TY - JOUR
T1 - Children with autism's perception and understanding of ambiguous figures
T2 - Evidence for pictorial metarepresentation, a research note
AU - Wimmer, M.C.
AU - Doherty, M.J.
PY - 2010/9/1
Y1 - 2010/9/1
N2 - A large body of autism research over the last 20 years has shown that people with autism have difficulties understanding mental states. This has been conceived of as a metarepresentational deficit. An open question is whether people with autism's metarepresentational deficit is limited to the mental domain. This research explores individuals with autism's understanding of the representational nature of pictures. With the use of ambiguous figures, where a single stimulus is capable of representing two distinct referents, we compared metarepresentational abilities in the pictorial and mental domains and the perception of pictorial ambiguity. Our findings indicate that individuals with autism are impaired in mental metarepresentation but not in pictorial metarepresentation. These findings suggest that children with autism understand the representational nature of pictures. We conclude that children with autism's understanding of the representational nature of pictures is in advance of their metarepresentational understanding of mind. Their perception of figure ambiguity is comparable to the typical population.
AB - A large body of autism research over the last 20 years has shown that people with autism have difficulties understanding mental states. This has been conceived of as a metarepresentational deficit. An open question is whether people with autism's metarepresentational deficit is limited to the mental domain. This research explores individuals with autism's understanding of the representational nature of pictures. With the use of ambiguous figures, where a single stimulus is capable of representing two distinct referents, we compared metarepresentational abilities in the pictorial and mental domains and the perception of pictorial ambiguity. Our findings indicate that individuals with autism are impaired in mental metarepresentation but not in pictorial metarepresentation. These findings suggest that children with autism understand the representational nature of pictures. We conclude that children with autism's understanding of the representational nature of pictures is in advance of their metarepresentational understanding of mind. Their perception of figure ambiguity is comparable to the typical population.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77955745963&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1348/026151009X465362
DO - 10.1348/026151009X465362
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77955745963
SN - 0261-510X
VL - 28
SP - 627
EP - 641
JO - British Journal of Developmental Psychology
JF - British Journal of Developmental Psychology
IS - 3
ER -