Bridget Lindley was the first to believe in my ideas about the essential differences between the male and female mind, and about the extreme male brain as an explanation of autism. She supported me when I dipped my toe into these politically dangerous waters, even during the early 1990s when to raise the very idea of psychological sex differences was risky. Like many people, she recognized such sex differences in everyday life, and persuaded me that most readers would now be open-minded enough to look at the evidence dispassionately.
Many people helped me develop my thoughts for this book. They include my talented research students in recent years: Chris Ashwin, Anna Ba’tkti, Livia Colle, Jennifer Connellan, Jaime Craig, Ofer Golan, Rick Griffin, Jessica Hammer, John Herrington, Therese Jolliffe, Rebecca Knickmeyer, Johnny Lawson, and Svetlana Lutchmaya. They also include my valuable research team: Carrie Allison, Matthew Belmonte, Jacqueline Hill, Rosa Hoekstra, Karen McGinty, Catherine Moreno, Jennifer Richler, Fiona Scott, Carol Stott, and Sally Wheelwright. At the risk of embarrassing her, I owe special thanks to Sally. She first came to work with me in 1996, and was as grabbed by the questions in this book as I was. We have enjoyed a long and tremendously productive collaboration, and much of the research behind this book would not have been possible without her.
Some colleagues and friends have been very supportive. They include Patrick Bolton, Kirsten Callesen, Lynn Clemance, Peter Fonagy, Ian Goodyer, Ami Klin, Chantal Martin, Amitta Shah, Luca Surian, Helen Tager-Flusberg, and Esther Tripp. My clinical colleagues Janine Robinson, Emma Weisblatt, and Marc Woodbury-Smith have also helped me enormously in my attempt to understand the nature of Asperger Syndrome.
Last, but not least, are my collaborators: Ralph Adolphs, James Blair, Carol Brayne, Ed Bullmore, Andy Calder, Tony Charman, Livia Colle, Carol Gregory, Gerald Hackett, Melissa Hines, John Hodges, Ioan James, Mark Johnson, John Manning, Michelle O’Riordan, Robert Plomin, Peter Raggatt, Melissa Rutherford, Geoff Sanders, David Skuse, Valerie Stone, Steve Williams, Max Whitby, Andy Young, and Martin Yuille.
Many of the above people gathered new data and tested hypotheses. You will read about some of our discoveries in the pages to come.
I would also like to thank Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc, for permission to reproduce the Adult Embedded Figures Test. The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test (Appendix 1) is based on photographs from commercial sources. The test itself is only used for research and is not distributed for commerical profit. Copyright of each individual photograph cannot be traced from these photo fragments.
I first wrote about the extreme male brain theory of autism in 1997.1 I didn’t dare present the ideas in public until Cure Autism Now organized a scientific meeting at Rutgers University in March 2000. They encouraged their invited speakers, of whom I was one, to present their most provocative ideas. To my surprise, the conference participants did not simply smile politely at my theory, but engaged with it and encouraged me to pursue it. In March 2001 I presented it to the Institutes of Psychiatry and Cognitive Neuroscience in London. The positive reactions I received there, particularly from Uta Frith, encouraged me further to believe that these ideas were ready for a wider audience. Similar reactions at Autism India in Chennai (January 2001) and at the Autism Conference in Madrid (May 2001) gave me the sense that the psychological sex differences in question are universal.2 Feedback from other such presentations, such as the Child Psychiatry teaching program in Pristina, Kosovo (May 2002), and the Child Psychiatry Conference in Rome (June 2002), resulted in a brief paper to the cognitive science community on this topic.3 This book expands these early communications for a broader readership.
The following funding agencies have supported my work during the writing of this book: the Medical Research Council (UK), Cure Autism Now, the Shirley Foundation, the Corob Foundation, the Three Guineas Trust, the Gatsby Trust, the Isaac Newton Trust, the NHS Research and Development Fund, the National Alliance for Autism Research, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
The following institutions have also fostered my work through their support: Trinity College Cambridge, and within Cambridge University, the Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, the Clinical School Department of Biochemistry, the Autism Research Centre, the fMRI Brain Mapping Unit, the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, the Section of Developmental Psychiatry, and the Rosie Maternity Hospital; outside the University: the Cambridge Lifespan Asperger Syndrome Service (CLASS), Lifespan NHS Trust (now the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Partnership Mental Health Trust), the National Autistic Society (UK) and their Cambridge branch, Umbrella.
Certain people have done me the huge favor of commenting on this book in its manuscript stage. They are Helena Cronin, Rick Griffin, Rosa Hoekstra, Johnny Lawson, Esther Tripp, Sally Wheelwright, Geoff Sanders, and Rebecca Knickmeyer. To these kind critics I am more than indebted. Richard Borcherds generously consented to the inclusion of the material in Chapter 11. Alison Clare, Paula Naimi, and Jenny Hannah all provided wonderful secretarial support.
My agents, John Brockman and Katinka Matson, have been wonderfully supportive of this book. My editor at Penguin (UK), Stefan McGrath, and my editor at Basic Books (USA), Amanda Cook, gave me excellent advice on how to finish the final drafts. Helen Guthrie and Mariateresa Boffo at Penguin brought everything together, and my copy editor, Caroline Pretty, did me the great service of patiently turning my words into English. To them I remain indebted.
Finally, my parents, and brothers and sisters, Dan, Ash, Liz, and Suzie, provided much of the humor which any author needs to sustain the writing process. And my children, Sam, Kate, and Robin, each contributed in personal ways to this book, sometimes without even realizing it. To you all, thank you.