Elaboration of the Hypothesis--论文代写范文精选

在社交场合，情感的复杂因素,讽刺,伪装,比喻,欺骗,善意的谎言和双虚张声势。行为分析师认为,自闭症儿童的手势模式也符合心理理论假说。下面的essay代写范文进行论述。

Abstract
There is a consensus that genetic and neurodevelopmental factors play a significant role in the etiology of autism (e.g., Frith & Hill, 2004). Although psychogenic explanations of autism have been rejected, psychological theory remains important. It is used to describe and understand the behavioral development of people with autism (e.g., Charman, 2004). Autism researchers have focused on theory of mind deficits, executive dysfunction, weak central coherence, attentional problems, and affective impairments (for reviews, see Hill & Frith, 2004; Rajendran & Mitchell, 2007; Sigman & Capps, 1997). The EIH of autism may be relevant to all of these theories, but it obviously connects to the first one: According to the theory of mind hypothesis, children with autism struggle to develop the CE ability that other humans use automatically in everyday life.

The Theory of Mind Hypothesis and the EIH There is evidence that people with autism do not easily identify the following phenomena in social situations: false belief, second-order belief, complex causes of emotion, irony, pretence, metaphor, deception, faux pas, white lies, and double bluff (e.g., see Baron-Cohen, 2000; Happe, 1994; Hill & Frith, 2004). These are facets of CE that most individuals intuitively digest as they develop, although behavior analysts argue that specific learning histories are involved (e.g., McHugh, Barnes-Holmes, & Barnes-Holmes, 2004; Rehfeldt, Dillen, Ziomek, & Kowalchuk, 2007). 

The gestural patterns of children with autism are also consistent with the theory of mind hypothesis (Baron-Cohen, 1995). Happe (1994) highlighted the power of the theory of mind hypothesis and the methodological diversity of the studies that have investigated it. Baron-Cohen (1995) reviewed theory of mind research and described people with autism as “mindblind.” He viewed mindblindness as a core deficit in autism, and “it is now widely accepted that individuals with autism are impaired in the intuitive understanding that people have mental states” (Hill & Frith, 2004, p. 6). Nevertheless, the theory of mind hypothesis continues to be criticized. Theory of mind deficits are not unique to autism; Gernsbacher and Frymiare (2005) argued that performance on standard theory of mind tasks is determined by linguistic ability. However, a recent study of theory of mind in children with autism and children with specific language impairment used a nonverbal method and provided further evidence of a CE deficit in autism (Colle, Baron-Cohen, & Hill, 2007).

Baron-Cohen (2002) complemented the theory of mind hypothesis by proposing the extreme-male-brain theory of autism. According to this account, males tend to have higher systemizing ability but lower empathizing ability than females. (Systemizing is the drive to examine and construct a range of rule-governed systems.) Autism is much more common in males than in females and may be an extreme form of the male brain. Questionnaire data appear to confirm that people with autism are weak empathizers but strong systemizers (Baron-Cohen, Richler, Bisarya, Gurunathan, & Wheelwright, 2004). 

The EIH and the extreme-male-brain theory both incorporate the theory of mind hypothesis, but the concept of empathic imbalance appears to be incompatible with the extreme-male-brain theory. Although Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004) presented a two-component model of empathy (a cognitive component and an emotional component represented pictorially by two overlapping circles), the extreme-male-brain theory groups CE and EE as a single dimension. In Baron-Cohen’s theory, the male brain is not adept at empathizing (CE and EE combined), whereas in the EIH, males are at greater risk than females of lifelong empathic imbalance. 

The extreme-male-brain theory continues the historical view that people with autism lack EE. Frith (1989) wrote that “the most general description of social impairment in Autism is lack of empathy. Autistic people are noted for their indifference to other people’s distress, their inability to offer comfort, even to receive comfort themselves” (p. 154). Yirmiya, Sigman, Kasari, and Mundy (1992) noted that “one of the most striking characteristics of autistic individuals appears to be their inability to share emotional states with others” (p. 150). Hobson (1993) argued that children with autism have a “seriously impoverished” (p. 194) sense of emotional engagement with other people. The EIH of autism is not necessarily incompatible with these descriptions, and I will argue that, in terms of behavioral signs, an EE surfeit in the context of autism could sometimes mimic an EE deficit. In other words, children with autism may find it difficult to engage emotionally with others because their capacity for EE is excessive and not complemented by commensurate CE.

Characteristics of CE Deficit Disorder 
What would be the psychological characteristics of individuals with low CE ability but high EE sensitivity? Such individuals would have communication problems and a reduced tendency to understand others’ behavior in mentalstate terms. They would have a strong capacity for direct EE but a reduced capacity for indirect EE. They might sometimes experience empathic concern but lack the CE needed to channel this concern into flexible prosocial behavior. I predicted that people with CE deficit disorder would also spontaneously develop ways of limiting the attention they pay to the emotions of others (Smith, 2006). I suggested that their sense of self would easily be permeated by other people’s emotions and that this could be a confusing and aversive experience. People with CE deficit disorder might particularly enjoy the company of happy people who behave in consistent and predictable ways. 

In the general population, EE sensitivity is positively correlated with automatic mimicry of facial expressions (Sonnby-Borgstrom, 2002; SonnbyBorgstrom, Jonsson, & Svensson, 2003). Thus, although people with CE deficit disorder may avoid attending to social stimuli, when they do actively attend to facial expressions they might show an unusually high degree of automatic mimicry. Another prediction about CE deficit disorder stems from neuroimaging research on gustatory empathy. People activate regions of their brains involved in gustation (e.g., the anterior insula) when they observe other people’s facial expressions of gustatory emotion (Jabbi, Swart, & Keysers, 2007). Such activation of the gustatory cortex appears to be positively correlated with an individual’s susceptibility to emotional contagion and personal distress (Jabbi et al., 2007). 

Hence, people with CE deficit disorder can be expected to show heightened neural responsiveness to the gustatory pleasure of others. The concept of this disorder pertains to a question posed by Whiten (1997): “If [nonhuman] primates lack a theory of mind, yet are so socially expert, why need mindblind [autistic] people be so severely constrained in their social abilities?” (p. 155). The EIH of autism suggests one possible answer: Perhaps people with autism are severely affected because they have EE-dominated empathic imbalance, and this imbalance is more disabling than a general empathy deficit. Sigman and Capps (1997) noted that “their behavior suggests that autistic children lack either an interest, ability, or willingness to read the facial expressions of others” (p. 48). It is the possibility that people with autism are sometimes unwilling to attend to the facial expressions of others that is particularly relevant to the EIH. Do children with autism avoid attending to salient features of the social world in an attempt to prevent empathic overarousal, personal distress, and confusion?（essay代写)

Autistic Behavior as an Adaptive Response to Empathic Imbalance 
My suggestion is that children with autism spontaneously develop a persistent cognitive-behavioral style (variously interpreted as weak central cohesion, executive dysfunction, or high systemizing ability) to cope with their empathic imbalance and to protect themselves from others’ emotions. According to this view, autistic behavior can be an attempt to hone or deploy this cognitive-behavioral style. Avoidance behavior, obsessive interests, and insistence on routines may regulate the stress that stems from living among people whose behavior is difficult to comprehend but whose emotions are all too readily sensed. Low CE ability may reduce the salience of social stimuli and render the social world unpredictable and confusing. High EE sensitivity may compound this and act as a deterrent to attending to the social world. In normal development, people can use CE to regulate and resolve their EE responses; people with autism may try to control and narrow their attention in an attempt to regulate EE.（essay代写)

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