Dissociation Between Key Processes of Social Cognition in Autism: Impaired Mentalizing But Intact Sense of Agency

Abstract

Deficits in social cognition and interaction, such as in mentalizing and imitation behavior, are hallmark features of autism spectrum disorders. Both imitation and mentalizing are at the core of the sense of agency, the awareness that we are the initiators of our own behavior. Little evidence exists regarding the sense of agency in autism. Thus, we compared high-functioning adults with autism to healthy control subjects using an action monitoring and attribution task. Subjects with autism did not show deficits in this task, yet they showed significant mentalizing deficits. Our findings indicate a dissociation between the sense of agency and ascription of mental states in autism. We propose that social-cognitive deficits in autism may arise on a higher level than that of action monitoring and awareness.

Sense of agency and mentalizing: Dissociation of subdomains of social cognition in patients with schizophrenia

“…The present task can be considered an established agency manipulation task closely based on previous agency paradigms (Fourneret et al, 2001, David, et al, 2007, David, et al, 2008a. Participants were seated in front of a computer screen to perform simple right-handed mouse movements towards a white object (i.e., an asterisk) which appeared either on the upper left or right side of the black screen.…”

“…In order to further elucidate the exact nature of the relationship between the self-other distinction ability and mentalizing, and to reconcile results on dissociation between the two processes, we sought to study them in conjunction in both healthy and psychiatrically ill participants in whom impairments in both sense of agency and mentalizing processes have been shown. More specifically, we first assessed whether or not a relation between both processes could be detected by applying a widely used mentalizing test ("Reading the mind in the eyes test") and an established agency manipulation task (David et al, 2007, David et al, 2008a) in a sample of schizophrenia patients and a healthy control group. Deficits in both tasks or correlated task performance in the clinical population, would strongly indicate a close relationship between sense of agency and mentalizing.…”

“…After the onset, in general, mentalizing is atypical or excessive (hypermentalizing) rather than absent. Similarly, sense of agency processes are not impaired in the same way in both disorders (Frith and Done, 1989, Abu-Akel andBailey, 2000), with an intact sense of agency in HFA/ AS (Russell and Hill, 2001, Sebanz et al, 2005, Blakemore and Choudhury, 2006, David, et al, 2008a) and a disturbed sense of agency in schizophrenia (Malenka et al, 1986, Frith and Done, 1989, Knoblich et al, 2004. Moreover the task requirements differed slightly (e.g., one vs. two target objects) and different experimental settings were used (not the same location, different PC and joystick/ mouse).…”

“…The cursor movement or visual feedback matched the participants' executed movement only in 50 % of the trials (real feedback: RF). In the other 50 % a randomly selected movement from a previous trial of the subject was replayed (false feedback: FF); (for more details on the task, see David et al, 2007David et al, , 2008a.The cover story was that on several trials they would not see their own movements, but the experimenters' movements who performed the task in the next room. False movements could differ in onset, pace and path deviations.…”

“…Moreover the task requirements differed slightly (e.g., one vs. two target objects) and different experimental settings were used (not the same location, different PC and joystick/ mouse). In addition, the samples differed in age, gender, and IQ (David, et al, 2008a). …”