Very short test of central coherence

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Sam has a big blank wall in her apartment that she wants to decorate.

She wants to decorate the wall with a painting.

She goes to the store but cannot find a painting she likes.

In the store, Sam also finds a large hanging clock and buys it.

Why does she buy the clock?

To decorate her wall.
Also to make the trip seem like less of a waste, changing the goal allows her to consider it mission accomplished.

The interesting thing about this test is what it seems to show about the way non-autistic people supposedly think. There is no information whatsoever in the story about why Sam buys the clock; to get the correct answer, you literally have to assume Sam's motivations, which is actually a terrible way to try to understand people. Yet that is considered normal cognition.

The clock could be a gift for somebody else. Sam could be a clock collector and not intending to decorate the wall with the clock. There are many possible motivations.

She likes the clock

While all of that is true, I'm relying on when you hear hoofbeats it's typically due to horses logic combined with my own personal experience and observations of other people and hearing them recount the logic they relied upon to make their decision in analogous circumstances.

The story doesn't provide enough details to consider any other motive although as you say, it's possible that she had some other reason to buy the clock.

why is this a test of central coherence?

What is central coherence? If it were myself, the most likely explanation would be that the store had a Felix the Cat clock with moving eyes and tail for $5 or less.

Because we are supposed to put the elements of the story together to determine the answer to the question:

blank wall + Sam wants to decorate the wall + Sam can't find desired decoration + Sam finds something else that could decorate a blank wall = she bought the clock for the purpose of decorating the wall

The story doesn't tell us a connection between buying the clock and planning to decorate the wall, so we have to use central coherence to make that connection ourselves. If we read the story very literally (like autistic people tend to do), the clock purchase seems like a detail that has nothing to do with the parts about decorating a wall.

Last edited by starkid on 05 Dec 2020, 3:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

I hope it didn't seem like I was contradicting you. Your answer was correct: she bought the clock to decorate the wall.

If it has hands, does she set it to a nice-looking pattern, such as 8:20, or just let it run?
Are there any digital clocks that would count as decoration?

decorate the wall

No, not at all. I just wanted to explain my logic because those situations aren't intuitive to me, I kind of have to rely on thinking about them like long division (so I feel the need to 'show my work' so to speak).

Sam went to the store? I didn't think that was a thing any more, since we've got this wonderful thing called Amazon.

But anyway, as a person that likes shopping myself (as in going to the store), I would imagine Sam felt disappointed that she couldn't find any paintings that she liked, but she wanted something to put on the wall so she saw the wall clock and decided to buy it instead, as to Sam it looked just as pretty as a painting (plus she liked the wall clock).

Love this answer!

I struggle unpacking things from the grocery store..

Forget decorating. Solved.

This is me at the liquor store.