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

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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.

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Acknowledgments

N.D. was supported by a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation (AZ II/80 594 awarded to A.N.). We thank M.X Cohen for help with programming the task and E. Milne for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Furthermore, we thank S. Linnartz, B. Kuzmanovic, N. Vetter and A. Georgescu for testing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Kerpener Street 62, Cologne, 50924, Germany

    Nicole David, Astrid Gawronski, Natacha S. Santos, Wolfgang Huff, Fritz-Georg Lehnhardt & Kai Vogeley

  2. Department of Philosophy, University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Albert Newen

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  1. Nicole David
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  2. Astrid Gawronski
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  3. Natacha S. Santos
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  4. Wolfgang Huff
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  5. Fritz-Georg Lehnhardt
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  6. Albert Newen
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  7. Kai Vogeley
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Correspondence to Nicole David.

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David, N., Gawronski, A., Santos, N.S. et al. Dissociation Between Key Processes of Social Cognition in Autism: Impaired Mentalizing But Intact Sense of Agency. J Autism Dev Disord 38, 593–605 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0425-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0425-x

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