Higher order Theory of Mind (test yourself)

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Yeah, something like that. It was much worse when I was younger, I think, but I notice some of it now too. I think I can piece together the meaning, usually, and get an overall picture, I just have to struggle more to do it. This is why I get so much more out of a film when I watch it over and over again. By the way, I think this is harder in film or "story form". I think watching a documentary with technical information is somehow easier to understand and put together. Not sure why.....it´s like in story form, I can see the details, but by the time they come together to form the pattern, or story, or plot, I´ve already forgotten some of the most important details.....they´re like a separate entity that doesn´t fit with the whole. I even notice things like this happening with simple 1/2 hour sitcoms, like 2 and 1/2 Men.

But on the other hand, I´ll have such an attention to detail, I´ll get upset when something isn´t consistent from one episode to the next....like if Judith´s lawyer suddenly turns into a different lawyer (i.e., a different actor) from the actor they used in Season 1. And then I have to find a way to rationalize it to myself, to make sense.....by making up my own story outside the story.....whereas, most people seem to deal with these little changes in detail better, to make a story.

Anything illogical in a film, for instance, ruins it for me. I guess I said that already......

I seem to be the opposite, at least with changed actors. After watching the whole series of "Murder Rooms: the Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes" twice, I still didn't notice they'd changed the actor who played Conan Doyle........presumably because of face-blindness. I only found out when I read about it on the Web. Though if I had noticed at the time of watching, I expect it would have distracted me.

They're all doable. The same way that you can read a 500 page book written by someone who didn't believe in paragraphs, periods, basic grammar or good narrative structure. Doesn't mean either experience won't give you a splitting headache and stabby feelings towards the author. Make it a bit more adult in structure and less like something you'd find at the worst fan fiction board and I suspect you'd see more people with AS getting it. Not all, but more. The most difficult part of the story for me wasn't deciphering who felt what towards whom or knew what, but just keeping track of what the story was in that awful mess.

Yes I think that's often what happens. Though maybe it's more a difference between the confident and the not-so-confident, which probably correlates quite well with AS, in social situations.

I do find that construction intuitive. Yes, it's probably because I use an automatic process to understand that kind of sentence. I also had no problem with the texts and the questions at all. Except for the very first one where it tested my memory on whether a shopping bag was pink or some other colour, gosh who cares -.- Afterwards, I paid more attention to all the details in the texts.

Not yet sure if I have aspergers or not, I just googled for ToM tests, to see if I have anything to do with aspergers... and this test was very easy to do. But then I was always good with reading etc.

I don't know which tests exactly were ToM-tests in my assessment, but I failed the Sally-Anne test being tested as an adult and as far as I know this is a ToM-test.
I am visually thinking and I was concentrated on the object and failed to put myself into the subject.

I have no clue how these are ToM tests. All you do is treat it like a micro logic-puzzle...

Seriously? People say "gotten" and don't think "blimey, that sounds funny"?

This was my problem, too. I just didn't care enough about the particular events or objects, so found myself zoning out pretty quick.

In case nobody mentioned it the test begins on page 240.

On the spelling test one on whether the teacher knew Kristy wanted to do well on the test I thought it was "no" because she only asked James, and thought that "yes" answers were used to indicate poor theory of mind since it would indicate you thought the teacher knew it just because Kristy did in fact want to do well. But then I looked back and noticed it says she told the teacher how hard she had been studying.

Does this indicate a failure of theory of mind or working memory? I can't imagine that the results would have been any different if you replaced the situation and the facts in the situation with non-social ones.

The questions are worded in a ridiculous manner.

Even the higher order ToM ones. They assume entirely too much information, pulling it strait out of the Æther.

If you break down any of these stories they are riddled with flaws. Bobby's mother cannot possibly know that chocolate is Bobby's favorite thing in the world, she can only be reasonably sure of anything regarding Bobby's subjective world view... And the whole presumption that chocolate is Bobby's "favorite thing in the whole world" is silly. Take away his chocolate bars, and his air supply... then offer him to pick which of the two he would like back. It probably won't be the chocolate.

Besides, who even cares about this chick? She doesn't want her own son to enjoy what she believes is his favorite thing in the whole world, so she secretly steals it from him? Screw her.

