It has been argued that metacognition and mindreading rely on the same cognitive processes (Carruthers in The opacity of mind: an integrative theory of self-knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011). It is widely accepted that mindreading is diminished among individuals diagnosed with autism (Brunsdon and Happé in Autism 18(1):17-30,…

It is assumed that learning on the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task is related to learning involved in social skill development affected in autism, but this assumption has hardly been investigated. We have therefore examined associations between SRT task learning and social impairment measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale in 72 autistic and…

The present study investigates the comprehension of syntactic and affective prosody in adults with autism spectrum disorder without accompanying cognitive deficits (ASD w/o cognitive deficits) as well as age-, education- and gender-matched unimpaired adults, while processing orally presented sentences. Two experiments were conducted: (a) an…

Repetitive behavior is a key characteristic of autism spectrum disorders. Our aim was to investigate the hypothesis that this abnormal behavioral repetition results from a tendency to over-rely on habits at the expense of flexible, goal-directed action. Twenty-four children with autism spectrum disorders and 24 age- and gender-matched controls…

Dysfunctions of the human mirror neuron system have been postulated to underlie some deficits in autism spectrum disorders including poor imitative performance and impaired social skills. Using three reaction time experiments addressing mirror neuron system functions under simple and complex conditions, we examined 20 adult autism spectrum…

Screening studies of a population in primary health care are sparsely reported. The aim was to describe observed atypical behaviours that may be associated with autism spectrum conditions, in a population (n?=?4,329) of infants at eight months. Observations were performed by paediatric nurses. An observational instrument, named SEEK developed for…

Earlier research showed that divided attention, an aspect of executive function, is limited in both children and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The current study explored divided attention capacity in adults with ASD and without intellectual disability (n = 36). Divided attention was tested using a computerized variant of a…

In individuals with autism or autism-spectrum-disorder (ASD), conflicting results have been reported regarding the processing of biological motion tasks. As biological motion perception and recognition might be related to impaired imitation, gross motor skills and autism specific psychopathology in individuals with ASD, we performed a functional…