Theory of Mind and Asperger's Syndrome

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I don't know how many of you have heard of it, but a theory of mind is basically a person's recognition that other people have separate minds with memories, feelings, and motives different from their own. Many psychologists hypothesize that people with Asperger's syndrome and other autistic spectrum disorders lack or have an underdeveloped theory of mind. Some consequences of a poorly developed theory of mind would be an inability to gauge people's reactions and tell when someone might be lying.

In my opinion, Asperger's syndrome cannot be explained as primarily a deficient theory of mind. Although I do not have the ability to read minds, my theory of mind seems to be sufficiently well developed. I would even say that people's reactions are usually predictable.

What has your experience been? Do you believe you have a theory of mind? How well can you predict people's behavior?

...I can tell when some people are lying. Like this one time at day camp. A boy who had a huge crush on me spent time with another girl. I was happy to have him with somebody other than me for a change and I hoped it would stay that way. The next day, the boy came up to me. He said the girl was "brainwashing" him. I could tell he was lying because I know he likes me and he thinks that I like him back.

I can't read body language, and tend to assume people are telling the truth. I realise this is a handicap and so have to make a conscious effort not to trust my own judgement, if that makes any sense.

I also have a tendency to think that people tell the truth, except sometimes when I know that it is not possible. I also have difficulties reading people's facial expressions and body language and rely a lot on what they say.

Loy

This "Theory of Mind" stuff is interesting. To be fair, I'm not a good gauge of someone's behavior unless I've known them well for quite awhile. Same thing goes for vice-versa as well. Seems to me people who try to read me often get muxed up for whatever reason and the frustration sometimes is visible. I dunno, it's weird -- I can speak a lot but I still seem mysterious.

I used to have more faith in people being honest, but with so many white lies tossed around progressing to grey lies, it only makes sense to me that I be judicious and skeptical of a lot of small talk and claims that people make. The way I look at it is, I don't want to come off as wacko and paranoid, but if I test the truth, the truth will hold. Of course, the truth as I perceive it.

I occasionally have a tough time putting myself in other people's shoes, figuratively speaking. But I think I've gotten more comfortable with imaginating what it would be like to shuffle through someone else's brain and possible motives and whatnot.

I don't naturally have a good Theory of Mind, but i have learned it. I can generally predict how someone (NT) will react to a certain situation, but i can only do this because i basically learned it by rote. The REASON for someone acting a certain way still eludes me. I can generally tell when someone is lying, but only because I've memorised the physiological characteristics of a liar. Eyes move a certain way, body language...etc. If someone's a practised liar, however, i haven't got a hope in hell.

I'm the opposite - I tend to assume that people are lying unless they give me a good reason that they aren't - and even then usually they don't mean what they are saying - people tell me all the time that they care about me until they realize how messed up I am and then they don't want to be around me anymore .. .

ANYWAY - I'm VERY bad at judging people's reactions to situations - in fact, what I generally do is not look at them and listen to their voice - I tend to have better luck if I do that . . .
The only exception to this is something that has happened to me very rarely - and it may not be related to Asperger's at all - but I'm curious if any of you have had this experience - every now and then I'll meet someone that will just make my skin crawl - this has only happened a few times and isn't related to anything like age, gender, ethnicity or anything - I just feel like if I touched them they would feel like a slimey rock in a fish tank - yuck . . .
Then, the opposite happens occassionally, too - like my favorite person to be around - when I worked with him if he walked in the office and didn't feel good I could just tell - I mean it was like his presence was wrong or something - a VERY strong feeling - one time he got really sick and it felt like someone hit me with a sledgehammer when he walked in the door - and then one time I had to spend some time at home when I started taking a new bi-polar medication and the same sort of thing happened - he gave me a hug when he came by to see me and it was like someone had hit me with something - but that time in a positive way . . . really wierd stuff . . .
It happens so rarely, though, that there must be SOMETHING to it . . .

Oh - and I should add that generally the people that I feel the strong positive connections to are the only ones that I will let touch me - I HATE being touched in general . . .

In the general sense of things I'm a poor at judging people personalities. I have no way of telling if people are lying to me unless I can make a conscious connection to something that they are lying. I work in a grocrey store which is probably one of the worst places a person with AS could be. My relationships with my other co-workers and the customers is not what it should be becasue of my AS. for example, if the other employees rip on me, even if their joking around, I always think that their being serious. several times I've gotten angry at my co-workers and have lashed back at them, only to have them go "Geeeze, calm down, I'm just kidding, God!.........."

With the customers, I would have to say from outward appearences that I would guess that 90% of them are pissed off and ready to take my head off at the slightest provocation. yet they'll come up to me and ask a question and they'll be in the best of moods.

Most of this goes back to my days of junior high school when I had to come up with stragedys to survive the bullies and come out of the place with some bit of sanity. Since I didn't have the ability to read other people, my tactic was reclusion, isolation, and distrust. I said as little as possible and avoided others as much as possible when out of class, plus I never trusted anyone. This worked out quite well for me, there were others that got it much worse than me, but this meant giving up a social life, besides I never liked being around groups of strangers let alone making eye contact with any of them.

I have just learned recently the term "theory of mind", and that most people know it intuitively. Even without knowing this, I tried to develop such a thing and failed miserably. I guess that the fact that I made this effort means that I do not have the intuitive ability, or if so, it is limited and insufficient. Indeed, people often seem enigmatic to me, and their behavior puzzling. Several times I have caught myself assuming that the other person must think exactly like me and necessarily agree with me, which was - of course - not logical. I believe that the reason for my failure to develop the "theory of mind" was that my way of thinking is too dissimilar from that of most people, so I just can't imitate their thought processes. It appears that I am not very bad reading facial expressions. But it doesn't help me much, as I tend to avoid eye contact.

Several people on this thread have said that they successfully developed a conscious "theory of mind". May I ask that you share your insights on how you did it? Thanks!

When I was about 10 I began to wonder if other people had minds at all. I remember when I was even younger thinking that other people just looked like meat robots to me, especially when they were making lots of noise at lunchtime as I recall (school).

What really bothers me is that people treat me like I'm mentally ill. You know how a person will keep there distance from and try to inch away from a psycho? I get that a lot. I'm not happy.

My Mom observed I speak to answering machines like they are fellow human beings -- I looked at it in a different way... I know my friends will be tired when they get home to check their messages, so I just wanted to leave a message they'd be entertained by! I didn't mistake the beep for a real person

Soapy_Snoopy: A plus side of weeding people out like that, in my personal experience, is that the fake people who could only fake and "tolerate" you for so long are soon gone in most cases. Those with good hearts willing to grow with you and not judge you so quickly are the ones remaining... and they are the ones willing to listen to what you have to say. But, let me ask you: what do you think it is about you that makes people back away?

I often seem to have trouble in predicting people's reactions to different things and in understanding their motives. There is a certain basic level of understanding, but anything beyond that baffles me a lot.

The unpredictability then causes anxiety for I'm not sure how to react around some people and whether or not to take their remarks seriously. It gets worse when there is a large group of people to deal with at the one time.

I tend to err on the side of not trusting people too much or rather it is hard to gain my trust and easy to lose it. It's happened a bit too often that I've trusted somebody and then got burnt. It happens to everybody but I just want to protect myself and not let it happen any more.

I don't ever truely really believe that others think different from me. But I am very creative and i have developed a near normal theory of mind. I humor them because life is a game with strange rules.