On Theory of Mind

Post Reply New Topic

I've read in a book recently about how the brain works that autistic people often lack a Theory of Mind, which I thought was unfair. It seems like half the posts here are trying to figure out what goes on inside the heads of normal people, which seems to demand a theory of mind. I think when they talk about theory of mind, they have two different ideas in their heads that they get confused:

1) Understanding that minds exist besides your own and having some capacity to imagine what might happen within them
2) Assuming that everybody else is exactly like you and projecting your emotions onto them

I think they often mean #2 when talking about TOM, which is actually quite contrary to #1. #2 is how empathy works, and my understanding is that NT do that automatically, so it shouldn't really be considered more noble than scratching an itch.

As an example of how autistic children lack theory of mind, the books states that they are often punished for things, and they can't figure out why. I think however, that punishing a child who doesn't understand why he is being punished shows a greater lack of TOM in the teacher than the child. What is the point of punishing a thing that doesn't know what the punishment is for? I have had to wash cow-shit off my dog several times recently, but it did not ever occur to me to try to punish him for it, because it seemed obvious that he would be unable to guess why he was being punished. That sort of thought process seems plausible for even mentally ret*d children, but apparently some NT adults are incapable of it.

I experienced this as a child from a certain teacher for several years in a row. I usually never found out why I got detention. Sometimes I asked, but she always said, "you know why you are being punished." So the theory of mind that she displayed was the #2 type, because she assumed that I could simply intuit what other people thought was offensive. Not being born with the same nonverbal language as most everybody else doesn't mean that you aren't able to have theory of mind, it just means that you are fluent in one less language than every body else and need to be taught or accommodated for. She would be rightly laughed at if English were my second language and she punished me for misunderstanding instruction as a result.

You're right about that! But of course it also seems that half of the people here at the opposite end of the autism scale to that described in the books, which always take the worst case as a startpoint.

ToM does develop in Auties but is delayed. I think I read that the Sally Ann test takes an autistic child about another 5 or 6 years of development to figure out.

#1 seems to be me as a child, when I lacked ToM and didn't know that I or other people had minds.

#2 seems to be most neurotypical people, eggspecially adults who are set in their ways.

I have great difficulty factoring in the thoughts and wishes of the other person as I can't simultaneously hold thoughts about me and them in my mind at the same time - I have to switch back and forth and often i forget to think about them as much as me.

I generally model other peoples' mindsets on my thought processes but now realise that peoples' thought processes are often nothing like my own. I still cling on to the idea that the way I think is the standard way though and that other people are deviating from it.

In my opinion NTs make use of their knowledge of what is going on in other peoples' minds mainly for their own benefit ie it's a comptetitivve advantage over another person to be able to work out their needs and fears.

I only recently figured out that my way of thinking is not everyone's way of thinking. I now hold the same general opinion as you - I just can't understand why some people behave in ways that make absolutely no sense to me (acts of violence, lying, cheating, stealing, etc.) because "If everyone just looked at things the way I do..."

In relation to your last paragraph, this is probably why I was never promoted in any of my jobs when other people who were less qualified were. No matter how I tried to make my case, if I didn't have that competitive edge, someone else was going to and they were going to beat me. I was so frustrated. I never thought of it like that.

See in theory I know that everyone has different minds and I try really hard to have TOM it drives me nuts at times but it just doesnt come or I'm off a lot.

What if you have a well developed theory that the other person has a mind that is quite different than yours, but you have no idea what might be going on in it and feel you have to ask them to find out?

Does that qualify as a ToM problem?

Or just a recognition that you aren't telepathic. It seems to me that a lot of people, NT people, think they are telepathic and their ToM is just projection and this leads to a great deal of strife.

ToM is considered to be delayed in autistics, not completely absent (except maybe in some LFAs).

The Sally-Anne test, testing first-order ToM is passed by NTs at 4-5 years, and by AS (with normal IQ) at an average of 8 years or so.

Then there's second-order ToM, which most NTs passed around 6-8 years.

But I don't think ToM delays are universal in AS. I'm pretty sure I developed ToM earlier than normal, because I remember thinking someone had a false belief about my intentions when I was 4 or 5 years old. I pulled the wings off of a bee as an experiment, and showed it to my foster sibling (who left our home when I was 5, so it must have been before then). He squashed the bee, and I thought 'oh, he thought I was trying to kill the bee instead of doing an experiment'.

What I've noticed with myself is that I can imagine what someone else is thinking (not always accurately) but I don't do so automatically. I have to consciously think about what they might be thinking, otherwise I'll act as if I don't have ToM.

I failed Sally and Anne test being tested as an adult, because I fixed on the object.
I learned after being diagnosed (age 36 being diagnosed) that people have different minds and I need to remind me of it.
This makes people even more strange for me than they were before.
I engaged into a special interest and in order to proceed I had to follow university study but I failed because of autism.
But I saw people not being obsessed with it and I could not understand people not being obsessed with it (and I was judgemental about it, because I did not know that there was a possibility of not being completely obsessed about it).
Still I do not understand and experience that details are minor to a "greater picture" and social conveniences, but I learned that this exists much more often than my perception).
I do not see a "greater picture", but I learn now, that there is a different perception.
People and people's minds are unpredictable for me.
In my assessment for disability this was a point getting assessed as very severe and contributing to not being able to function in working environment, as people being unpredictable to my mind translates also to (among others) in people being able to abuse me (which happend a lot).

I am aware that people have different minds, but when I am interacting with people I am always very trusting. It doesn't occur to me that they may be wrong or manipulating or mean until I think about it later when I am by myself. I think I am too overwhelmed and I don't have time to process everything in real time. I am thinking about the meaning of their words and not their motivation or hidden agendas. I am naive in that way and have been taken advantage of and abused in the past because of it.

I can greatly relate to what both of you said here. I have great difficulty in realizing others minds do not work like mine and that they have their own preferences and ways of doing things. However, I have spent many many hours studying people and this is most often what I try very hard to pick up on. It seems to be going well, hard, but I am learning about individual people that way.

Watch this slideshow.
http://www.slideshare.net/MurftheSurf/theory-of-mind

I got the ice cream truck answer wrong. All the others I answered correctly.

How do you know that you got them wrong / correct. There were no answers provided.

https://www.boundless.com/psychology/hu ... y-of-mind/
"Theory of mind" is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc—to oneself and others, and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own.

If this definition is the accepted definition. Then nobody has ToM.
Nobody understands me. They say they do, but they get me wrong just as much as I get them wrong.

NT's my understand one another, but according to this definition. They don't understand Autistics and Asperger's. Therefor they don't actually have ToM. QED.

I did not have much of a theory of mind till I was around 18

What I first thought was that if ice cream man meets John again before he gets to the church why doesn't he give him the ice cream right then.
The ice cream man lacks theory of mind in not asking John if he has his money now and assuming John is able to go to the church instead.
Ice cream man therefore looks like a liar and mean

Whoever made that slideshow is a terrible human being and should be banned from graphic design forever.