Social cognition in Tourette's syndrome: intact theory of mind and impaired inhibitory functioning.
Adults with Tourette syndrome keep their social radar but lose the brake pedal.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Channon et al. (2004) tested two skills in adults with Tourette syndrome.
They looked at theory of mind: can the person read another person’s thoughts?
They also checked inhibitory control: can the person stop an automatic action?
Each adult with TS was matched with an adult without TS for age and IQ.
What they found
Theory of mind stayed intact. The TS group passed social-cognition tasks.
Inhibitory control was shaky. They made more stop-signal errors than controls.
In short, they understand people fine but hit the brakes slowly.
How this fits with other research
Yaniv et al. (2017) drilled deeper and found response inhibition is the core executive weakness in TS. Their newer data supersede the 2004 snapshot by mapping the full brake-failure profile.
Jolliffe et al. (1999) showed the opposite pattern in high-functioning autism: theory of mind broke down while inhibition looked normal. This apparent contradiction tells us ToM and inhibition can dissociate across diagnoses.
Stofleth et al. (2022) add lived experience: even with intact mind-reading, adults with TS still get blamed for tics that look intentional. Shelley’s findings explain why peers misread the tics—movement, not motive, is the problem.
Why it matters
When you assess an adult with TS, skip the social-skills probe and go straight to inhibition tasks like the stop-signal. Expect good perspective-taking but slow self-control. Share this profile with teachers, employers, and police so they blame neurology, not attitude.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although associations between social cognition involving theory of mind and non-social executive skills have frequently been reported, dissociations in performance have also been found. The present study was designed to examine social and non-social cognition in uncomplicated Tourette Syndrome (TS). Adult TS participants without comorbid diagnoses were compared to matched healthy control participants on social cognition measures involving theory of mind and empathy, and on non-social executive tasks. Participants with TS were found to make more errors than a matched control group on an inhibitory task, but did not differ on other executive measures or on the social cognition measures. The implications of the findings for our understanding of TS and of the relationship between social cognition and executive skills are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2004 · doi:10.1007/s10803-004-5287-x