Differences in self-other control as cognitive mechanism to characterize theory of mind reasoning in autistic and non-autistic adults.

Tobias and team asked 40 autistic and 40 non-autistic adults to do a false-belief task on a computer. The screen showed a room with an object that moved while the other person could not see it. Subjects had to press one key for their own belief and a different key for the other person's belief, switching back and forth quickly.

The researchers measured how long it took to answer and how many mistakes were made. They wanted to see if autistic adults have trouble flipping between their own view and someone else's conflicting view.

Autistic adults were a little slower and slightly more error-prone when the other person's belief clashed with their own. The difference was small—about one extra mistake per 20 trials and half a second slower—but it showed up every time.

Surprisingly, autistic adults were also less distracted by the other person's wrong belief. When they only had to report their own view, they answered faster than non-autistic adults because the conflicting view did not slow them down as much.

Smith et al. (2008) first showed that autistic adults can track their own actions perfectly yet still struggle with mentalizing. Weinmann et al. (2023) zoom in on the exact moment when self and other collide, revealing the trouble is not missing the other mind but quickly swapping between the two.

McGarty et al. (2018) looked at metacognition and found autistic adults judge their own accuracy just fine—an apparent contradiction. The new study solves it: self-monitoring is intact; the hitch appears only when another person's conflicting view must be chosen or ignored.

Kernahan et al. (2025) extend these lab findings to the courtroom. They showed that giving explicit intent and harm statements narrows the moral-reasoning gap between autistic and non-autistic adults. Together the papers suggest that clear, external perspective cues help autistic clients perform closer to their true ability.

You now have evidence that slow perspective switching, not a missing theory of mind, underlies some social slips in autistic adults. Build extra wait time into role-play drills and prime the other person's view with clear verbal labels like "Now answer as if you are Alex." These tiny tweaks honor intact self-knowledge while easing the switch.