Imagining counterfactual worlds in autism spectrum disorder.

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Black, J., Williams, D. M., & Ferguson, H. J. (2018). Imagining counterfactual worlds in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 44(9), 1444-1463. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000500

Publication date: 1 Feb 2018 Added to AutiHub: 4 Oct 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
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Authors

Publication authors
3
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 3 (33.3%)
  1. Jo Black *
  2. David M. Williams
  3. Heather Jane Ferguson

Abstract

Two experiments are presented that explore online counterfactual processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using eye-tracking. Participants' eye movements were tracked while they read factual and counterfactual sentences in an anomaly detection task. In Experiment 1, the sentences depicted everyday counterfactual situations (e.g., If Joanne had remembered her umbrella, her hair would have been dry/wet when she arrived home). Sentences in Experiment 2 depicted counterfactual versions of real world events (e.g., If the Titanic had not hit an iceberg, it would have survived/sunk along with all the passengers). Results from both experiments suggest that counterfactual understanding is undiminished in adults with ASD. In fact, participants with ASD were faster than Typically Developing (TD) participants to detect anomalies within realistic, discourse-based counterfactuals (Experiment 1). Detection was comparable for TD and ASD groups when understanding could be grounded in knowledge about reality (Experiment 2), though the 2 groups used subtly different strategies for responding to and recovering from counterfactual inconsistent words. These data argue against general difficulties in global coherence and complex integration in ASD. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Cited references
43
With a DOI
41
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
0
0 / 43 (0.0%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
1 / 43 (2.3%)
References with detected author names
42 / 43 (97.7%)
Without detected author names
1
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
0
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
115
From DOI or external metadata
115
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
18 / 115 (15.7%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 97 / 115 (84.3%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
0 / 115 (0.0%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 0 / 18 (0.0%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 0 / 95 (0.0%).
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