Reading the Mind in the Voice: A study with Normal Adults & Adults with Aspergers Syndrome and High Functioning Autism

Rutherford, M.D, Baron-Cohen, S., and Wheelwright, S., (2002), Journal of Autism and Development Disorders, Vol 32, Pages 189-206.

People with high functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) have deficits in theory of mind (ToM). Traditional ToM tasks are not sensitive enough to measure ToM deficits in adults, so more subtle ToM tests are needed. One adult level test, the Reading the Mind in the eyes test has shown that AS and HFA subjects have measurable deficits in the ability to make ToM interferences. Here we introduce a test that extends the above task into the auditory domain and that can be used with adults with IQ scores in the normal range. We report the use of the test with an adult sample of people with AS/HFA and with two adult control groups. Results suggest that individuals with AS/HFA have difficulty extracting mental state information from vocalisations. These results are consistent with previous results suggesting that people with HFA and AS have difficulties drawing ToM interferences.

Materials
The audio stimuli were composed of segments of dialogue taken from audiocassette tapes of dramatic performances. Each speech segment was either a sentence or a phrase. Each speech segment lasted for approximately 2 seconds with a 3 second pause between speech segments, during which participants marked their choice.

Construction of the Task
First, 50 segments of dialogue were recorded from dramatic audio books. Ten items were excluded, leaving 40 segments of speech.