Are you aware of your lacking Theory of Mind?

Post Reply New Topic

Ha! Yea, the claim that we lack it does seem kind of condescending to the more intelligent people. I'm a rather intuitive thinker in general and it doesn't take that much more to apply it to people as well. Maybe my TOM isn't as spontaneous or quick as an NT's and I'm a bit slow in a conversation, but I don't find people that hard to understand overall. NTs may be much quicker at it, but I'm probably more accurate a lot of the time. I've read studies on psychology and human behavior and while reading it I felt like...

hmmm... well, no crap - I don't need to do a scientific study to know people are like this - I could have easily guessed the same result.

I suppose it's nice to have actual data showing something, but I'm so intuitive that a lot of things seem pretty trivial to me. I'm more than capable of using my intellect and natural intuition to compensate for whatever innate TOM deficit I could have.

This is an executive function thing, and is experienced by people who are not autistic in a manner similar to that experienced by some who are autistic, which has nothing to do with theory of mind.



Executive dysfunction is never "not knowing what to do." With executive dysfunction, you often know what to do, you're just not able to do it.

However, this has nothing to do with theory of mind.

I would describe executive dysfunction as "getting stuck" or "getting overloaded", or focusing on one thing and forgetting to focus on others. It is more like not being able to switch mental tracks, and it is a great mental load to be aware of more than one thing at a time. Most NTs can switch back and forth between things and so keep their attention on them all in turn; people with executive dysfunction switch involuntarily or get stuck on one thing, and the other things get dropped, or too much attention is paid to one thing and not enough to another.

I have moderate executive dysfunction, but I have a strong theory of mind. I am actually quite good at understanding my own mind and how it works; most of my counselors and therapists have described me as "unusually self-aware". I have a very good theory of my own mind, and that includes knowing how executive dysfunction affects me and how I can devise work-arounds. For example, I often forget to turn off my coffee maker, so I have put a sign near it that reminds me to do it. Or I have an alarm clock near my medication that goes off when it's time to take it, and a program to block Internet access when I'm supposed to be in bed, and a planner to help me remember schoolwork, and quite a lot of other tactics. It's not actually enough, because I still have problems with taking care of myself and dealing with various everyday responsibilities; I'm still working out how to get and use an aide to help with those things.

Very good description. Autistic executive dysfunction in a nutshell.

To avoid misunderstandings:

I think autistic lack of ToM is sufficient for some degree of Executive Dysfunction and Weak Central Coherence. I'm not saying it's a necessary condition. It's:

(ToM deficits) => (Executive Dysfunction) + (Weak Central Coherence)

So you may have executive dysfunction without lacking a ToM, the way you describe it. I didn't intend to make a biimplication.

This is also quite consistent with ADHD, which does not feature theory of mind impairments.

Also, correlation is not causation, and it's not very useful to look at correlations and assume they are directly connected or causative in some way.

What Marshall and Apple said.

The "lacking Theory of Mind"-thing is too simplistic and inaccurate. Most autistic adults know perfectly well that some behaviors are unappreciated, we just don't care!
Our way of being does not come from not understanding that we "should" be normal. That is the same insight that makes some autistics miserable when they can't pretend to be NT, and what makes other autistics happy when they accept themselves. It is not some kind of "misunderstanding" - at least not once you've become an adult, for many.
There already is an accepted definition of Theory of Mind. You will have to call your definition something else. I don't know that much about ToM, so I might have it wrong too.
Also ToM says nothing about not knowing your own mind. The introspective nature of introverts should clue you in.
ToM describes a lack of inborn cognitive empathy - some gain it intellectually in time, those that do lack it, depending on what the definition of "cognitive empathy" is - for some it means the drive to find out what another person mental state is, for some it means the skill in finding out - our skill might not be that high in reading signals or body-language decoding, but there are so many other ways to find out, for those that are so inclined.

Frequently, I discover that I lack very basic ToM in eberryday life. I have good eggsecutive function though.

And not having cognitive empathy is not that bad either.
Ditto to affective empathy. Sympathy might be more important.

ToM is one area where intellect is useless to me. I could learn all about how people think and know all the trends and remember all the trends and apply all the trends on purpose like if I needed to write a story with people thinking about each other, but in real world interactions, I don't apply it, don't remember to apply it, don't remember that there is such an it.

Theory and practice are 2 different things. In practice, there are many other factors involved. In theory, if you "could learn all about how people think and know all the trends and remember all the trends" then you have cognitive empathy, as you know that they think differently than you and have their own internal worlds, even if you do not feel like they do or remember it during interaction. That is what I meant with gaining it through intellect and it not being innate.

In research, cognitive empathy needs to be deployed in order to be measured, but you can read about theory of mind of other people and know the info in your mind, but still not deploy it on a lab task or in real world, so you still don't have it.

I think cognitive empathy is emotional imagination. You have a vague experience of something you can extrapolate your experience into someone else's situation by morphing it in your imagination. The experiences have to be constructed from the same kinds of building blocks though. For example, it might be impossible for someone who's incapable of experiencing envy to imagine what experiencing it is like. This might make it hard to be aware when you're making someone else envious.

btbnnyr, I stand corrected. I guess my definition of cognitive empathy differ from the official one. I think it is more complex though, and I've seen it described as not knowing it in theory either.

marshall, I guess my first assumption is that most people experience the same sort of emotions I do, which means my innate ToM/empathy is poor, but I know that they don't (with the exception of those which I have a very fuzzy definition of). Maybe many NTs ToM is poor too, but they are often right in their assumptions as they are so "normal"?

I agree it's easier to have empathy if you're in the middle of the distribution than if you're at one of the far ends. That's part of it. The other part is being able to use your imagination to put yourself in someone else's shoes based on certain vague building blocks you already have in yourself. If you're so far towards the end of the normal distribution you might be missing some building blocks. But even if you're towards the middle you might still have trouble empathizing if your ability to imagine yourself in different situations you haven't ever directly experienced is limited.

In summary there are two aspects, 1.) being towards the center of the spectrum and having the same building blocks as the majority of others 2.) having a good emotional imagination. If either one is missing you're going to have trouble with ToM / cognitive-empathy.

Last edited by marshall on 30 May 2013, 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I didn't know anything in theory as a kid, so that was when I really lacked ToM. Then, I learned some basics in theory as I grew up, but I am still missing many basics and practicing less than I know, so I would put myself in the lacking cognitive empathy category. The cognitive empathy that NT researchers are talking about is the fast easy automatic kind that NTs deploy by default and can't avoid deploying. I think that is why it is much harder for me to interact with 2 NTs than 1 NT, because the 2 NTs are sync'd with each other through cognitive and affective empathy, and I am not with them, but when it is me and 1 NT, there is no syncing to widen the ToM gap between me and others. Some people might describe group interactions as overwhelming, if they are trying to apply ToM, but there are more people to keep track of, but I don't find them overwhelming, as I am not trying to apply ToM at all. They are just more boring, because I am less a part of them due to syncing between others in group that auto-eggscludes the one who is not sync'd. Ackshuly, I did a research eggsperiment testing this out just last week.