The autism spectrum goes from neurotypical to nerdy to Asperger’s to autistic disorder. Some psychologists say that schizophrenia has a similar spectrum from neurotypical to gregarious to schizotypical to schizophrenia. These spectra fit together to form a full spectrum.
There’s a popular theory in philosophy of mind that autism is caused by a deficiency in the “theory of mind module”: the part of your brain that allows you to figure out what other people are thinking and see things from their point of view. It’s suggested that schizophrenia could be an overactive theory of mind: hallucinations are leaks from simulation of other minds, paranoid delusions arise from assuming that other people are thinking about you, etc.
It strikes me as rather stereotypical, but autism has also been framed as an overly “masculine” brain: a focus on things and logical thinking over people and play. Schizophrenia could be correspondingly “feminine”: high empathy and poor logic skills.
There’s some correlation between autism and high physical growth, and between schizophrenia and low physical growth (all covered in this paper so thorough, it must have been written by an autistic). So guess what the proposed cause of this spectrum of disorders is? Genome imprinting: your mom’s genes are trying to make you schizophrenic and your dad’s genes are trying to make you autistic; if they’re balanced, you end up neurotypical.
Is there any scientific evidence that the mind has a “theory of mind module”? It strikes me as at best presumptuous and at worst dangerous that there are popular theories in philosophy about the causes of real psychological conditions. To me, it is similar to religionists telling us what causes schizophrenia, etc.
There’s plenty of evidence that people and some animals reason as if other entities had mental states. It’s hard to test, but it appears that that form of reasoning can be broken in some people. The brain mechanisms that permit that reasoning are imagined as making up a “module” for convenience; the same way Chompsky talks about a “language learning module”.
Hmmm I’m very interested in the relationship between autism and schizophrenia (as various psychiatrists have tried to diagnose me with both at some point over the last few years).
I don’t have an awful lot of academic experience on either subject, I only have personal experience (my brother was diagnosed autistic at a young age and I was finally given the diagnosis of schizophrenia about a year and a half ago) but I would like to know more.
I have issue with the paragraph that aligns autism with a more masculine brain and schizophrenia with a more feminine brain. I feel that both conditions can lead to overly empathic mindframes, I feel that this empathy is just misplaced: autistic people have trouble attributing the correct emotion to the situation whereas people with schizophrenia often project their expected emotions onto the situation. Also I feel at other times, both conditions can lead to very selfish behaviour (unintentionally of course). My brother can be very single-minded about certain things and when I’m floridly psychotic I can show very little care for others both of which can obviously cause distress to others. Yet at the same time I feel deep down we are both genuinely quite caring people.
Hey John-James, thanks for the comment. That statement of mine is based on Baron-Cohen’s Empathizing-Systemizing Theory. Empathy is defined as “the drive to identify a person’s thoughts and feelings, and to respond to these [appropriately]“. So an autistic person may care deeply about other people but be unable to figure out how those people are feeling and what to do about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34xoYwLNpvw
autism is characterized by overload of sensory input.
And schizophrenia is characterized lack of sensory input. A schizophrenic is not able to observe and take in as much information when he/she sees things around them.