Object personification in autism: This paper will be very sad if you don't read it.

White RC., Remington A.

Object personification is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human agents. In online forums, autistic individuals commonly report experiencing this phenomenon. Given that approximately half of all autistic individuals experience difficulties identifying their own emotions, the suggestion that object personification may be a feature of autism seems almost paradoxical. Why would a person experience sympathy for objects, when they struggle to understand and verbalise the emotions of other people as well as their own? An online survey was used to assess tendency for personification in 87 autistic and 263 non-autistic adults. Together, our results indicate that object personification occurs commonly among autistic individuals, and perhaps more often (and later in life) than in the general population. Given that in many cases, autistic people report their personification experiences as distressing, it is important to consider the reasons for the increased personification and identify structures for support.

DOI

10.1177/1362361318793408

Type

Journal article

Publication Date

2019-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Volume

23

Pages

1042 - 1045

Total pages

3

Keywords

anthropomorphism, autism spectrum disorders, cognition (attention, learning, memory), perception, personification, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Autistic Disorder, Humans, Middle Aged, Object Attachment, Social Perception, Young Adult

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