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Theory of Mind?

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ocdgirl123
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17 Oct 2010, 8:17 pm

Hello! I was wondering if anyone here knows what Theory of Mind is, because I have no idea. The concept really confuses.



Squirrelrat
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17 Oct 2010, 8:50 pm

It's the ability to know that someone's thoughts are different from your own and be able to imagine how that person's thoughts might differ from your own, based on what you know about them. Though a person with autism might not completely lack this ability, he or she wouldn't be as good at it as most people.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLubgpY2_w[/youtube]



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17 Oct 2010, 8:56 pm

I do not know how to explain the details, but it amounts to the existence of certain "mindsets" or "inherent programmings" found common and different among various groups of people ... the different ways different groups or "types" of people think ... and my own "theory of mind" or whatever it is just does not mesh or "communicate" well with or comprehend the majority of people I have ever met or known.


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ocdgirl123
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17 Oct 2010, 9:20 pm

I thought that Snoopy would think that there were crayons in the box.



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17 Oct 2010, 9:25 pm

ocdgirl123 wrote:
I thought that Snoopy would think that there were crayons in the box.


But you're not a little kid. If you're autistic, it's likely that you would have said that he thought there were candles in the box if you had been asked this question as a little kid. Now that you're older, your theory of mind has improved, but you're still probably a step behind everyone else. You probably still struggle with understanding what other people are thinking in more complicated situations.



ocdgirl123
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17 Oct 2010, 9:32 pm

What would be an example of a more complicated situation?



Squirrelrat
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17 Oct 2010, 9:51 pm

I guess reading faces would be an example, but I'm not really sure. Here is a face-reading test:

http://www.questionwritertracker.com/in ... n=Z4MK3TKB

But then again, plenty of wrongplaneteers seem to have done just fine on the face-reading test. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt86249.html

I actually scored a 25. I do know, however, that I do not have that much time to examine people's faces in real life and that I really had to think about each one on the test.



ocdgirl123
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17 Oct 2010, 9:57 pm

I can read faces alright, however, I cannot, for the life of me, read a face when just the eyes are given. In fact, I don't use the eyes at all when figuring out what people are thinking. I use the rest of the face, tone of voice and body language. I can read emotions, but not eyes, if that makes sense.



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17 Oct 2010, 10:07 pm

I also find it very hard to read just the eye section of human faces.


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PangeLingua
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17 Oct 2010, 10:12 pm

I have only been able to find things that discuss impaired theory of mind in children, not in adults. So, I don't know if this is an example, but as a teenager I was frequently surprised when the people around me persistently disagreed with my opinions on religious or political matters (even when my opinions changed). Of course if you'd asked me whether other people had their own views and opinions separate from mine, I would have said, "Yes, duh." But on a practical level, I acted and thought as though everyone would share my views if they only had the same information that I had. I've gotten better about that though. Maybe everyone goes through that as a teenager?

I was/am bad at predicting when things I would say would hurt others' feelings, I think that was related too. I don't understand why other people aren't interested in the things I'm interested in.

Hmm ... maybe someone more knowledgeable can tell me if this sounds like impaired "theory of mind"? It's a weird phrase. I mean, who honestly doesn't know theoretically that other people have their own minds? It's more the application of the theory, for me, that sometimes doesn't work too well.

BTW I failed the "Mind in the Eyes Test" absolutely miserably.



Last edited by PangeLingua on 17 Oct 2010, 11:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

ScottyN
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17 Oct 2010, 10:59 pm

I have great trouble reading emotions, given just eyes. I scored 21 on the test, but got quite lucky. At least 3 questions I just guessed the answer and got all of them correct.



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18 Oct 2010, 5:12 am

ocdgirl123 wrote:
What would be an example of a more complicated situation?


Perhaps you have had an arrangement with a group, which someone calls you to change the arrangement. You do not think of telling anyone else and even in an argument later, can not understand why the others are disagreeing with you (i.e. you do not even assume that everyone knows about the change, it is simply a fact).

When working on a group project, you do some work that involves other people, but don't communicate it. Later on there is a disagreement that relates to the work you did, and the disagreement would not have happened if you had told the other people.



PangeLingua
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18 Oct 2010, 9:48 am

StuartN wrote:
When working on a group project, you do some work that involves other people, but don't communicate it. Later on there is a disagreement that relates to the work you did, and the disagreement would not have happened if you had told the other people.


That could just be forgetfulness and being focused on oneself. Does it actually have to be because you didn't know that other people had minds?



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18 Oct 2010, 10:16 am

Theory of Mind seems a bit amorphous when I start looking up various definitions. Yet it seems like a critical piece of ASDs. For such an important issue, I find it a little disconcerting that professionals cannot come up with a concise definition. Perhaps this is because there is still no consensus on what exactly "mind" is?

The best that I can do so far is that an autistic person does not assign intention to external agents. In other words, people do things, but the autistic only sees the action and not the underlying motivations of another sentient being.



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18 Oct 2010, 11:14 am

My theory of mind isn't very good. I can never understand why people don't like the same things as I do, or why they can be OK with things that I hate.



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18 Oct 2010, 5:07 pm

It should be noted that several studies about ToM had came to the conclusion that Aspies who don´t match the criteria for Autism don't seem to have an impairment in ToM.

http://www.totall.exagorazo.net/Autism/Asperger Syndrome.pdf#page=61

Quote:
Finally, a handful of studies have explored an individual's ability to impute mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions to others and to self, or to have a theory of other people's (and one's own) subjectivity—a "theory of mind" (ToM) (Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg, & Cohen, 1999; Happe, 1995). In Ozonoff, Rogers, and Pennington's (1991a) study, previously mentioned, group comparisons between the AS and HFA groups revealed significant differences, with the autistic group exhibiting significant impairment in relation to both the AS and an age, and IQ-matched control group; there were no differences between the AS controls. A suggestion was made, therefore, that AS and autism could be distinguished in terms of ToM abilities. Although the finding of no ToM deficits in individuals with AS was replicated in two other studies (Bowler, 1992; Dahlgren & Trillingsgaard, 1996), whether performance on ToM tasks truly differentiates individuals with AS from those with HFA is still open. As previously noted, the AS group in Ozonoff, Pennington, and Rogers's (1991) report also showed higher verbal IQ and verbal memory skills; given the positive correlation between performance on ToM tasks and verbally mediated skills, it is possible that the results reflected differences in the latter rather than in ToM capacities. In addition, Dahlgren and Trillingsgaard (1996) reported no differences in ToM performance between their AS and HFA groups (both performed almost as well as a group of normal controls).