is this theory-of-mind related?

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I was on a visit to people I know.
They were having sleep-over-visitors for a couple days at that moment and it was a couple with a baby.
Then I came to visit them and the mother of the baby gave me the baby to hold it, so I went to the man I was visiting (him and his wife, they know about my autism) and said to him: "Look, here is a baby" and he said: "I know, she had been staying for a couple days with us already".
So it occured to me that the baby was not new to him as it was to me, and I just wanted to let him know that there was a baby.
Is this related to theory-of-mind?
What also happened: We (the man and his wife I visited) went to visit people and the man said: "We are leaving now, say bye-bye to Kathie, she is in the kitchen".
So I went to the kitchen and I saw Kathie and hugged her to say bye-bye, and went back to the man, and he said: "You should say bye-bye to the other people (who were in the kitchen) too".
It did not came up to me, in fact I did not realize the other people, because in my mind I just had the image of Kathie I had to say bye-bye to, and the other people were not in the describtion.
Is this related to theory-of-mind as well?

The 1st instance is a classic TOM issue. The baby was new to you, so you assumed that the baby might be new to your friend, the host, too.

Knowing that the couple had been staying at the host's house, plus knowing that it was the baby's mother who handed the baby to him, a person with typical TOM would have;
- Assumed that the host knew of the baby's presence because;
- babies usually travel with the mother; they cannot straggle into the group at a later time as an adult guest might.
With typical TOM, assumptions are formed through assessment of associated known facts. These assumptions about what another person may know are concluded instantaneously & unconsciously without 'thinking through' the sort analysis presented above.

I will present a parallel story wherein the automatic assumptions made through typical TOM would prove wrong:
I was on a visit to people I know.
They were having sleep-over-visitors for a couple days at that moment and it was a couple with a baby.
Then I came to visit them and the mother of the baby gave me the baby to hold it. When Bob, the man I was visiting, came in from tending the barbeque he exclaimed, "MountainLaurel; You have a baby!" I was confused and said, "No she's not my baby, this is the baby staying here at your house." Now Bob looked confused.
The baby's mother laughed and explained, "Bob, I think you may have forgotten, tonight is when my mom was to bring little Annie here to us. She popped in just for a moment to drop Annie off and left immediately because it's almost dusk and her eyes are no good for night driving. MountainLaurel arrived just after my mom left."

I had assumed that since the couple were staying with my friends, that the baby had been with them the whole time. But, they had used the 1st night of the visit as a little time away from baby care because the grandmom had offered a one night respite. And since the baby and I arrived sequentially to the house and Bob had forgotten about the baby's imminent arrival, we both had a moment of confusion.



I don't see your 2nd instance as a TOM issue on your part. You were asked to go say goodbye to Kathie. Was Kathie the hostess? I might assume so because it is protocol to always say goodbye and thank you to the hosts before leaving, even if that means seeking them out and/or waiting through their conversation with someone else in order to do so. You did that.

But you neglected to say/wave goodbye to any otherwise unengaged bystanders as you passed out of the kitchen. That's simply a politeness issue. One needn't seek out all guests to say goodbye; just say/wave goodbye to any guests you happen to pass as leaving.

This 2nd instance did not involve making assumptions through associated facts about what another person is likely to know (TOM) such as the 1st instance did. You simply weren't tuned-in to the fact that there were others present in the kitchen, so you addressed Kathie without acknowledging their presence. You were doing strictly 'as told' and did not have the innate social graces to automatically add in the 'extra' gesture of also saying goodbye to the others present.

Yeah, I wouldn't have realized I should say goodbye to the other people either. That's one of those unwritten social rules that someone needs to write down for us one of these days.

At first thought, I would agree with MountainLaurel. The first would be a TOM issue, the second politeness or etiquette.

But I start to wonder why Eloa was told only to say bye-bye to Kathie and why the other people was not explicitly mentioned in the request. Then I think, the man was thinking that Kathie was the only one, not knowing there were more people in the kitchen.

My thinking pattern would be as follows:
- Okay, I am told to go to the kitchen and say good-bye to Kathie;
- I go to the kitchen;
- Oh, there are more people than only Kathie;
- I say good-bye to Kathie and also to others;
- I go back to the man and to others.