Self-Awareness in Autistic Subjects and Deeply Hypnotized Subjects: Dissociation of Self-Concept versus Self-Consciousness

Abstract

By refining past tests of self-awareness in mirrors, current testing demonstrates that autistic subjects' percepts are dissociated from self-concept, whereas hypnotized subjects' sensations are dissociated from self-consciousness. In the current test of self-concept, subjects could not directly see a line inside the box on their lap, but subjects could see the line indirectly in a televised mirror image. When instructed to touch the line, autistic subjects reached towards the televised line, whereas nonautistic subjects reached towards the actual line occluded inside the box. This first result suggests that the autistic subject's visual percept of the televised line is dissociated from its spatial relationship to the subject's self-concept. In the current test of self-consciousness, subjects were told to use a televised mirror-image to move their hands together until touching, but were not told that they were actually seeing a pre-recorded tape of their hands struggling unsuccessfully to touch. When queried, hypnotized subjects denied that their tactually joined hands were touching, whereas nonhypnotized subjects confirmed that their hands were touching. This latter result suggests that the hypnotized subject's hand-touching sensations are dissociated from the immediate and incontrovertible self-consciousness that one is perceiving the hands touching (not imaging them touching).