I failed "Theory of Mind"

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I think the NT are programmed to be vicariously captivated by the story of "trickery" while autistics just don't care or see the point. It also explains the NT propensity towards bullying.

Last edited by marshall on 21 Oct 2010, 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

All you've got to do to solve problems like that is to put them together like the premises of a logic puzzle, only leaving out the pieces of information that the person whose perspective you're trying to read hasn't had the chance to gather. Once you understand that different people have different sets of information, it's not actually difficult. You've just got to think about it consciously rather than going with your first impulse.

My problem with the puzzle would have been keeping straight which doll was which. People seem mostly equivalent to me, even though I know very well that they aren't; maybe that's why I often stress the importance of accepting and valuing diversity. Comes of being face-blind, I think.

But this is the point.OF course it's not difficult to reason it out. I KNEW the answer, both because I knew about the test before hand and I clearly reasoned it through before hand. But I found that even with having that knowledge BEFORE the test, when I looked at it, I processed it visually and got the wrong answer. The implication is that even though I am well practiced in deducing a proper conclusion, my brain still trends to something faulty. This is problematic because most social interaction don't give you the opportunity to be analytical. You have to react, and react correctly, in order to navigate a social world.

i'm totally amazed at your self analysis here, i would have gone with the logical answer without trying to do it instinctively to check my theory of mind. not sure if i'm still able to dissociate what i learnt from what i feel anymore....

Each times I took this test, I failed (I took it only 2 times but still). I would say it is because I don't understand that Anne and Sally don't know what I know.
It is a common problem amount autistic people, we just presume that others persons know what we know, but usually that is not the case...

I don't see how you guys can fail this. I seen the video. I have no instinct answer at all, correct or wrong. I must think it through, so I'm slow at answering, but I can come to the right conclusion after repeating it in my head. Maybe I couldn't at five but I certainly can now.

The point for me was not that I can't deduce the answer, but when I first saw the test, I for some reason slipped into a visual mode of thinking and reacted incorrectly. I'm not sure why, it just happened. I think this is the real issue. I am 52 and have basically 'figured out' things like this a long time ago. But my brain STILL falls into the trap if I am not vigilant. It suggests that such things as a faulty Theory of Mind are indeed neurological and can't be changed at that level, even if cognitively an autistic is able to reason out the correct interpretation.

I think that's a good point. In a Youtube video where Uta Frith is talking about this test, she said that usually when Anne hides the ball, NT children will be giggling, but autistic children will remain serious. So NTs are maybe just interested in such interpersonal scenarios in a way that autistics aren't. Of course, the more interested you are in something, the more you will pay attention to it.

Here's another thought - Anne does things like this all the time, and Sally is used to it. She assumes that Anne hid the ball while she was gone, because that's what Anne always does, so she looks for it in the box. See, I have excellent theory of mind!

I think I know what you mean here. I have a tendency to 'literal think things.' If I'm missing just a little bit of sleep I will fall into this mode.
It takes vigilance to snap myself from this or people might think that I've been drinking or I just had too high of a fever at one time.

The literal interpretation on my part would not be possible when one thinks it through, but still the inclination is there to do this, as I see it surface from time to time.

I'm almost sure my first (subliminal) inclination would have been to miss this Sally Anne test, but I would have deduced it correctly if I was 'fresh' (I believe). I have developed a filter early on in my life to check and balance these gobbledygook thoughts of mine.

Yea. If you miss the "point" of the story, that Anne is trying to trick Sally, it isn't quite so obvious that Sally will look in the wrong box. For all you know they could have planned the whole routine ahead.

Somehow I doubt that NT children who pass the test are consciously sussing out what Sally does or doesn't know. The just see that Anne is trying to trick Sally and thus easily anticipate Sally being wrong.

As a teenager, I used to often go through a logical attempt to understand deception, that went more or less like this:

Say a police officer is accusing you of having robbed a bank. If you seem nervous, then he'll think you did it, so you should act calm. But maybe if you act calm, the officer will see that as suspicious, because aren't most people nervous and upset when they are accused of a crime, even if they didn't do it? So you should act nervous. But maybe the officer will think that you did it and you are nervous, but that you are allowing yourself to act nervous on purpose to make him think that you're innocent - so you should act calm. But then he'll think (etc) - and it goes on, an infinite regress!

In reality, from my experience, most people who accuse you of doing something wrong don't go past the first - if you're nervous, they just assume you did something wrong. But to me, it's all just a big logical construct that I could never see a way out of.

Officers are dumb.

Exactly! Illogical.

I remember when I took the test,age 30. I saw Anne hide the ball and I thought "Why the hell is she doing that? What strange behaviour." and then went back to thinking about the roundness of the ball, and the basket which looked in the cartoon like it was made of cane.

false belief experiment.

John told Emily that he had a Porsche.
Actually, his car is a Ford. Emily
doesn’t know anything about cars
though, so she believed John.
—
When Emily sees John’s car she
thinks it is a
porsche /ford

personally i have no idea. i'd say ford, because well she sees it. not knowing anything about cars, she'd prolly say: that's a crappy porshe..........but then again she might just think it and say nothing because i believe emily is a polite NT. whatever lol, you guys want to try and guess??

Maybe I did essentially fail it, then. I seen it as completely serious and did not realize there was trickery afoot. I'm sure the test could be improved if the children were asked what was happening. So the NT child would say one was being tricked while I and an aspie child might say that she just moved the ball. Strange.