The Truth (?) behind TOM and lack of empathy...

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I was born in 1960 and had a language delay until age 4. I guess if it happened today, I would have received somekind of therapy, but it didn't affect my schoolwork.

The confirmation for me that there might be something wrong with me was when we had a severely disabled child. Before that I had myself convinced that I was normal enough. I had the feeling there was something inside of me that led to my son's condition, but didn't understand it was possibly in part due to Autism, until much later in life. Worst part about it was it brought back the memories of middle school and the clear message everyone gave me that I didn't deserve to exist. I thought, maybe I should have listened to avoid the pain that my child went through, but decided if his life was going to mean something, I had to use it as inspiration to do better in life, than I had before.

I ended up as an Athletic Director at a Military base, before I went in for a diagnoses at age 47, because of a myriad of co-morbid conditions. They assumed I could only have a mild case of Aspergers because of my work history in a highly social environment, but understood it as a more severe form when they found out I had a language delay as a child. The hardest part was admitting that I wasn't normal and I couldn't function in life anymore like everyone else. I spent my whole life trying to be normal; it was the hardest thing I ever had to do; I would have almost rather have died than to admit I wasn't okay.

I guess that is the real reason, I avoided Doctors for 23 years, it kept my illusion intact.

I've been discussing Autism Speaks quite a bit lately; I wonder if it takes the place of those children that told us we are not good enough to be here. I don't think those voices ever really go away. I guess they are fresher in the mind for younger people than they are for me. The voices of dissent kept me moving fast in life; I look at it as human nature now, and don't blame anyone for letting me know, if you don't adapt you are not going to make it. I always felt I was fighting against them, but I was really fighting for my life.

But, I can't help but to think of my son, when I think of Autism Speaks; one day another child may be able to avoid the pain my child had. Nothing I ever went through matches what he went through; he never had a chance.

All this kind of stuff has to impact the way we deal with emotion, empathy, and the like. I'm not sure how much, but I'm sure an environment of almost constant challenge plays a part.

But they don't know whether it's there or not, so they ask you to show them what you have.



I have, on the digit span test. I had really bad brain fog on the day I was doing those and whatever I heard just sunk into oblivion very quickly. And I was told I couldn't say "I don't know."



Possibly because they want to be certain?

Ahgogday, I have just been taken to the pub by my genetic and memetic offspring -about twenty of them . Surrogate fatherhood has its payoffs. Image to follow tomorrow. They were all my special interest. I loved them.

We can do this . You see what I'm trying to do here.



Meme.

This is my account, after watching it several times previously when it was linked earlier, then watching it several times now, and pausing it as it goes so I don't forget things. It's more interpretation than I had when I first saw it, but not necessarily the limit of what I could interpret from it - I find myself looking over my description and realizing I could put more feelings in.

The big triangle closes the door. The little triangle and the little ball arrive as a group. The big triangle comes out and the small triangle talks (whispers?) to it. The big triangle shakes its head 'no'. Then the triangles start fighting - mostly the big triangle hits the little triangle. The little ball is probably scared and gets away into the enclosure. The little triangle starts running away from the big triangle and hiding behind the wall of the enclosure. The big triangle loses interest and goes into the enclosure where the ball is. The ball bounces around a bit (either trying to avoid the triangle or taunting it) and then gets out of the enclosure (the little triangle opens the door to let it out). The ball and the little triangle do some stuff together. When the big triangle gets out of the enclosure the ball and little triangle run away from it together, trying to keep the enclosure between themselves and the big triangle. They run away offscreen; the big triangle runs around a bit more and then dismantles the enclosure. (Maybe it's angry that it couldn't get at the little shapes?)

I don't know where that puts me.

You see. That takes way too much time and patience. For me it would be even worse, because I would have to go much deeper than that to explain all of what my head picks up watching it only twice.

I agree with the one comment on the page. The "ball" is a dog. The "little triangle" is either a woman or a kid walking the dog. I think it's a woman. More specifically, the woman is the big triangle's wife or girlfriend. She must have come home late or something, because she kisses the guy, but he's mad (shaking head) the rest is just him chasing her around them tussling, the dog cowering and trying to hide, and the woman trying to get the dog so she can leave. When she finally does, he's so mad he smashes up the house.

That really, is all I can come up with. it's pretty much what I had in my head before, but it's all just a laundry list of actions with some made up characters that seem to fit. A lot of subtlety missing, that I knew would be.

