Theory of Mind - Conscious or Subconsious?

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Since the Sally-Ann test for Theory of mind is a simple, logical puzzle, I always assumed that everybody worked things out that way. Now, my counsellor confirms that for her, no thinking is required to see that other minds are different than hers, with some awareness of the differences showing up along with name recall. This is a major revelation to me. It may explain why eye contact is uncomfortable - it takes away the illusion that I'm dealing with a basically similar mind. It certainly explains why I'm so hesitant to deal with people - working out their motivations is like doing basic research and sometimes waiting months for a fresh hypothesis to arise. It once took me three months just to figure out that non-depressed people do things because they expect practical results or fun.

The notion that ToM is an automatic process for NTs is the biggest news I've had on AS for years. If I can't generate a discussion, I'll quit posting here on everybody else's interests again.

Tom can be either instinctive and automatic, or it can be consciously thought out.

But its usually unconscious, and automatic.

Folks operate under the assumption that others are doing X because of Y because they themselves would do Y in that situation as an automatic assumption. But it can be a thought out process. Folks read murder mysteries for the pleasure of consciously figuring out the motivations of characters like a puzzle.

Folks get into trouble when they wrongly project their own motivations onto others. Not just NT vs ASD. Men vs women is an issue within NTs. The two genders think/emote differently in certain situations and both get in trouble assuming that the other sex thinks the way that they do. So ToM can run aground for NTs with other NTs.

It's true, once the NT child reaches the developmental milestone of realizing there are other minds, it becomes a natural and habitual way of thinking. No conscious calculation is necessary for them to do so. I have been very interested in the stories I've read on Wrongplanet from people on the spectrum who developed Theory of Mind as late as high school, and how creepy it was for them.

I had to look up the idea of ToM but I am interested in this discussion. I remember in high school trying to explain a maths problem to a friend and it seemed really obvious to me, I kept telling her that it was simple and if she thought about it she would get it, but she got really upset and that confused me. Is this ToM- that I did not realise that her brain might not work the same way in figuring out the problem?
I automatically assume that the way I do things is the best way to do it, and get annoyed when other people do it differently. Like, "Why do you do it that way, when it's obvious that this way is more efficient?" Sometimes I consciously think about why another person might do things in a certain way if I am confused by it, but it's not something that happens subconsciously for me.

Thanks - I had also tried resurrecting an old thread here which does include tests and links, but forgot to include any myself. It took me a long time to realize how different people are, and not every lesson got through. I mostly saw isolated curiosities, not a pattern. In high school, I was paired with a guy who didn't understand contour lines. For a class project, we cut up a topographic map and stacked cardboard to make an accurate model of our local hill, and he still didn't get it.

Walter Chrysler once ran a full page ad with just a picture of his own toolbox. He was famous for thinking that there was only one right way to do any job, as if everyone had, or should have, just his own mix of eyesight, thinking, and coordination.

On another list, we finally had to ban one guy who had a unique way to balance a bicycle. It gave him tremendous insight, but he was just too rude about being oblivious to the usual way.

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.
Usually it is enough to smile and be polite, but sometimes people do very stupid, alarming things and I don't know what stops them either.