what is "Mind-blindness"?

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What does the term "Mind-blindness" mean?

The inability to put yourself in the mind or shoes of another. Inability to imagine what the other person is thinking or feeling. I started off life mind blind, but by degrees I learned how to figure out what another person was probably thinking/feeling by purely empirical means. Like learning a foreign language late in life. Normals can do this by the age of five or six intuitively. They have a talent for it.

ruveyn

Good definition from Ruveyn. I'll add that it's not a matter of imagination, but rather an inability to figure out--analytically or intuitively--what someone else is thinking or feeling.

NTs can do this naturally and easily, sometimes with just a glance at a person's face they can read that person's emotional state. A few seconds with that person and they are sympathizing and empathizing, communicating nonverbally and able to understand what is likely going on inside each other.

I've always found this amazing, since I can't do it. Decades of practice has me at approximately the level of a preteen, according to my neurologists. But I have to concentrate, pay attention consciously, and think about what is going on in the other person. This is too much work for me, so I just get along without knowing. There are many other things I find more interesting anyway.

I can certainly accept that others have their own perspective but from time to time someone reacts in a way I completely didn't anticipate. I have to rerun the exchange in my mind to see it. Is this mindblindness? I used to rarely engage with people at all. People would question why I was so quiet but it was safer.

Some Aspies are actually quite good at analytically figuring other people out, but I think the lack of intuitive sense of another people's perspective is common for us. I for one have learned to be pretty good at figuring out what another person feels/thinks, but I do it rationally rather than intuitively.

I am very good at 'reading' other people. I can almost always figure out what someone is feeling or thinking. But it's all useless information, because I don't know how to control what they think and feel. If someone's sad I can't make them happy, if they hate me I can't make them like me.

ok good to know this because I thought all people with asperger syndrome could not understand other people's feelings/emotions

I don't like how the term assumes that "normal" people can read other people's minds. Yea right. If that were the case the world would operate a hack of a lot differently.

People read body-language which gives a very crude picture of what someone might be feeling. It's a far cry from "mind-reading".

Oh, it first looked like What are Mini-Blinds