to certain actions.

I'd love for someone to test my hypothesis. I wonder if NT kids would also get it wrong if the ball didn't get moved intentionally by any character in the story. Will the results be the same if Ann isn't involved and the ball just moves around on it's own?

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05 Nov 2011, 10:21 pm

I think to say that we are socially immature simply means we have similar social cognition to someone that's in their pre-teens to teens when we maybe in our 20s, 30s, 40s, etc. We may have greater maturity due to extensive life experience. For example many aspies see only in black/white and have a hard time seeing in grey's. I read that once NT's are around 15 16 they develop the ability to see in grey's. Our social cognition similar and that's it. But it doesn't mean life experiences don't account for something. We have greater overall maturity due to life experiance with the social cognition of a 13 yr old.

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06 Nov 2011, 12:05 am

I just figured out a solution to the 2nd and 3rd order theory of mind tasks that are limited by their "difficult language"! Just video tape the hypothetical situations using actors and then ask questions about what people are thinking and/or trying to do or whatever. This is ultimately the problem that many aspies seem to have with understanding the intentions of actors within movies (At least, the "Do you understand characters intentions in movies?" seems to a pretty popular autism test kind of question.).

So, BARON-COHEN, use some of your grant money to pay some actors, NAO!

(Did I yell loud enough so he could hear me? Hehe, I kid. I kid.)

Last edited by swbluto on 06 Nov 2011, 9:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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06 Nov 2011, 2:42 am

I like the social attribution task - the video with the shapes moving around, and viewers are supposed to describe the video using as many social elements as possible. That does seem to show significant differences between autistic people and not autistic people.

Another one is used in the ADOS - having a storybook with pictures, and you're supposed to tell a story from it. As well as taking five objects and telling a story with them.

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06 Nov 2011, 3:56 am

Verdandi wrote:

I just watched that video and attempted to do my own narrative on what the shapes were doing. One thing I found really interesting was that I had a hard time keeping up with what all the shapes were doing. The action seemed to be going too fast for me to discern a "social story" and I had to rewind it.

This could mean that my problems with social interaction may be due to an inability to multi-task or a dysfunction in working memory. It makes it hard to focus on so much incoming social stimuli at the same time. Situations like parties, group discussions, and any interaction with more than one person is like trying to keep ten bowling balls in the air....while riding a bicycle.

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06 Nov 2011, 4:06 am

There was a mathematical thing that Attwood pointed out in his Complete Guide, in which the number of possible interactions/connections skyrockets as you add more and more people to a social situation, which sort of ties into that.

I didn't find the video was too fast, I just didn't find most of it evoked any kind of personality.

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