Yes, I agree we can, it takes effort, but we can. I'm still taking cognitive swings at TOM and empathy, but I find myself over analyzing details, as I always have. The more complex the equation is the more likely a person is going come up with the wrong answer. I'm completely lost with your last statement, but it's not the first time I've been lost in figuring out what someone is really trying to say.

In fact I remember reading research about that here recently, that pointed out that Autistic people see intent at times that is not there, because they over analyze situations. MdYear was kind enough to provide me with the feedback that I was doing it in my interpretation of his exchange with Mr. XXx. I put factors A and B into the equation that weren't as large a part of MdYears experience as they were for me. If I could have seen the conversation, I'm thinking I might not have done it.

Do "normal" people look at social interaction as a mathematical equation? I dont think so. It reminds me of John Nash's confession that his "game theory" was not valid, because he didn't include the factor of emotion in it; he didn't have the ability to.

Right, but when I'm sitting right there telling them it is, and they just sit there not moving on, that annoys me. I should mention I have ADD too, so I don't have a lot of patience for stuff that isn't directly important to me in the moment.




Oh, I know that's why. And it's the same reason as above that having to say it more than once annoys me. I'm certain. Why should anyone need me to say it more than once to be sure that I'm certain? I mean, I wouldn't mind if they just paused a bit, then moved on, but it's the fact that I have to say it at least three times, sometimes more, that seems ridiculous.

I don't know, maybe they're looking for some physical sign, facial expression or something they're not getting because I don't show it enough. I don't think that's it though, because the same doctor that last did my evaluation, stated in her report that she felt my body and facial languages were quite animated, which is why she stopped short of saying AS, and put it down as PDD-NOS.

The "rule of three" is to me, just a game. A game I really don't like. Goes with "Why don't NT's just accept things at face value from us? Why do we have to drive every point home like hammering nails, pounding repeatedly until the point has sunk in?"

I went through the discussion and sifted it for pertinent information and tried to organize it in a logical manner. Perhaps a cleaner look can give others more insight into the questions that should be asked and what direction research should go. This is an attempt to support Memesplice's letter to ARC.

A link to the more organized theory
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id ... CIn4FhGzfs

A link to the raw quotes that I built the organized theory from
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id ... NwFHEfAsvg

I haven't had time to read this whole thread yet, but here are some random ideas I'll throw out (up?) about ToM. If I ignore all the official definitions of ToM and try to come up with what ToM is from my personal experience and the perceived differences between myself and NTs, then what I get is that ToM is the giant social software that a plethistic person - a person highly tuned into other people - uses constantly, both consciously and subconsciously, to regulate all his relationships and interactions with other people.

For plethistic people, the group is paramount over everything. For a plethistic person, his own role and position in the group are paramount. Also important are the roles and positions of the people closest to him - his family, his friends, and his enemies. All interactions automatically impinge upon these considerations. What is my position in the group? What is the position of my group compared to other groups? How can I go up in the hierarchy of the group? How can my group go up in the hierarchy of the groups? Who do I need to please to go up? Who do I need to avoid displeasing to avoid going down? How do I know if someone is pleased or displeased? What do I do to modulate their pleasure or displeasure? This is ToM - the constant monitoring of one's own thoughts and feelings about other people and the thoughts and feelings of other people about oneself as they affect oneself, other people, and the groups to which one and the others belong.

ToM is like a giant social software that is gradually loaded into the brains of plethistic children during childhood development, while the brains of autistic children are oblivious to its existence. From an early age, plethistic children begin to constantly and automatically query the internal thoughts and feelings of themselves about others and others about themselves, while autistic children attend to other things, usually tangible physical things in the tangible physical world. Plethistic children are tuned into people. They are excellent recognizers of patterns in human psychology, behavior, and interaction - the social world. Their working memory is full of this, leaving them little to tune into the physical world unless they specifically focus upon it. Autistic children are tuned into the physical world. They are excellent recognizers of patterns in the physical world. Their working memory is full of this, leaving them little to tune into the social world unless they specifically focus upon it. Children don't remember to focus on something that is unnatural and effortful for them unless you're sitting there reminding them to do it. For plethistic children, this is called "School", and school is where they learn to understand the physical world. For autistic children, this is called "Therapy", and therapy is where they learn to understand the social world. The only reason why autistic children and adults stick out so much and seem to have so much worse social understanding than plethistic children and adults have physical understanding is because the world is designed by and for the large majority of plethistic people. Even the standard of physical understanding is the one that suits their brains that naturally see the whole tree before it focuses in on the leaves. In a world designed by and for autistic people, anyone who doesn't see the leaves, each and every all at once, would be in trouble just as we are in trouble in their world.

