Impairments in theory of mind (ToM)—long considered common among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)—are in fact highly heterogeneous across this population. Although such heterogeneity should be reflected in differential recruitment of neural mechanisms during ToM reasoning, no research has yet uncovered a mechanism that explains these individual differences. In this study, 78 (48 with ASD) adolescents viewed ToM vignettes and made mental-state inferences about characters’ behavior while participant electrophysiology was concurrently recorded. Two candidate event-related-potentials (ERPs)—the late positive complex (LPC) and the late slow wave (LSW)—were successfully elicited. LPC scores correlated positively with ToM accuracy and negatively with ASD symptom severity. Note that the LPC partially mediated the relationship between ASD symptoms and ToM accuracy, which suggests that this ERP component, thought to represent cognitive metarepresentation, may help explain differences in ToM performance in some individuals with ASD.

长期以来，心智理论 (ToM) 障碍被认为在自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 患者中很常见，但事实上，该人群中存在高度异质性。尽管这种异质性应该反映在 ToM 推理过程中神经机制的差异招募中，但尚未有研究发现解释这些个体差异的机制。在这项研究中，78 名（48 名患有自闭症谱系障碍）青少年观看了 ToM 小插曲，并对角色的行为进行了心理状态推断，同时记录了参与者的电生理学数据。成功引发了两个候选事件相关电位（ERP）——晚期正复合波（LPC）和晚期慢波（LSW）。 LPC 评分与 ToM 准确性呈正相关，与 ASD 症状严重程度呈负相关。请注意，LPC 部分介导了 ASD 症状和 ToM 准确性之间的关系，这表明这个 ERP 组件（被认为代表认知元表征）可能有助于解释某些 ASD 个体 ToM 表现的差异。