Mindreading beliefs in same- and cross-neurotype interactions
Based on a relatively large sample, the beliefs of autistic and non-autistic people about mindreading abilities themselves and others fall largely in line with predictions that can be derived from the DEP (Milton, 2012) as opposed to mindreading deficit theories. While this is in accordance with previous qualitative studies (Crompton et al., 2020b), the much larger sample size here suggests that these beliefs may be widespread. This also corroborates previous research that has found that specifying the reference group (as autistic or non-autistic) systematically impacts autistic participants’ answers on questionnaires designed to measure autistic traits (Gernsbacher et al., 2017). The findings also yield new knowledge that it is not just autistic people who believe that mindreading difficulties are a two-way street: the responses of the non-autistic group were in line with predictions derived from the DEP too.
