Abstract: Empathizing-Systemizing (E-S) theory in Autism is a newly emerging theory in the field of autism research. It defined empathizing as both the drive and the ability to identify another person's mental state and to respond with appropriate emotions, and defined systemizing as the drive to analyze or construct systems. The two-factor theory proposed that people with autism had below average empathy, but average or even above average systemizing. This could explain the social features (the social and communication dif?culties) with below average empathy, as well as the nonsocial features (the narrow interests, rigid behavior and island of abilities) in autism spectrum conditions with average or even above average systemizing. The theory used the notion "truth" to integrate empathizing and systemizing into one dimension. Empathizing was put on the low-end of the dimension and the systemizing high-end of the dimension. That is, the theory considered there trade-off between empathizing and systemizing. This paper firstly reviewed the major concepts of the E-S theory and the relationship between them, and then compared the E-S theory with other major theories, such as the mind-blindness theory, the executive dysfunction (ED) theory, and weak central coherence (WCC) theory. The E-S theory added the defect of emotional component of empathy and intact or even superior skill in systemizing to the mind-blindness theory, so that it could describe the non-social feature of autism. On non-social feature description, the ED theory considered people with autism as perseveration that make the individual to can't shift attention, the WCC theory regarded people with autism drawn to detailed information for negative reasons, but the E-S theory considered the behaviors as being highly purposeful: it exists in order to understand a system. The E-S theory has several strengths, the most important of which is the two-factor theory that could explain both the social and nonsocial features of the condition. Secondly, this theory could help to characterize the unique profile of autism spectrum conditions, especially their intact or even superior systemizing drive. The article also discussed some problems about the E-S theory. First, the empathizing was considered to be comprised of cognitive component and affective component, but the systemizing only has cognitive component. So systemizing may only be associated with cognitive component of the empathizing, and affective empathy deficits may be a comorbidity in autism. Second, studies had shown that when empathizing, women are affected emotionally more than men. Another study found that empathizing and systemizing traits were independent in women, but largely dependent in men. These results suggested men were more in line with the model of cognitive component of empathizing and systemizing opposing to each other, and women' affective empathy would disturb the function of the model. If the sex differences exist in the mechanism of E-S, the pathogenesis of autism would have gender difference. Finally, the paper pointed out that the E-S theory is lack of evidences on the physical level, and that the physiological mechanism needs to be explored.

Key words: autism, empathizing, systemizing, “truth”

摘要： 共情-系统化(Empathizing–Systemizing, E-S)理论是自闭症研究领域中的新兴理论，是对“心盲”理论的扩展。该理论认为自闭症个体的共情缺损，系统化无损甚至超常，并用这两个心理机制全面地解释了自闭症的社交障碍和沟通障碍两种社会性特征以及兴趣狭窄、行为刻板和能力孤岛三种非社会性特征。文章概述了共情-系统化理论的形成过程、证据以及该理论与其它重要理论的关系，并就共情和系统化的关系、共情和系统化的生理基础以及共情-系统化理论对自闭症治疗的启示等问题进行了反思与展望。

关键词: 自闭症, 共情, 系统化, “原理”