Intentionality attribution during the Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) Animacy Task, Empathetic Responses and Autistic Traits

The capacity to understand other people and their mental states is referred as the Theory of Mind (ToM). Autistic traits are often associated with ToM abilities and empathic responses, however, it varies along the spectrum. A popular assessment to evaluate ToM (sometimes referred to as mentalising) abilities is the Frith-Happé animations which measure agency attribution in autistic and non-autistic individuals. The current study utilised the virtual reality (VR) Animacy task (adapted from 2D Frith-Happe animations) to assess ToM reasoning in relation to autistic traits and empathic responses, measured by the Autism Quotient and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy respectively. Regression analysis revealed higher scores on empathy scale to have a significant relationship with ToM reasoning. Autistic traits were not found to be significantly related to ToM reasoning. Implications for the VR Animacy task in autism assessments as well as potential refinements of the task are discussed.