Theory of mind

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Ah ok that all makes a lot of sense. I really don't have a lot of experience with children, there were no young children in my family growing up and there still aren't. Playing games would be more fun than small talk though.

I don't know anything about synaptic connections (would like to find more about it) but wanted to add this:

I think for me what looks like lack of "theory of mind" might be a multitasking thing, where I need to shut out some type of information because I can't do everything at once. I might find it too difficult to take in all the information in an environment, another person's questions body language and point of view, pull thoughts out my head and turn them into speech, all at the same time. In a lot of situations I have to shut off some awareness of the other person to be able to speak to them. I guess that's a simplification, like Roselove described.

But often I am very aware of others' feelings and can be very comforting to people I am close to.

Same! You have to lead the conversation with most children as they are usually too shy to do that themselves with an adult stranger and I'm terrible at leading conversation so I never know what to say.



As for TOM... Is that what causes black and white thinking? I used to have that as a child/teenager, I had very strong opinions and anyone's opposing opinion I didn't understand so the only sense I could make of it was that they must be wrong. But I'm not like that anymore, I can imagine things from other people's point of view, I can imagine things I've never experienced, but I don't think of it as being a logical process of understanding, I don't really think about it, I just do it. But isn't that what instinct is? Yet I'm not supposed to be able to do this instinctively? I don't understand.

I am not a psychologist, but my understanding is that this is a type of theory of mind issue. You're not differentiating.

I do the same thing. It's part of why I'm so naive and easy to exploit.

I think so.

That baffles me why your boyfriend would say that. If you were both attending a funeral, and he whispered a funny comment -I could see why he would want you squelch your laughing response in front of everyone else and the preacher. But even in the impossible event that your neighbors could hear you out the window when you're at home - so what if they hear you laugh? You ought to ask him why he said that.

Theory of mind means seeing things from someone else's perspective.

The Sallyanne test tests a very basic version that even apes can pass of simple logic.

It may be that its not that autistics lack TOM, they just have the wrong TOM. All humans project themselves onto others, but autistics project their own autistic mind onto others, and NT project their own NT mind onto others. And since most "others" are NT the NTs by dumb luck are usually on target and correctly suss what out other folks are thinking.

Also, it's totally different to try to understand something that is written on paper and to try to understand things that are happening in real life. Emotional engagement is different.



I don't know about this. I feel like in my interactions with other autistic people (who I know at school, so these are IRL interactions) we all clearly are in our own worlds. I'm talking about people ranging in age from college age to people in their late 20s to people in their late 30s, like me. I think there is for sure something to the inability to predict how other people will respond to something or what will be interesting to another person. We can bore the s**t out of each other.