about psychopath mind and theory of mind

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See below...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaTfdKYbudk


1.
In the video, psychopaths CAN perceive emotional words though people believe that psychopaths are characterized by a COMPLETE lack of empathy. After I saw it, I'm totally confused. Then, what's the main difference b/w autistic and psychopath? anti-social personality? I assure that anyone can be an anti-social if he, belonging to a minority group, have been suppressed by a social environment structurally.


2.
This is my guess.

Human can read another's mind by guessing from his behavior. During guessing, we refer a dictionary to translate. An available dictionary is the mind of oneself and it works quite well. This is the reason why human can sympathize with another men more easily than animal. However, autistic people have a different mind compared to NT. so, I think, we are not easy to interact with NT because we have a similar but slightly different dictionary of mind. My guessing ends.

If everything goes on smoothly, maybe,I suspect, we can easily interact with another aspie. Do you sympathize easily with another aspie than NT? I use the word 'sympathize' by meaning we may understand his behavior barring complex logical thinking as if we're in same situation.


3.
If above assumptions are right, this is the main question.
Could you sympathize easily with psychopath more than NT?



Just out of curiosity and not offend.
If you're uncomfortable with this thread, please forgive me.

Critical difference is intent.

Psychopaths are predatory.


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WARNING: a shameless plug follows for this thread. But I was up quite a few nights writing it!

I've been thinking a lot about this topic lately. Let's assume that the latest research is true, and autism and schizophrenia are opposite ends of a spectrum. My own intuition is that this applies mainly to introverted personalities. When you look at extraverts, the spectrum runs from psychopath to borderline.

Well, we're about as different from psychopaths as we are from NTs. (Not that there's no such thing as a psychopathic autistic person; they exist just like they do among NTs and quite frankly, they scare me.)

So if you assume that it's easier to communicate with someone who is similar to you, then we'd have more difficulty with a psychopath because we have had more practice with NTs.

As for whether it's easier to communicate with an Aspie than an NT, that depends on just how much practice you have had communicating with NTs, and how little you've had communicating with aspies.

There are some similarities in thinking between autists and psychopaths.

Both tend to take a very unromantic view of the world around them, the autist focusing on ideas, the psychopath on people.

Both tend to enjoy a highly-structured world, the autist preferring control over their inner model of reality, the psychopath preferring control over people.

Both dislike the neurotypical thinking style, finding it unrealistic and deluded.

The autist has a big thing about TRUE/NOT TRUE, preferring TRUE, and tends to hate the inbetween stage, MAGIC.

The psychopath has a big thing about DOMINANT/SUBMISSIVE, preferring DOMINANT, and tends to hate the inbetween stage, EQUALITY.

I've just skimmed the replies here, so please forgive any repetition. (What's that? We thrive on repetition?)

Many years ago, I presented myself to a psychologist as a possible sociopath after reading a magazine article on the subject. I felt that I regarded others as objects and was worried that this made me a monster. Maybe I am a monster, but I'm no psychopath. First of all, that I was worried about it and did experience guilt when I KNEW that I wronged someone signaled to the shrink that I was no sociopath.

I now view sociopathy and the autistic spectrum as polar opposites in a very basic way: sociopaths can see straight through someone, can read them like a book, and this forms the basis of their predatory nature. Need I explain the opposite end of that spectrum? It's something we live with everyday.

Another explanation I read about a while back: autistics lack empathy, which is defined clinically as the COGNITIVE ability to read and interpret the thoughts and feelings of others. Sociopaths lack sympathy, which is the emotional component to empathy. Autistics have sympathy. We are able to feel for people once we understand how they're feeling. So sociopaths and autistics are flip sides of the same coin, or photographic negatives of one another.

Biogeek, I used to think the same thing! Then I discovered research into the relationship between autism and schizophrenia. Here's a taster. I now believe that autism, psychopathy and schizophrenia are three corners of a square, with borderline personality disorder forming the fourth corner.

They have different deficits in empathy, see:

Yes, that's what I was trying to say, Danielismyname--all the bolded text in your post. You say it much more clearly than I did.

But I will check out that link, DeepBlueLake. Interesting stuff. I guess you can tell this is a special interest of mine.

see this recent thread
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt96311.html

I had the same experience with the dead, and it makes me doubting whether I'm inhumane or not. Apparently, I'm not an anti-social and also serial killer, but I can understand why they didn't grieve for victims referring to my personal experiences. I may grieve for extremely close intimate but most other people are not close to me.

I had suspected that people 'always' play on an act like me. I'm sometimes puzzled when I notice my feeling isn't normal comparing to NT's.

I have BOTH schizoaffective and autism. Anti social personality disorder (aka psychopath I don't have anti social personality disorder though, thank God!) has absolutely NOTHING to do with schizophrenia. Schizophrenics are no more violent than the general population, but they are more likely to kill themselves than another person. There are exceptions though such as those that act on "command hallucinations" that tell them to hurt others. I am not a violent person, just sometimes to myself (self harm).

I relate to the video in regards to the lack of feeling that words invoke.

Cancer
Rape
Death

I draw nothing from them.

There's also this study: