The 38th Sir Frederick Bartlett Lecture Why we need cognitive explanations of autism
Abstract
In the 70 years since autism was described and named there have been huge changes in the conceptualization of this enigmatic condition. This review takes a personal perspective on the history of autism research. The origins of the first cognitive theories of autism, theory of mind and weak central coherence, are discussed and updated to inform future developments. Selected experimental findings are interpreted in the historical context of changes that have been brought about by advances in methodology. A three-level framework graphically illustrates a causal chain between brain, mind, and behaviour to facilitate the identification of phenotypes in neurodevelopmental disorders. Cognition is placed at the centre of the diagram to reveal that it can link together brain and behaviour, when there are complex multiple mappings between the different levels.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Cognition plays a pivotal role linking brain and behavior in ASD.
“Cognition plays a pivotal role linking brain and behavior in ASD [54], yet curiously remains absent in DSM-5.”
From Subgrouping the Autism Spectrum: Reflections on DSM-5 (2013) · cites this paper as [54]
Cites
Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?
Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00076512 · Cited by 8,743 · see citing works
Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind” ?
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8 · Cited by 8,599 · see citing works
Self-citationREMEMBERING: A STUDY IN EXPERIMENTAL AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Bartlett, F. C., & Burt, C. (1933) · British Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1933.tb02913.x · Cited by 7,475 · see citing works
Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain
Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1093535 · Cited by 3,929 · see citing works
Pretense and representation: The origins of "theory of mind."
Leslie, A. M. (1987) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.94.4.412 · Cited by 3,379 · see citing works
Wing, L., & Gould, J. (1979) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1007/bf01531288 · Cited by 2,587 · cited 3× · see citing works
“They spoke to a surprising finding that robustly distinguished autistic from nonautistic children: extremely poor performance on a standard symbolic play test (Wing & Gould, 1979 ) where a set of miniature wooden toys allowed children to enact simple scenarios such as using a cup to give a drink to a doll.”
BackgroundInfluentialDie „Autistischen Psychopathen” im Kindesalter
Asperger, H. (1944) · Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten · doi:10.1007/bf01837709 · Cited by 2,163 · see citing works
Epidemiology of Pervasive Developmental Disorders
Fombonne, E. (2009) · Pediatric Research · doi:10.1203/pdr.0b013e31819e7203 · Cited by 1,971 · see citing works
The Neural Basis of Mentalizing
Frith, C. D., & Frith, U. (2006) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2006.05.001 · Cited by 1,855 · see citing works
Other minds in the brain: a functional imaging study of “theory of mind” in story comprehension.
Fletcher, P. (1995) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/0010-0277(95)00692-r · Cited by 1,522 · see citing works
Blair, R. J. R. (2005) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2005.06.004 · Cited by 1,365 · see citing works
INFANTILE AUTISM: A GENETIC STUDY OF 21 TWIN PAIRS
Folstein, S., & Rutter, M. (1977) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.1977.tb00443.x · Cited by 1,361 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Imagine how exciting it was to learn about the first genetic study in autism (Folstein & Rutter, 1977 ).”
BackgroundHill, E., Berthoz, S., & Frith, U. (2004) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1023/b:jadd.0000022613.41399.14 · Cited by 619 · see citing works
Happé, F., & Ronald, A. (2008) · Neuropsychology Review · doi:10.1007/s11065-008-9076-8 · Cited by 498 · see citing works
Levels of emotional awareness and autism: an fMRI study
Silani, G., Bird, G., Brindley, R., Singer, T., Frith, C., & Frith, U. (2008) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470910701577020 · Cited by 485 · see citing works
The beautiful otherness of the autistic mind
Happé, F., & Frith, U. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0009 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Adaptive behaviour and theory of mind in autism
Fombonne, E., Siddons, F., Achard, S., Frith, U., & Happé, F. (1994) · European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1007/bf02720324 · Cited by 83 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Lai, M.-C., Lombardo, M. V., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2014) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(13)61539-1 · Cited by 2,371 · see citing works
Livingston, L. A., & Happé, F. (2017) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.06.005 · Cited by 414 · see citing works
Subgrouping the Autism Spectrum: Reflections on DSM-5
Lai, M.-C., Lombardo, M. V., Chakrabarti, B., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2013) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001544 · Cited by 330 · see citing works
“Cognitive profile: Cognition plays a pivotal role linking brain and behavior in ASD [54], yet curiously remains absent in DSM-5.”
Baron-Cohen, S., Bowen, D. C., Holt, R. J., Allison, C., Auyeung, B., Lombardo, M. V., Smith, P., & Lai, M.-C. (2015) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136521 · Cited by 238 · see citing works
Lehnhardt, F.-G., Falter, C. M., Gawronski, A., Pfeiffer, K., Tepest, R., Franklin, J., & Vogeley, K. (2016) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1007/s10803-015-2558-7 · Cited by 153 · see citing works
Autonomic and brain responses associated with empathy deficits in autism spectrum disorder
Gu, X., Eilam‐Stock, T., Zhou, T., Anagnostou, E., Kolevzon, A., Soorya, L., Hof, P. R., Friston, K. J., & Fan, J. (2015) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.22840 · Cited by 110 · see citing works
Development of risky decision making: Fuzzy-trace theory and neurobiological perspectives
Reyna, V. F., Wilhelms, E. A., McCormick, M. J., & Weldon, R. B. (2015) · Child Development Perspectives · doi:10.1111/cdep.12117 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Wuang, Y.-P., Huang, C.-L., & Tsai, H.-Y. (2020) · Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment · doi:10.2147/ndt.s253337 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
- Authors
- Frith, U.
- Affiliations
- UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK
- Venue
- Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2012-11
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 2073-2092
- ISSN
- 0033-555X (ISSN-L)
- 1747-0218
- 1747-0226
- OpenAlex
- W1983287244
- Cited by
- 170
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetics and Neurodevelopmental Disorders
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, theory of mind, weak central coherence, history of autism research, neurodevelopmental disorders, cognitive phenotypes
- MeSH terms
- Autistic Disorder, Cognition Disorders, Humans, Models, Theoretical, Social Behavior, Theory of Mind
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
