Autism: A Specific Cognitive Disorder of & lsquo;Mind-Blindness’

Abstract

The last 20 years has produced a body of evidence suggesting the presence of cognitive deficits in autism. This research is briefly reviewed. The question of whether a specific cognitive deficit might underlie the social and communicative symptoms in autism is then considered. One recent proposal has been that people with autism are impaired in their ability to attribute mental states (such as beliefs, knowledge states, etc.) to themselves and other people. Experimental evidence relevant to this hypothesis is summarized, and this suggests there is indeed an autism-specific congnitive deficit in this domain. The possible origins of this deficit are discussed, and the term ‘mind-blindness’ is proposed to refer to this deficit.