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Functional impairment is a core feature of both autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. While diagnostically independent, they can co-occur in the same individual at both the trait and diagnostic levels. The effect of such co-occurrence is hypothesized to worsen functional impairment. The diametric model, however, suggests that the disorders are etiologically and phenotypically diametrical, representing the extreme of a unidimensional continuum of cognition and behavior. A central prediction of this model is that functional impairment would be attenuated in individuals with mixed symptom expressions or genetic liability to both disorders. We tested this hypothesis in two clinical populations and one healthy population. In individuals with chronic schizophrenia and in individuals with first episode psychosis we evaluated the combined effect of autistic traits and positive psychotic symptoms on psychosocial functioning. In healthy carriers of alleles of copy number variants (CNVs) that confer risk for both autism and schizophrenia, we also evaluated whether variation in psychosocial functioning depended on the combined risk conferred by each CNV. Relative to individuals with biased symptom/CNV risk profiles, results show that functional impairments are attenuated in individuals with relatively equal levels of positive symptoms and autistic traits—and specifically stereotypic behaviors—, and in carriers of CNVs with relatively equal risks for either disorder. However, the pattern of effects along the “balance axis” varied across the groups, with this attenuation being generally less pronounced in individuals with high-high symptom/risk profile in the schizophrenia and CNV groups, and relatively similar for low-low and high-high individuals in the first episode psychosis group. Lower levels of functional impairments in individuals with “balanced” symptom profile or genetic risks would suggest compensation across mechanisms associated with autism and schizophrenia. CNVs that confer equal risks for both disorders may provide an entry point for investigations into such compensatory mechanisms. The co-assessment of autism and schizophrenia may contribute to personalized prognosis and stratification strategies.

The ability to mindread recursively – for example by thinking what person 1 thinks person 2 thinks person 3 thinks – is a prime example of recursive thinking in which one process, representation or idea becomes embedded within a similar one. It has also been suggested that mindreading is an exceptional example, with 5 recursive steps commonly observed for mindreading, in comparison with just one or two in other domains. However, conceptual analysis of existing recursive mindreading tasks suggests that conclusions about exceptional mindreading are insecure. Revised tasks were devised to provide a more rigorous test of recursive mindreading capacity. Study 1 (N=76) found significantly worse performance at Level-5 recursive mindreading on the revised tasks (17% correct) compared with the original tasks (80% correct), and no effect of moderate financial bonuses for good performance. Study 2 (N=74) replicated poor performance at Level-5 recursive mindreading on the revised tasks (15% correct) in the absence of bonuses, but found better performance (45% correct) when participants were offered large bonuses for accuracy, encouraged to take as much time as needed, and assisted with a strategy for recursive reasoning. These findings suggest that, like recursive thinking in other domains, recursive mindreading is effortful and limited. We discuss how the proposed role for high levels of recursive mindreading in communication, culture, and literature, might be reconciled with these limitations.

Early learning of a second language at home has been found to be beneficial for children’s cognitive development, including their ability to ascribe mental states to others, also called Theory of Mind. We investigated whether later second language learning in an educational setting can accelerate children’s Theory of Mind development and whether the amount of exposure to second language education makes a difference. We tested three groups of monolingual four-five year old children with varying language exposure at the beginning of their first year at primary school and 24 weeks later. Children attending bilingual schools and children with weekly short second language lessons exhibited very similar accelerated Theory of Mind development compared to children without any second language provision. Theory of Mind advances were not related to other cognitive advances. Thus, limited foreign language teaching can boost young children’s social cognitive development, providing an enhanced basis for their social competence development.

Pure coordination games require no communication among players who seek to coordinate decisions and actions. Players need to achieve a “meeting-of-minds” by using their intuitions to pick a response considered mutually salient. Previous work has examined the forms of reasoning (e.g., virtual bargaining, recursive mindreading) and common knowledge conditions that are crucial for success, but has paid little attention to the content of intuitive coordination solutions. The present paper sampled British participants and Global participants (from many countries), and examined their ability to solve thirty novel open-ended coordination problems, either within- or between-groups. Participants coordinated successfully in all conditions, and adjusted their intuitions accurately for different groups. Intuitions were not only used effectively, but also participant’s intuitive models are adjusted in the right direction for converging on mutual solutions. Alignment of intuitions provide a model system for better understanding a variety of social phenomena such as communication, coordination and social interaction.

Reading fiction is argued to have benefits for our understanding of others' thoughts, feelings and desires, referred to as 'theory of mind'(ToM). We aimed to test this assumption by examining whether children's reading experience is longitudinally associated with later ToM. We examined reading experience and ToM in 236 children between the ages of 11-13 years. Participants were asked to report on their time spent reading both fiction and non-fiction at ages 11 and 13, ToM was measured at age 13. Verbal ability, reading comprehension, and reading motivation were included as control variables in all analyses. Results showed that children's self-reported fiction, but not their non-fiction reading was associated with ToM. Further, the association was concurrent but not longitudinal: fiction reading and ToM at age 13 were associated but fiction reading at age 11 did not predict ToM at age 13. Our findings motivate further research on what types of reading materials might be beneficial, and the level of exposure to fiction that is needed for measurable benefits for later ToM.

A meaningful social life relies on understanding others’ minds and behaviours. The ability to reason about an individual’s mental states such as beliefs and desires, and to understand and predict how these mental states shape an individual’s behaviour is called theory of mind (ToM). In order to examine an individual’s ToM ability, false belief tasks have been used widely in the literature.This research is a novel attempt to clarify the basic cognitive processes shared across the different varieties of false belief tasks. For this purpose, an agent-based model has been implemented to evaluate how agents’ achievement of goals in a social context is dependent on the ability to understand others’ beliefs.In our study, we offer a methodological framework for many belief-reasoning tasks called Belief Representation Systematic Approach (BRSA). BRSA is a simple and robust approach that breaks down false belief tasks into four fundamental cognitive phases, including Perception, Memory, Reasoning beliefs and desires, and Expressing others’ beliefs and desires in an action. BRSA identifies a network of indispensable resources for belief representation. It also clarifies that there is a difference between ‘understanding’ others’ beliefs and ‘using’ that understanding. BRSA demonstrates that false belief tasks, as a common decisive methodology for theory of mind competence, might involve more than understanding others’ beliefs. Moreover, the model demonstrates that agents’ understanding of others’ beliefs on the micro level will lead to significant improvements in their performances on the macro level.

The medial pFC (mPFC) is frequently reported to play a central role in Theory of Mind (ToM). However, the contribution of this large cortical region in ToM is not well understood. Combining a novel behavioral task with fMRI, we sought to demonstrate functional divisions between dorsal and rostral mPFC. All conditions of the task required the representation of mental states (beliefs and desires). The level of demands on cognitive control (high vs. low) and the nature of the demands on reasoning (deductive vs. abductive) were varied orthogonally between conditions. Activation in dorsal mPFC was modulated by the need for control, whereas rostral mPFC was modulated by reasoning demands. These findings fit with previously suggested domain-general functions for different parts of mPFC and suggest that these functions are recruited selectively in the service of ToM.