Autism: Beware grand theories

When dealing with complex and painful problems like autism, beware great theories. It is in that spirit that I introduce Amy O'Brian's article (Vancouver Sun, November 14, 2008) on the theory of Bernard Crespi, an evolutionary biologist at Canada's Simon Fraser University:

In what's being hailed as one of the most important contributions to psychiatry since those of Sigmund Freud, a researcher at Simon Fraser University has published a groundbreaking theory that could change the scientific thinking around mental illness.

And what is this theory?

Looking at the social behaviours of the two end-spectrum mental disorders, Crespi said they are solid opposites.

People with autism often have underdeveloped social behaviours, in that they often don't say much and avoid eye contact.

At the other end of the spectrum, people with schizophrenia are often hyper-developed in sociality, Crespi said.

Their sense of self can be hyper-developed into megalomania, language is hyper-developed into hearing voices, and rather than feeling isolated, people with schizophrenia often feel as if they're being watched or plotted against.

Well, we've noticed that. In fact, that's how these disorders came to be noticed as disorders. And so?

He suggests it makes sense to encourage behaviours that are found at the opposite end of the spectrum. So, in people with autism, it would make sense to nurture and strengthen their social behaviours. And the opposite might be true for people with schizophrenia.

Sure. And that is precisely what therapists have always tried to do. But with autism, it often doesn't work because the autist doesn't want to interact with other people; he is quite happy with his non-relationship activities.

Most people who are far down the autism spectrum are not at all dissatisfied with their way of life – quite the opposite, they become enraged when someone (accidentally) interrupts it.

Another theory solves nothing. There is no way out of autism unless the autist actually comes to want relationships.

See also: Deception in humans and animals

Theory of mind: Biology of imagination

Theory of Mind: Deception in humans and animals

Here's an interesting item by Simon Baron-Cohen on key differences between human and animal deception:

True deception assumes the deceiver knows that (1) other beings have minds, (2) different beings’ minds can believe different things are true (when only one of these is actually true), and (3) you can make another mind believe that something false is actually true. Defined in this way, one can see that deception is no trivial achievement! The deceiver needs to have the mental equipment to juggle different representations of reality. No wonder that scholars of animal behavior are wary of elevating a single instance of behavior to genuine deception, and prefer to reduce it to simpler mental processes like learned associations.

I think that his distinction is critical. The human deceiver is not merely trying to learn a trick that works; he is trying to deceive the mind of the other party. He has not succeeded unless he does that.

Think of all the "cheatin' heart" stories you have ever heard. The cheating spouse wants the faithful spouse to believe in the cheater's fidelity. If the cheater's excuse is only warily accepted, the cheater feels alarmed. Perhaps nothing bad has happened, but the other party's mind has not been convinced.

Baron-Cohen says that people with autism/Asperger's syndrome have trouble recognizing deception because they seldom concern themselves with the minds of others:

And even after twenty-five years in the field of autism, I am still shocked. A Ph.D. student with Asperger’s syndrome said to me last week, “I’ve just discovered that people don’t always say what they mean. So how do you know how to trust language?” Her “discovery” at the age of twenty-seven is one that the typical child makes at age four, in the teasing interactions of the playground.

He argues that there are some advantages to autism in his interesting essay.