Non-verbal cues in face-to-face interactions, reading between the lines in speech and writing, social rules and conventions - these are all tools for using ToM as accurately as possible. Not all plethistic people are equally adept at using these tools to process the incoming or generate the outgoing, so not all plethistic people are equally adept at ToM. Autistic people are even less adept than the least adept of plethistic people, and many adults cannot even remember that there is such a thing as ToM during their communications with other people. Their brains do not naturally go there. The only thing on their minds are facts, analyses, and syntheses - all make-sensical - and these are completely different from what is primarily on the minds of plethistic people. Neither group can really help themselves in the natural tendencies of their minds. It takes as much effort for a plethistic person to remember to avoid using ToM on an autistic person as it does for an autistic person to remember to use ToM on a plethistic person.

This is why I am concerned with the research into empathy and ToM by plethistic people about autistic people. They are using too much of their ToM on our minds. Our minds don't work according to their ToM, so obviously, we will be determined to be deficient in their empathy and their ToM as defined by them. I am also concerned with the research into other areas by plethistic people about autistic people. You know the BS like "lack of imagination" and "more rote than meaning"? These misinterpretations will pop up again and again in every single area if they apply their standards to us and we continue to allow them to do so. All of their research into us needs to re-evaluated from the ground up, and we can do some research into them while we're at it. The first conclusion might be, according to our standards, that plethistic people, or NTs, or whatever you want to call them, lack imagination. Or do they just have a different kind of imagination that emphasizes the social/emotional over the physical/intellectual? The second conclusion might be that they lack empathy and theory of mind. Why else would they fail to know that all objects on the surface of a table need to be arranged by size, color, or the ratio of blue polka-dots to red polka-dots. I mean, come on! Duh, how stupid can these people be? These types of insights are human fundamentals. Why, I get it, they must not be human at all! </sarcasm>

Oh dear, I just realized something. I just did exactly what NTs must do all the time during social interactions.

In the quote of my post above, there is obviously supposed to be some connection between empathy and ToM and orderly arrangements of objects on tables. I never made explicit what that connection was, because it was so obvious and so subconsciously known to me that it never occurred to me to say it in words, in verbal communication. If you are autistic, and you read that blurb, you probably didn't react at all. It was probably also obvious to you what the connection was. If you are not autistic, you probably jumped a little and wondered what the heck the connection was between empathy/ToM and table arrangements. I should have made it explicit. Beautiful orderly symmetrical patterns of objects on tables can be highly pleasurable to the autistic mind, and any rearrangement of the objects out of symmetry or order can be highly distressing, mentally, physically, emotionally, intellectually, you name it. That's our ToM at work right there. Simon Baron-Cohen might call the table arrangements systemizing, and that is 100% correct, but what he has missed is that there is also a huge unspoken-by-us and unrecognized-by-him element of empathizing involved. Just because autistics line things up doesn't make us unempathizing and only systemizing! We know that we shouldn't rearrange each other's stuff, because it hurts others, just like it hurts oneself, to have our stuff rearranged. Do NTs know this? In a world full of autistic people, no one would ever rearrange each other's stuff. Not so in this world!

This situation is analogous to the one of brutal honesty vs. "white lies". NTs use white lies, we get mad. It hurts our minds and offends us. We use brutal honesty, NTs get mad. It hurts their minds and offends them. It seems that the two ToMs are very different and often directly opposing. I guess that's why there is such a huge gap of communication between us. But it can be bridged if we would all become more self-and-other-aware and make things more explicit. I thought that I had been making things totally explicit, but it's obvious from my last post that I hadn't.

Very helpful explanation, btbnnyr. Thanks.

I agree that an NT's perspective revolves around position in a group. And, people who don't pass the Group Verification Procedure (a system of words, nods, looks, expressions), are to be excluded from the group. Sad.

