自闭症儿童是心灵盲吗?——Gallagher的互动理论述评

Are Autistic Children the Mind-Blindness? ——On the Gallagher's Interaction Theory

在自闭症研究领域占主导地位的心灵盲理论是建立在心灵主义假设和普遍性假设基础上的。这两个假设将他人的心理视为封闭的、隐藏在行为后面的,且我们主要使用读心的方式理解他人。互动理论拒绝这两个基本假设,并整合来自发展心理学和现象学的研究证据将人类社会互动的形式划分为三个层次:原初交互主体性、次级交互主体性与叙事能力。在个体发生学层面上三者前后相继,在成熟个体的社会互动层面上,三者互为补益,但基于感觉-运动的直觉式社会互动是理解他人心理的主要方式。自闭症儿童在原初与次级交互主体性上存在障碍。目前,互动理论既面临诸多挑战,也具有较大的发展与完善空间。

The field of autism research is dominated by the mind-blindness theory, which is based on the mentalistic supposition and the supposition of universality. These assumptions advocate that other minds are hidden away, closed in, behind the overt behavior that we can see, and we understand others mainly by reading their mind. The interaction theory refuses these two suppositions, and proposes that intersubjectivity involves three levels： primary intersubjectivity, secondary intersubjectivity and narrative competency based on the evidence of developmental psychology and phenomenological research. On the level of ontogeny, these three have been in succession, and, in the social interaction of mature individuals, they are mutually beneficial. But the best way of understanding others is the intuitive social interaction which is based on sensory-motor. Autistic children have difficulty with the primary intersubjectivity and the secondary intersubjectivity. Actually, scientific evidence from developmental psychology and phenomenology suggests that theory of mind itself is not a good explanation of non-autistic intersubjective experience. In the view of Gallagher, if theory of mind cannot offer an acceptable account of our normal interaction with others, then the lack of a theory of mind does not offer a good account of the problems of autistic children. In order to explain the problem of social interaction of autism, Gallagher outlined the interaction theory, which incorporates evidence from both developmental and phenomenological studies to show that humans are endowed with important capacities for intersubjective understanding from birth or early infancy. And in adulthood these abilities do not disappear, but continue to play a role unless in a special situation in which the ability is not enough to explain the more advanced narrative ability. Of course, many of the subsequent researchers also provide a number of data support through experiments. From perspectives of neuroscience and phenomenology, interaction theory considers the effects that both sensory-motor problems and problems of central coherence may have on primary and secondary intersubjectivity as well as their conneetions to the social symptoms. If the development of our social cognition could be seen as a long line composed by many factors, the problem of specialized cognitive functions related to theory of mind will appear at the end of the line, and are generated in neurological disruptions that affect sensory-motor processes. In other words, the social understanding in the form of pre-theoretical （for example, sensory-motor） plays a more fundamental role in our social cognition than the one based on the theoretical form （reasoning）. In turn, these sensory-motor problems will affect the development of social interaction and understanding at the level of primary intersubjectivity. And the problems of primary intersubjectivity combine themselves further with certain cognitive deficits to disrupt secondary intersubjectivity, which, in turn, contributes to the problems with social cognition and theory of mind. Certainly, there are two problems with the interaction theory. First, the theory needs to answer the question about the brain and neural mechanisms of social interaction of children with autism and to elaborate its answer. Secondly, the theory needs to expand the scope of interpretation of nonsocial cognitive and behavioral characteristics of children with autism.