I failed "Theory of Mind"

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The iconic test for Theory of Mind is the one by Uta Frith. So I looked it up, read about it learned how it works, all in typical hyper-focused fashion. Then I finally found a version of it online. If you are unaware of it, it is basically a cartoon storyboard of two girls, a basket, a box and a ball. The first girl puts the ball in the basket and leaves the scene. The second girl moves the basket into the box. The second girl comes back into the scene. The question at this point is where will she look for the ball first, the basket or the box. The correct answer is the basket, since that is where she put it and was not there when the other girl moved it to the box.

So, having read about this test, KNOWING the right answer, understanding WHY the answer was right, the first time I actually saw the images I figured it was pointless to even bother looking at it. A psychological test is often useless when you know the intended purpose and the meaning of the answers. But I was curious so i looked at the thing and ran each frame of the cartoon through my head like a little movie. When I got to the last frame I automatically "created" the next one in my mind. Lo and behold, the little biotch looked in the box first. HOLY FREAKING WOW.HOW DO YOU FAIL A TEST FOR WHICH YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER?

It would appear that decoupling my verbalization and going strictly visual bypassed my logic. Even though I 'reasoned' the ball was in the basket, the first impulse was that it was in the box.

Apparently, even after 52 years of living, my Theory of Mind still has issues.

And I'm thinking this eliminates all doubt as to my status on The Spectrum. It only remains to determine where on The Spectrum I reside.

Sigh.

No wonder I feel so different. I am indeed an alien in this world.

Another weakness bought into the light of awareness is always a good thing, though it can hurt the ego.

Could you link us?

I'll try to find it again ...

I failed it, too.
It's a fairly common test... Sally Ann Test.
Here's a Youtube video for it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjkTQtggLH4&feature=related[/youtube]

Thanks for the link.

It doesn't bother me so much that I failed, but that I failed it KNOWING the correct answer before hand. I felt very weird to have one part of my brain doing one thing while another was doing just the opposite.

I dunno, I mean, knowing the answer beforehand, I can see it logically, and I know logically that other people have minds separate from mine, but my first instinct watching the video was still that she would look in the box, but isn't that just because it IS in the box so that's where the mind tends to go? Isn't that really everyone's first instinct? I don't understand how this shows anything. It seems more like a trick, where you get the participant slightly disoriented so that they automatically go for the answer they know is wrong.

I'm still really confused about the whole theory of mind concept - I just have a hard time believing that other people have some kind of mind-reading ability.

This just supports what I have suspected about theory of mind since I first heard about it - it's not a logical deficiency, it has to do with the practical application of what one logically knows. The "experts" and the term "theory" (of mind) make it sounds like autistic people actually do not logically understand that other people are sentient beings with minds. Maybe that is true of some people with autism, I don't know, but I don't think that this proves it in any case.

I think it is some sort of trick. I failed it, too. But I seriously doubt that people who do not have autism can "read minds". I don't see how that is possible.

Ok, that is tricky. I mean it's like a trick question. I think I'd get angry over that kind of test. I got tripped up on "Which one is Sally?". uughh.

LOL, me too!

There are various Youtube videos of autistic children "failing" the test, but I haven't seen one that shows any child getting it right....

"mind-reading" is a terrible term in my opinion. It evokes images of psychics sussing out your thoughts.

Yeah, see, it's like a big conspiracy!

LOL. I'd probably instinctively fail that test as well. My reasoning would be like...

"How can Sally know anything? Sally is an inanimate toy. Well, oh well, I'll try to suspend my disbelief. Who's to say Sally and Anne hadn't agreed ahead of time to go through this little routine of placing a marble in one box and then moving it to another box? I bet Sally knows more than I do about the location of the marble."

I remember being interested in the ball, the drawings, the dolls and their dresses, and all the visual things in the picture, and I guess the interpersonal stuff in the story went by the wayside because I was distracted by all those things. I had forgotton about the doll hiding it in the basket, and I said "The box." So, I got it wrong.

I am not sure how an NT would do in the test though that would make them different. Would an NT automatically focus on the personal interplay between the two dolls and not be distracted by the details? I dont know. Not much study seems to have been done into how NTs often perceive the puzzle.

What I know is Anne wasn't in the room when Sally moved her ball to the box so how would she know her ball had been moved?

I would have failed this test too at a young age but pass it in my teens or preteens. I could easily fail it if I wasn't paying attention or even thinking.