I notice that this exclusion is not just for the autistic. Each group excludes the 99.99% of the world that is not "like me" (ethnic, social, religious, economic, educational, and interests). So, everyone searches for the group that will accept them--NTs and autists alike. As identified in other threads, even one's own family and neighbors and church may reject (or disfavor) their autistic members! That makes it hard to find a group.

All this talk about groups suggests that the Theory of Mind is a misguided way of looking at autism. Autism's social problem is not a failure to read others' minds sympathetically. It is simply that people with autism are rejected by most groups. You can't reject people and then point the finger at the rejected as being anti-social!

Maybe this "surge in autism" is just the result of so many groups expelling their previously-accepted autistic members? And the expelling might be due to evaluating people by the dollars they can earn.

If so, the solution is to really care about other people the best we can muster. We'll do it driven by logic, but that is our only option. We can only hope that our caring will rub off on the materialistic society.

I haven't had time yet to read all the posts made after I left last night in detail, but I couldn't resist commenting on btbnnyr's remark a couple of posts back:

I couldn't pass up commenting on the possibility that all of us might be doing just that, and it might be a clue as to why some of us have a tough time grasping the concept.

"Ignoring the 'official definitions' and coming up with..." basically what WE personally think TOM is.

I can't help but wonder if that isn't part of the problem, not just for me, but for most of us, and why we seem to be somewhat confused by the whole idea. Are we maybe not exercising TOM while trying to rationalize what it is? TOM is something Simon Baron-Cohen pretty much described and defined. It's his idea. I'm not sure how we can fully understand what he meant by it, if we don't (or can't) view it from his perspective.

If we're pulling our concepts of TOM out of our own heads, maybe we're not actually practicing it because we're not really digging directly into the source of the idea, and trying to figure what he meant, from HIS perspective.

I'm not saying btbnnyr's interpretation is wrong though. It just that they way the post was introduced got me thinking, "Am I doing that too?"

Maybe the concept of TOM is difficult for most Aspies to grasp directly due to the fact that we aren't very good at it.

This is nothing short of brilliant.

Not sure if I entirely agree with the rest of that paragraph yet, but this...

is right in line with what got me thinking about this to begin with.

(For those of you who aren't aware "plethistic" = NT) http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt158647.html

I didn't dig much further than that on the term (I had to Google it, and wasn't too surprised the top result was a WP post). Was it coined by a WP user?

What about empathetic numbin? Is this what happens when people become disensitized to violence?

Yes, it is. Check out this post if you like. It presents a quote with 10 activities that desensitize us to empathy and 10 activities that increase empathy. The environment plays a big role in this.

Soldiers going into combat for the first time play violent video games to desensitize their natural human empathy response not to kill another human being. Without this training soldiers have been known to freeze and not be able to shoot the enemy when faced with the necessity in actual combat. It has resulted in the deaths of our soldiers.

The source listed below lists video games as one of the general activities that can reduce the amount of empathy we have.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/posts168510-start15.html

Another thought I had about empathy, in regard to the list of activities that strengthen it. The more activities one involves themselves in that isolates themselves from human contact the weaker the empathetic response becomes. For those of us that were fortunate enough to have the skills required to get good grades in school, that was a major source of reward to us. If we were not good students, and did not feel rewarded by our efforts, chances are we would have been more motivated to seek reward in other areas, such as social ones.

Some people manage both areas quite well. There are many more biological and environmental factors involved, but the mechanisms that work in strengthening empathy are related to actual interaction between humans. People do this less and less now, interacting with devices that separate them from the visual or verbal interaction that strengthens the human empathetic response. People are still capable of experiencing empathy through textual interaction both emotional and cognitive, but it wouldn't be as naturally strong as actual interaction, because that was the way we evolved to communicate.

Finally, in SBC's own words:

No mention at all as to the accuracy of conclusions drawn from said inferences.

So the question is:

How useful is it really if there is no requirement for accuracy?

More importantly, what is the REAL reason behind the "apparent" lack of it in Autistics?

Isn't it possible that the reason we don't display it is because we don't see any value in it? Of what value is any mental effort to which I cannot attribute accuracy? I'm not actually asking for answers to these questions. I can already come up with many of them. The point I'm driving at is aimed more closely at the concept that Autistics lack the capacity for TOM.

I no longer think this is true. I think it's far more likely that we object to using it, because we know it's not accurate. Because we know every idea and thought we come up with as to how others think, is derived from within our own minds.

Now! Now here's where the relationship between TOM and reading body language come into play!

