The Awkward Moments Test: A Naturalistic Measure of Social Understanding in Autism

By Heavey, L., Phillips, W., Baron-Cohen, S., and Rutter, M., (2000), Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol. 30, No.3

Details are given of a new advanced theory of mind task, developed to approximate the demands of real-life mentalizing in able individuals with autism. Excerpts of films showing characters in social situations were presented, with participants required to answer questions on characters’ mental states and on control, non-social questions. When compared with control participants, adults with high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome were most impaired in their ability to answer the questions requiring mind-reading ability. Although the present findings have implications for task modification, such naturalistic, dynamic stimuli are held to offer an important means of studying subtle difficulties in mentalisitc understanding.

Most of the individual films involved a character experiencing a socially uncomfortable and unpleasant moment, hence the title of Awkward Moments.

The Awkward Moments Test comprised eight individual films which ranged from 45 to 120 seconds in duration. Seven of the films were British television commercials and one film clip was taken from a British television series.

The test questions all referred explicitly to a character’s feelings (e.g., “At the end of the film, how did the young man feel?”). To answer such questions accurately, participants were required to process more than direct visual cues such as facial expressions. They needed to appreciate (a) the character’s beliefs about a social situation (sometimes a false belief) and (b) the social significance of the character’s actions, that is, what the other characters in the film thought about the main character’s behaviour.

The results support the general experimental prediction: the theory of mind measures within the Awkward Moments Test revealed group differences. The autism group answered fewer of the mental state-based questions correctly and were deficient in their ability to explain film characters’ intentions.