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A Cognitive Computational Approach to Understanding Theory of Mind and Its Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder

A Cognitive Computational Approach to Understanding Theory of Mind and Its Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder PDF Author: Isabelle Rosenthal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Autism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Theory of Mind (ToM), the mental ability to represent other people's beliefs and intentions, remains a faculty that is poorly understood on a computational level. While a "mentalizing network" of implicated brain structures exists, the interaction of these structures and their specific functions still requires further study. Furthermore, although it is known that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to exhibit impairments in ToM, the nature of these impairments is not known. In this thesis, ToM is investigated through a novel learning task which bears a similar structure to past ToM tasks, but requires participants to update their representations of another individual's beliefs and intentions continuously over time. Participant behavior on this task was investigated using eight different computational models. Neurotypical individuals were able to complete the task, answering questions about beliefs and intentions with an accuracy significantly above chance. Although individuals with ASD had an accuracy on belief questions that was not significantly different from the control group, they were impaired in answering questions about intent. Similarly, a computational model based on the Rescorla-Wagner update rule was found that fit well to the control group, but this model fit much differently to the ASD population, and failed to perform as well in predicting ASD behavior. No model was found that predicted ASD behavior better than control behavior. This suggests heterogeneity in the way individuals with ASD compute ToM. While expanding current knowledge about the way neurotypical individuals generate ToM representations, these computational modeling results also provide an opportunity to better understand the neural underpinnings of these representations via neuroimaging.

A Cognitive Computational Approach to Understanding Theory of Mind and Its Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder

A Cognitive Computational Approach to Understanding Theory of Mind and Its Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder PDF Author: Isabelle Rosenthal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Autism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Theory of Mind (ToM), the mental ability to represent other people's beliefs and intentions, remains a faculty that is poorly understood on a computational level. While a "mentalizing network" of implicated brain structures exists, the interaction of these structures and their specific functions still requires further study. Furthermore, although it is known that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to exhibit impairments in ToM, the nature of these impairments is not known. In this thesis, ToM is investigated through a novel learning task which bears a similar structure to past ToM tasks, but requires participants to update their representations of another individual's beliefs and intentions continuously over time. Participant behavior on this task was investigated using eight different computational models. Neurotypical individuals were able to complete the task, answering questions about beliefs and intentions with an accuracy significantly above chance. Although individuals with ASD had an accuracy on belief questions that was not significantly different from the control group, they were impaired in answering questions about intent. Similarly, a computational model based on the Rescorla-Wagner update rule was found that fit well to the control group, but this model fit much differently to the ASD population, and failed to perform as well in predicting ASD behavior. No model was found that predicted ASD behavior better than control behavior. This suggests heterogeneity in the way individuals with ASD compute ToM. While expanding current knowledge about the way neurotypical individuals generate ToM representations, these computational modeling results also provide an opportunity to better understand the neural underpinnings of these representations via neuroimaging.

Computational Autism

Computational Autism PDF Author: Boris Galitsky
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319399721
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
This book explores and evaluates accounts and models of autistic reasoning and cognition from a computational standpoint. The author investigates the limitations and peculiarities of autistic reasoning and sets out a remediation strategy to be used by a wide range of psychologists and rehabilitation personnel and will also be appreciated by computer scientists who are interested in the practical implementation of reasoning. The author subjects the Theory of Mind (ToM) model to a formal analysis to investigate the limitations of autistic reasoning and proposes a formal model regarding mental attitudes and proposes a method to help those with autism navigate everyday living. Based on the concept of playing with computer based mental simulators, the NL_MAMS, is examined to see whether it is capable of modeling mental and emotional states of the real world to aid the emotional development of autistic children. Multiple autistic theories and strategies are also examined for possible computational cross-overs, providing researchers with a wide range of examples, tools and detailed case studies to work from. Computational Autism will be an essential read to behavioral specialists, researcher’s, developers and designers who are interested in understanding and tackling the increasing prevalence of autism within modern society today.

Autism Spectrum Disorders

Autism Spectrum Disorders PDF Author: Dermot Bowler
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 047003503X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Book Description
Psychological research into autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has increased exponentially in the last two decades. Much of this work has been led by various theorists who claim to have identified processes that hold the key to understanding the condition. As a consequence, newcomers to the field feel that they have to opt for one or more of the competing approaches and to neglect the remainder as being in some way wrong. In fact, the different theoretical perspectives are just that - different points of view on the same phenomenon - each with its own insights to offer. This is not to say that understanding ASD in psychological terms is just a matter of choosing a perspective and that all perspectives are of equal value. Clearly they are not. This book, in addition to providing an outline of what current perspectives have to offer, also provides a framework to help readers to decide which aspects of psychological research into ASD contribute to our understanding of the field and how these can be integrated in a way that enables research to be taken forward.

Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism

Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism PDF Author: Kinga Morsanyi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351060899
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Thinking and Reasoning in Autism provides fresh insights into the cognitive processes that underlie some of the typical characteristics of autism. Autism has long been considered an enigma, and no single theory so far has been able to explain, or even fully describe, the key characteristics of the autistic mind. From the interdisciplinary perspective of new research in cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience, this book explores thinking, reasoning and decision making in autism. The new cognitive approaches challenge some of the existing assumptions of the nature of thought in autism, including presumed areas of impairments. Instead, this book focuses on the nuanced array of cognitive signatures that characterize the autistic mind, and in many cases it reveals the possibility of intact performance alongside instances of remarkably enhanced thinking. The book considers the implications of these characteristics, providing in-depth analyses of specific areas of cognitive functioning, and their everyday manifestations. Featuring contributions from world-leading researchers from the fields of cognitive science and autism research, this volume will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers, as well as those working with individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Autism: Mind and Brain

Autism: Mind and Brain PDF Author: Uta Frith
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191587168
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that allows a unique window on the relationship between mind and brain. The study of autism provides insight into the brain basis of the complex social interactions typical of human beings, since a profound impairment in social interactions is the hallmark of autistic disorders. While autism was first described almost 60 years ago, research into its cognitive and neurophysiological basis has intensified over the last two decades. Autism: Mind and Brain provides a comprehensive overview of currently conducted experiments, which are guided by bold theories that are being tested rigorously. With contributions from international leaders in autism research, the book focuses on new ideas and findings that are gradually influencing our understanding of autism and its variants. These new approaches include the use of functional and structural brain imaging studies as well as novel behavioural measures. Together they demonstrate significant advances in knowledge and testify to the development and integration of current cognitive theories of autism. The application of these new and sophisticated approaches forge a path forward for future autism research, and present powerful new insights into this fascinating and still puzzling disorder.

Understanding Autism and Autistic Functioning

Understanding Autism and Autistic Functioning PDF Author: Laura Villa
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040120466
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
This concise volume offers an accessible overview of recent clinical and research perspectives addressing autism and autistic functioning. By providing an innovative lens, the book benefits from two different angles: a concrete and pragmatical view of an expert clinician with three decades of practice in diagnosis and treatment of autism, and a more “speculative” and “long-term” view of a researcher who works on neural and computational architecture of (a)typical neurocognitive functioning. Trying to understand autism beyond its behavioral symptoms, the book spans from clinical descriptions (e.g., communicating diagnosis, clinical intervention, and prognosis) to recent neuroscientific evidence supporting a potential perspective-shift. The fil rouge of this volume can be summarized in three fundamental aspects that should orient any clinical practice in the context of autism (e.g., diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, etc.): we need an age-dependent, context-dependent, and functioning-dependent approach. Understanding Autism and Autistic Functioning is crucial reading for parents and caregivers, and professionals in health, education, and social care.

Understanding Other Minds

Understanding Other Minds PDF Author: Simon Baron-Cohen
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199692971
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 525

Book Description
Over its previous two editions, Understanding Other Minds has established itself as a classic text on autism and theory of mind. In the 15 years since the last edition was prepared, the neuroimaging literature on "theory of mind" has expanded significantly, revealing new brain regions and their role in regard to "theory of mind". Other major changes include developments in the study of infants and in the fields of hormones and genetics. Such studies have revealed evidence of both heritability (from twin studies), some molecular genetic associations, and a specific role for both sex steroid hormones (such as foetal testosterone) and neuropeptide hormones, such as oxytocin. The new edition brings together an international team of leading writers and researchers from psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and philosophy to present a state-of-the-art review of scientific research in this important field - one that will be essential for all those involved in the fields of developmental psychology and neuroscience, as well as psychiatrists and philosophers.

Mindblindness

Mindblindness PDF Author: Simon Baron-Cohen
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026252225X
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Book Description
In Mindblindness, Simon Baron-Cohen presents a model of the evolution and development of "mindreading." He argues that we mindread all the time, effortlessly, automatically, and mostly unconsciously. It is the natural way in which we interpret, predict, and participate in social behavior and communication. We ascribe mental states to people: states such as thoughts, desires, knowledge, and intentions. Building on many years of research, Baron-Cohen concludes that children with autism, suffer from "mindblindness" as a result of a selective impairment in mindreading. For these children, the world is essentially devoid of mental things. Baron-Cohen develops a theory that draws on data from comparative psychology, from developmental, and from neuropsychology. He argues that specific neurocognitive mechanisms have evolved that allow us to mindread, to make sense of actions, to interpret gazes as meaningful, and to decode "the language of the eyes." A Bradford Book

Autism and Cognitive Architecture

Autism and Cognitive Architecture PDF Author: Miklós Győri
Publisher: Akademiai Kiads
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
The present volume attempts to integrate two streams of cognitive research which often run parallel: largely conceptual investigations on the overall framework of human cognition and the much more empirical study of neurocognitive developmental disorders in this case, autism. The book is partly a conceptual analysis exploring the issue of domain specificity and its place in cognitive theory, but it also offers a detailed summary of the phenomena of autism, a critical evaluation of its cognitive psychological models, and presents new empirical findings on the complexity of beyond-childhood development of theory of mind ability in autism. Besides the integration and an overview of these three major themes, the novelty of the presented theses lies primarily in the comprehensiveness of the offered conceptual framework for domain-specificity, and in the empirical findings which strongly suggest that functioning theory of mind ability and non-theory-of-mind compensatory strategies co-exist

Individual Differences in Theory of Mind

Individual Differences in Theory of Mind PDF Author: Betty Repacholi
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135432333
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 444

Book Description
Over the last fifteen years, developmentalists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, educators and clinicians have considered the acquisition of a theory of mind - the capacity to predict and explain behavior on the basis of internal, subjective mental states - to be one of the crucial cognitive achievements of early childhood. This volume represents the first collection of work to address, empirically and conceptually, the topic of individual differences in theory of mind. It is also unique because it takes the reader beyond the preschool years, to explore theory of mind development in late childhood and adulthood.