The ability to manipulate behavior and to understand manipulation of beliefs: A comparison of individuals with autism, mental retardation, and normal development

This study investigated the ability to deceive in participants with autism, mental retardation (MR), and normal development. The authors used S. Hala, M. Chandler, and A. S. Fritz's (1991) procedures, in which children deceive by creating false trails or by erasing all trails and lying about the true location of a hidden object. Participants with autism and those with MR did not differ in their ability to use a deceptive method to manipulate the behavior of another person. Participants with autism were significantly less able than participants with MR to understand that they manipulated the beliefs of another person by predicting the outcome of their deceptive act. The normal group outperformed the group with autism but not the group with MR on both parts of the task. Different possible interpretations of the results are discussed, including a deficit in theory of mind and a deficit in executive control functions.