Mydar posted several pages back:



Now, while I don't agree it is "that simple," I do agree reading body language comes into play here. Body language communicates quite a bit. If you can't, or don't use it, you're missing a large part of a conversation.

"NT's" use body language in conjunction with the verbal in order to paint a complete mental "picture" of what people are saying to them. Body language can betray lies, or confirm truths. I said "can," not "does."

The question I ask about this though, is the same as the questions I have about empathy and TOM.

In Autistics, is it really an inability, or reduced ability to use them that explains the fact that researchers don't see it, OR, is it CHOICE (conscious or subconscious) that we don't use it, because WE don't perceive the value in it?

Somehow I think it's may be both, depending on the Autistic being observed. The reason I think this is because a great MANY high funcioning Autistics LEARN to do this (empathize, TOM and reading body language.)

CLEARLY we're not unable to do it, else we couldn't learn them, so the question then begs, "Why don't we see it in them at typical ages?"

Reduced ability is but ONE explanation for this. But, there are others that could explain this apparent lack just as well.

1) None of them can be relied upon fully well so we choose not to use them.

2) We remain aware that others do have their own interpretations of experiences, but what matters to us more, is our own, BECAUSE it is the only interpretation of which we can be 100% certain. Figuring out what others might be thinking, is to us, just guess work.

I could come up with some other explanations, but the point is simple. There MAY be others.

For researchers to simply assume that if they can't see it, it isn't there, seems to me to be an incomplete processing of the evidence.

I've asked my own kids, who are all diagnosed on the Spectrum, to talk to me about the Sally/Anne test. I got Three different answers:

1) She'll look in the basket (my eleven year old)

Because that's where she put it so that's the first place she'll look.

2) She'll look in the box (my thirteen year old)

Because it's a basket (a basket ball basket) so the ball would fall through it, and she can't see it, so the only place left is the box.

3) She'll look in the basked, unless Anne does that to her all the time, but she'll look in the box eventually, because it isn't in the basket. (my fourteen year old)

Can you see how important it is to have some understanding of WHY they gave the answers they did? Doesn't that understanding change the entire conclusion one would draw? It's easy to simply hear an answer and assume it's because of either a lack of understanding TOM, or a developed understanding, but if you ask WHY they gave the answers they did, everything changes.

Now I have to tell you that all three of them have had some training in TOM in school, but the funny part is, all of that training was approached with the presumption that they all lacked Theory of Mind. Not once did their therapist ever ask them why they gave the answers they did during their training. She actually showed us exactly what she did with them during training.

One good example was a photograph she showed them, of a woman in a store, looking over her shoulder, with her hand in her purse. They were supposed to tell her what was going on in the picture. To make this easier to follow, I'll tell you the "correct" answer. The woman was shop lifting.

When my kids looked at it, they all said, "She's shopping." When pressed for more detail they all shrugged and said, "She's shopping."

The therapist showed us the photo (this was before telling us the answer), and I couldn't come up with an answer at all. "She's shopping" just seemed too ridiculously obvious so I didn't bother saying it, because I knew that wasn't what she was looking for. I knew there was some supposedly "hidden meaning" buried in the details.

When she explained how she had to describe all the expressions, the body language etc. to reach the shoplifting conclusion, I stopped her and asked one question.

"How about this? She's just left home, where she has an abusive husband, who doesn't like her leaving without his permission. She's looking over her shoulder, scared that he might walk in and catch her. She's got her hand in her purse, because she's got a cell phone ready to call the police if she needs to."

"Yeah, I guess i can see how you got that," she said.

I asked her if she ever bothered to ask them why they had given the answer they did, and although she had, and they had explained why ("Shes in a store. That's why people go to stores."), she simply went on with explaining that they were "missing obvious cues."

Were they? Or were they subconsciously or consciously choosing not to delve any deeper because there were just too many variables, and no "correct" answer in their minds?

I am now very heavily leaning toward it not being a reduced ability at all, but more a matter of there being too many variables. I think this perception that high functioning Autistics lack TOM might be incorrect, and that the same things they see in us that lead to this conclusion are more likely due to our need for things to make clear sense.

Couldn't this seeming lack of ability to practice TOM just as easily be explained by our incessant need for order? Isn't it true that we're always looking for "the" right answer?

With TOM, body language and empathy, there IS no one right answer!

Thoughts?