A computational simulation tool for training autistic reasoning about mental attitudes

摘要

It has been discovered more than a decade ago that autistic people cannot properly understand and reproduce mental states and emotions. We hypothesize that people with autism suffer from difficulties in learning social rules from examples. Many remediation strategies have not taken this into account. Therefore an appropriate remediation strategy is to teach not simply via examples but to teach the rule along with it. In this study we suggest a reasoning rehabilitation strategy, based on playing with a computer based mental simulator that is capable of modeling mental and emotional states of the real world. A model of the mental world is presented in 12 steps. We describe our implementation of a natural language multiagent system that simulates this model. In addition we describe the system’s user interface for autistic rehabilitation. This system is subject to short-term and long-term evaluation of rehabilitation of autistic reasoning. Case studies with children who used it extensively are presented. Implications specifically in terms of autistic rehabilitation as well as generally in terms of reasoning about mental states are discussed.