Moreover, their performances should be well predicted by the difficulty of the items in controls-i.e. If this account were true, then the ASD participants would be likely, when presented with faux pas test-like formats, to always detect faux pas when they are present, but also over-detect, perhaps, when they are not. However, it is a possibility that should nevertheless be examined in a study of this kind. This seems prima facie unlikely since ToM impairments are widely attributed to a lack of attribution and understanding of others’ mental states, i.e. The first possibility (Hypothesis 1) is that a feature of autism might be excessive attribution of mental states, i.e. In this study, we examine four possible explanations for this apparent “over-detection” of faux pas in adults. 2009): adults with ASD tended to over-detect faux pas, thinking that they had occurred when in fact they had not. 1998) found the opposite pattern (Zalla et al. Surprisingly however, a recent study testing adults with ASD on an adapted adult version of the same faux pas task (Stone et al. 1998) this region is both widely associated with ToM (Frith and Frith 2006) and known to be abnormally recruited by people with ASD (Gilbert et al. Interestingly, adults with medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) lesions also tend to under-detect faux pas (Stone et al. In Baron-Cohen’s study, the group of children with ASD showed a tendency to under-detect faux pas in comparison to a control group (Baron-Cohen et al. High-functioning children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who perform well on first- and second-order false-belief tasks consistently display difficulties in recognising faux pas situations (Baron-Cohen et al. Indeed, all those involved in a particular situation who realise a faux pas has occurred tend to feel embarrassed: the person who committed the faux pas, the person who was affected by it, and any witnesses. By definition therefore, all faux pas statements lead to an awkward situation where one or more character is embarrassed.
In this way, recognition of a faux pas committed by others is closely related to recognition of embarrassment the Oxford Dictionary defines a faux pas as “an embarrassing or tactless act or remark in a social situation” (Faux pas 2015). The recognition of a faux pas is considered an advanced test of ToM ability as it requires subtle social reasoning: one must be able to appreciate (a) that two protagonists might have different knowledge states and also (b) the emotional impact a statement can have on the listener (Baron-Cohen et al. A faux pas was defined as a situation where “a speaker says something without considering if it is something that the listener might not want to hear or know, and which typically has negative consequences that the speaker never intended” (Baron-Cohen et al. In order to reveal these individuals’ persistent ToM deficits, Baron-Cohen and colleagues developed an advanced ToM task based on the ability to recognise faux pas (Baron-Cohen et al. While older and more high-functioning individuals on the autism spectrum tend to pass traditional ToM tasks used with lower-functioning children, they display persistent daily difficulties understanding other people’s states of mind (Frith et al. One common explanation for the difficulties in social interaction is a deficit in the ability to mentalize, or Theory of Mind (ToM), the aptitude for inferring other people’s states of mind, such as intentions, beliefs, desires and wishes (Frith and Frith 2006). Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder involving impairments in social interaction and communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association 2013 ICD-10, World Health Organization 1992).
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