And the second question... whether Bobby thinks his chocolate is in his cupboard or in his mom's bag... how are we supposed to know? I mean, yeah, there is a really good chance he thinks it is still in his cupboard where he left it... but with a mom like he's got... he might know that B gets grabby with his snacks and expects her to snag his s**t. He might bee keen on her favorite hiding spots too. Don't know, story doesn't say what he thinks. s**t, he could have been at his friends house and saw on the five o clock news that his house got hit by a meteor, then he'd probably be thinking his chocolate is gone and lost forever! Story doesn't say, so we can only make base assumptions with moderate risk of being incorrect.

Sorry but you are unnecessarily trying to apply logic where it isn't needed to process things. Some things are just the way they are, they cannot be logically analysed because if you try, you'll end up being overly theoretical, too removed from reality without good reason. Who cares about such hypothetical scenarios as taking away chocolate bars and air supply? Really irrealistic thought experiment. And sure, Bobby could've lied to her mother about what his favourite thing is but why assume this unnecessarily now?

Some more flaws in your reasoning. Firstly, the concept of "favourite thing" doesn't have to include things that are in the category of basic human needs. We can easily define "favourite thing" as the most preferred thing among non-essential things the person has access to/is familiar with. You seemed to define "favourite thing" by the irrealistic arbitrary idea of it being something you need the most to survive. Nope, a "favourite thing" is something more irrational than that, it's just something a person likes, call it a special fixed kind of whim if you want. See dictionary definition: "a person or thing regarded with especial preference or liking". On another note, when air is taken away, the situation is substantially changed so even if we use your arbitrary subjective definition of "favourite", the analysis of the new situation doesn't apply to the old one. Again, just an irrealistic thought experiment. Why not just accept the dictionary definition and use that?




Pfft. She had good intentions, she wanted him to be able to eat dinner ("tea"). But yeah a mother can be annoying like that LOL.




Easy now, you simply do not assume anything that was not explicitly mentioned in the text. Why should you? Less risk of being incorrect that way in general anyway. The fewer assumptions one uses for a reasoning process, the more likely the result will be acceptable. You do not seem to have a grasp on realistic evaluation of probabilities either; praytell how likely it is that the house gets hit by a meteor? You do need to know though that the context is that these stories are rather basic templates based on real life stuff, do not expect anything crazy like that because that sort of stuff just doesn't happen.

Oh and more on the meteor, if the house does get hit by one, the friend's house (which is obviously close enough so the little boy can get back home for dinner) will also be affected and thus boy isn't going to watch the news on tv there.

So, to answer your question as to how we are supposed to know; Really very easy, you only have two choices to pick from in the test, so don't pick the one that's rather obviously unlikely based on what the story explicitly tells you.

I do agree though that the stories were written in a rather boring and basic way. It was meant for kids though, don't forget that.

I stumbled on story #4 because I forgot to distinguish between football players. I often get confused by multi-character stories. I didn't mind the wording at all.
I recently ran across some ToM stuff, and it explains a lot about my life. The Sally-Ann test is simple logic, so I had assumed that everyone did it consciously. My counsellor confirms that for her, it is subconscious and automatic, and that my way would be exhausting.
As a toddler, I was getting into a lot of unexpected trouble until I heard the Golden Rule. That gave me a way to avoid most conflict, and I assumed that other people were also navigating by it, with allowances for missing data and poor processing at times. That let me focus on technical problems for almost four decades until someone yelled at me for trying to help them. Every decade since, I've had a similar shock, which has left me spending almost all my time trying to guess at the millions of ways others might think outside of logical paths.

I didn't have any problems, they all seemed to be about equally obvious.

Yeah, its a humorous read. A "football manager"? WTF? That must be a "coach" (and its prolly "soccer", and not American "football" that theyre talking about). And "a tea" is called "dinner" in the USA. And I didn't even think about the fact that mum and spelt are both plants in the US. Lol! And the Brits do do that funny thing with grammar. They will say "the government ARE doing XYZ", or "he made the goal, and the crowd ARE going wild!". The government and the crowd are aggregates of large numbers of people. But they are still one entity. So you have to talk about them in the singular. The government IS doing such and such, and the crowd IS going wild.

But back to the main subject. The ToM stuffed seemed pretty easy to follow. I was expecting one of those modern online tests in which you click the answer, and it grades you. So maybe I didn't really pass, but it seemed like I was easily passing to me.