Autism and Faux Pas. Influences of Presentation Modality and Working Memory

Abstract

People diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties on Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks involving social situations, such as ‘faux pas’. The objective of this study was to find the modality of presentation (visual, verbal, or mixed) that yields the best understanding of a ‘faux pas’, and the possible influence of other variables, including intelligence (IQ), age, and working memory. Thirty autistic children and 30 neurotypical children, all aged 7 to 12 years old and comparable in age and IQ, participated in this study. They were asked to resolve nine ‘faux pas’ stories (three per modality). Significant between-groups differences were found in the visual (t = 2.99, p = .004) and verbal modalities (t = 2.64, p = .011), such that the neurotypical (NT) group had higher scores than the ASD group. The ASD group’s comprehension was better via the mixed modality than the verbal modality (t = 2.48, p = .019). In addition, working memory had a bigger impact on Faux Pas understanding in cases of autism than in typical development (R2 explained between .19 and .28 of variance in Faux Pas test outcomes), and could therefore explain some of the difficulties previously reported in this area. Future research should include a measure of working memory and a control among the stimuli presented to test for group differences in faux pas understanding.