Table_1_Preserved Perspective Taking in Free Indirect Discourse in Autism Spectrum Disorder.XLSX

Perspective taking has been proposed to be impaired in persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially when implicit processing is required. In narrative texts, language perception and interpretation is fundamentally guided by taking the perspective of a narrator. We studied perspective taking in the linguistic domain of so-called Free Indirect Discourse (FID), during which certain text segments have to be interpreted as the thoughts or utterances of a protagonist without explicitly being marked as thought or speech representations of that protagonist (as in direct or indirect discourse). Crucially, the correct interpretation of text segments as FID depends on the ability to detect which of the protagonists “stands out” against the others and is therefore identifiable as implicit thinker or speaker. This so-called “prominence” status of a protagonist is based on linguistic properties (e.g., grammatical function, referential expression), in other words, the perspective is “hidden” and has to be inferred from the text material. In order to test whether this implicit perspective taking ability that is required for the interpretation of FID is preserved in persons with ASD, we presented short texts with three sentences to adults with and without ASD. In the last sentence, the perspective was switched either to the more or the less prominent of two protagonists. Participants were asked to rate the texts regarding their naturalness. Both diagnostic groups rated sentences with FID anchored to the less prominent protagonist as less natural than sentences with FID anchored to the more prominent protagonist. Our results that the high-level perspective taking ability in written language that is required for the interpretation of FID is well preserved in persons with ASD supports the conclusion that language skills are highly elaborated in ASD so that even the challenging attribution of utterances to protagonists is possible if they are only implicitly given. We discuss the implications in the context of claims of impaired perspective taking in ASD as well as with regard to the underlying processing of FID.学界已提出，孤独症谱系障碍（Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD）患者存在视角采择能力缺损，尤其当任务需要内隐加工时，该缺损表现得更为显著。在叙事文本中，语言感知与阐释本质上依托于对叙述者视角的采择。我们针对所谓自由间接引语（Free Indirect Discourse, FID）这一语言范畴内的视角采择能力展开研究：在自由间接引语语境中，部分文本片段需被阐释为某一主人公的想法或言语，但并未像直接引语或间接引语那样，被明确标记为该主人公的思想或言语表征。至关重要的是，将文本片段正确识别为自由间接引语，依赖于检测出相较于其他主人公更为“凸显”的个体，并将其认定为内隐的思考者或言说者的能力。主人公的此种“凸显”地位，基于语言特征（如语法功能、指称表达）而定；换言之，该视角是“隐藏”的，需从文本材料中推导得出。为检验孤独症谱系障碍患者是否保留了解读自由间接引语所需的内隐视角采择能力，我们向有、无孤独症谱系障碍的成年受试者呈现了由三句话组成的短篇文本。在文本的最后一句中，视角会切换至两位主人公中凸显性更强或更弱的一方。受试者需对文本的自然度进行评分。两个诊断组均认为，锚定至凸显性更弱的主人公的自由间接引语文本，其自然度评分低于锚定至凸显性更强的主人公的文本。本研究结果显示，孤独症谱系障碍患者仍保留了解读自由间接引语所需的书面语言高级视角采择能力，这一发现支持了如下结论：孤独症谱系障碍患者的语言能力已得到高度精细化发展，即便仅通过内隐线索，也能完成将言语归属于特定主人公这一具有挑战性的任务。我们将结合学界关于孤独症谱系障碍患者视角采择能力受损的相关主张，以及自由间接引语的潜在加工机制，对本研究的启示展开讨论。