ABSTRACT
There is mounting evidence that ToMM (the Theory of Mind Mechanism) may be a modular system (Baron-Cohen, 1992; Leslie, 1991; Leslie & Roth, 1993). ToMM is the name Leslie gives to the system underpinning our everyday theory of mind. ToMM’s modularity rests on two arguments:
Children with autism are impaired in their understanding of epistemic mental states (such as beliefs: Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985; Perner, Frith, Leslie, & Leekam, 1989), but are unimpaired in their understanding of nonmental representations (such as photographs, drawings, maps, and models: Charman & Baron-Cohen, 1992; 1993; Leekam & Perner, 1991; Leslie & Thaiss, 1992); and
Understanding mental states requires the processing of a special kind of representation. Leslie and Roth (1993) call these M-Representations 1 and suggest they have the following structure 2 :
[Agent-Attitude-“Proposition”].
