The judgment of mind: A comparison between children with typical development and children with autism spectrum conditions

Previous research has shown similar mind perception for individuals with and without autism spectrum conditions (ASC). In the present study, we focused the comparison on 6- to 11-year old children versus their typically-developing (TD) counterparts, who were asked to make mental capacity (mind) judgments. Results showed comparable mind perception for the two participant groups, who perceived human entities as having the most mental capacities, followed by nonhuman animals, then by objects. The two groups similarly perceived human entities as having agentic and experiential capacities, objects as having little agentic or experiential capacities, and nonhuman animals as having experiential but not agentic capacities. The present study enriches the mind perception literature by including a clinical child sample with ASC into the analysis and discussion. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.