Abstract:

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to understanding and recognition of the person itself and others’ mind estate (such as desire, belief, intention, motivation and feeling, etc.), based on which causative prediction and explanation are made towards corresponding behaviors. So far the correlative researches domestic and overseas of ToM have mainly focused on the normal children; the ability of autistic children’s “theory of mind” which in turn could prove some basic hypotheses of ToM was seldom investigated. We tested “theory of mind” by the modified non-verbal false belief test, the unexpected-content task, based on the former design, then got four results of the study as followed, 1) The non-verbal false belief tasks, more exactly the modified unexpected-content task is suitable to the autistic and mental retarded children; 2)The theory of mind of the autistic children including the low language function ones are significantly lower than that of the mental retarded children; 3)The results of the theory of mind of the mental retarded children is the same with those reported in former researches; 4) Compared with mental retarded children, the autistic children seems to show much difficulties in focusing on the transfer and exchange of article.

摘要：

心理理论是指对自己和他人心理状态(如需要、信念、意图、动机、感觉等)的认识,并由此对相应行为做出因果性的预测和解释。国内外心理理论研究较多关注一般儿童的心理理论能力，而对自闭症儿童领域的心理理论的研究不够。本研究在原有的错误信念任务的基础上，对任务进行完全“非言语”改进，以意外内容任务为主要测试内容，将智力落后儿童作为对照组纳入到实验当中，进一步探索自闭症儿童心理理论发展情况。研究结果表明：改编后的非言语意外内容任务适用于自闭症和智力落后儿童；包括低言语能力个体在内的所有自闭症儿童的心理理论能力显著低于智力落后儿童；智力落后儿童的心理理论能力与以往研究结果相一致；相对于智力落后儿童，自闭症儿童在物品转移和调换的注意方面存在更大障碍。

关键词: 自闭症儿童, 智力落后儿童, 心理理论, 非言语错误信念