Music, autism, and emotion

AUTISM In order to pursue the argument, we need some general and relatively uncontroversial claims about autism and emotion. For brevity, by people with “autism,” I will mean people with what is termed “autism spectrum disorder”—which encompasses a variety and a range of different conditions, but which all involve a deficiency in thinking about other minds. Two decades ago there was a consensus that the explanation was that those with autism were to some extent “mind-blind”; that is, those with autism exhibit a relative lack of understanding of other minds when compared with typically developing people (Baron-Cohen, 1995). But this is not so widely accepted now. Other possible explanations have been suggested. For example, a rival hypothesis is that othermind thought creates stress, which inhibits thinking in those terms (see Rieffe et al., 2000). On this view there is no cognitive shortfall as there is on the mindblindness hypothesis; instead other-mind thinking is disrupted by stress. It has even been suggested that autism is not a unitary condition, in which case there is no single explanation to be had (Happe et al., 2006). Nevertheless, whatever the explanation, those with autism systematically do worse in similar circumstances in attributing emotion states to other minds. Few doubt that those with autism have a problem with attributing mental states to others. That remains relatively uncontroversial and a consensus view. [There are dissenting voices: see for example Tracy et al. (2011). But the results cited in that paper only concern a highly structured task and are not generalizeable. Compare Allen et al. (2013).] Despite divergences, most current theories of autism agree that autistic people are less well-functioning, not in their possession of emotions but (A) in the ability to attribute emotions to others, (B) in the ability to imagine emotions when not having them, and (C) in their ability to describe emotions in language. On this last point, 85% of those who are independently identified as having autism have what is called “Alexithymia II,” which is a shortfall in the ability to name their own emotions (Hill et al., 2004). Alexithymia II indicates a defect in understanding one’s own emotions. These shortfalls have been probed and the difference between autistic groups and non-autistic groups in ascribing, imagining and describing emotion is statistically significant, and the results replicated [Hobson, 1993; Frith, 2003; see also Bird et al. (2010) for the view that the defect in self-knowledge explains defects in thinking about other minds]. There are a variety of theories of what autism is, what explains it, and of exactly what abilities such a person has or lacks. But most psychologists accept that in general and in similar circumstances, the psychological ascriptions by those with autism are less accurate than those of typically developing people, and that, whatever the ultimate explanation, thinking in terms of the mental states of others is more difficult for those with autism than for typically developing people. This much remains widely accepted. Part of the shortfall of autistic people with respect to the emotions of others is that they find it hard to ascribe emotions that they do not feel. That is, there is a shortfall not only in respect of knowledge but also in respect of imagination. The well-known false-belief puppet tests show that autistic people do worse at conceiving of others as having beliefs and other mental states that they themselves lack (Baron-Cohen, 1995). And this derives from differences in the ability to imagine mental states they lack. The interpretation of our general ability to think about other minds is controversial (there was once a “simulation vs. theorytheory” debate). But all sides agree that understanding other minds implies being able to conceive or imagine other people having states that the ascriber lacks. (Imagination in this sense does not necessarily mean imagining what is not the case; we may imagine what is now going on in New Zealand.)