ToM

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How would I know if I lack Theory of Mind?

I believe it’s a lack of being able to figure out what other people are thinking.

People can't usually seem to work out what I'm thinking.

How am I supposed to figure out exactly what they're thinking?

Become psychic?


If I have no theory of mind, then how come I feel sorry for people or offer them practical support?

How come I care about people?

Or buy them gifts?

It doesn't make sense.

the word 'theory' is the very wrong one here;
it is meant to indicate precisely NOT having to figure it out, but to...
well maybe not instantaneously 'knowing' what they feel/mean
(in fact, even an anount of co-feeling is involved) -
but at least to become 'automatically' 'aware' of someone's intention

as is, the entire ToM Theory is under scientific fire from charging mirror neurons: the way i phrased it would be the way that mirror neurons produce empathy (which is felt),

so where the ToM Theory may be caving as a scientific concept,
there is evidence for a biological mechanism that would produce the effect of what ToM would claim to describe

Theory of mind was originally defined as having a theory about what's going on in the mind of another entity. The theory does not have to be correct. It just has to be a theory.

The original paper looked at whether a chimp named Sarah would figure out that a person was trying to reach bananas when he was standing under them with his arms up, jumping up and down unsuccessfully. And yes, she figured it out, and picked out the photo of the man putting a box in position to stand on in response. For decades, behaviourists had been saying that thought was the result of stimulus-response, and these guys were countering that animals think about what's going, instead of just mindlessly salivating on cue, and that only a highly educated behaviourist would describe a man standing with his arms up under a bunch of bananas. Most people (and chimps) would automatically think: Oh, he's trying to get the bananas.

The mind you have a theory about does not need to be a true mind, either. Saying "My computer hates me! Especially when I have PMS!" is a perfectly good example of theory of mind. (Note: This is something I heard someone else say. I do not get PMS. My computer loves me. )

Theory of mind is probably present in any animal that needs to figure out what other animals/entities will do. It's used to predict what will happen next, and includes animism - attributing intentions to inanimate forces like the weather. All that matters is that it makes the world more predictable in some way, which increases survival value of the organism.

I read too much.

PS. The false beliefs test that autistic people supposedly fail was originally designed to do advanced testing on chimps, since they can't talk. With humans, you can tell whether they have theory of mind or not by what they say (children spontaneously attribute intentions to others in their speech at a very early age), so you shouldn't need fancy tests, unless they're mute.

You have an amount of theory of mind. Most people with AS have varying degrees.
You can figure some things out. The more obvious, the easier it is. What's more difficult is detecting nuances. I used to be sorta pollyanna like and I didn't pick up on NV clues that others were tired of me being with them all the time or they wanted me to go home at three in the morning, just weren't being obvious. One of my friends yawned a lot and later she expressed her irritation that I wasn't picking up on subtle meaning of the excessive yawning.
She also accused me once of not leaving people a graceful way out when I asked questions concerning how they felt about me. I can't remember the exact details because I have since learned to be much more easy going, quieter, and not be so concerned with answers to questions about me. I used to question people about whether they liked me a lot and worried out loud about it in front of them. It was an obsession of sorts for a while, this worry about what others thought about me. Happy to say I no longer have this need to know what others think about me.
Not having a fully developed ToM made me more clingy and more obsessive about what other's opinions and feelings about me were. If they liked me or not, what they thought of how I looked, did they think I was stupid? What, if anything, did they say they thought was wrong with me? I was full of questions about myself and, yes, it got on this friend's nerves. I am sure in some ways I irritated her as much as she irritated me.

I had a fully developed theory of mind very early on, so I'm odd in that respect; some of my early memories include thinking about what other people might know or not know. The theory of mind I do have is also a bit odd, though; the basic theory that I attribute to everyone is only that they are thinking things that are different from what I am thinking. The specific thoughts are hard to puzzle out, and I usually resort to interpreting what they say and what they do to figure them out. The attributions aren't nearly as automatic as they seem to be for most.

I think any lack of theory of mind it those with Autism or Asperger's would be a matter of degree and/or a developmental delay that doesn't generally affect adults.

I found what this page says interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind#Autism

Even if you ignore that it's a test of a few people, and that it wasn't a comprehensive test, still, it's a test on fairly young children, and some with autism did show having theory of mind, and some without autism did not.

I understand ToM as the innate, unconscious ability to learn at a very early age (about 3-4 y/o) what people in general are like - what's important to them, what they fear, what angers them, etc. It's the ability to figure to yourself, with more or less accuracy, how another will probably react to something, based on your unconscious knowing of how most people would react in the same circumstances.

I was born with zero ToM, I learned nothing during my childhood, and I've been frantically trying to learn intellectually enough ToM to get by in society. And even though nowadays I have an enormeous amount of insight into people's minds in general, this is not ToM. This is experience and intellectual knowledge. The difference with ToM is that it's slow and energy-consuming. It requires lots of thinking to learn even the simplest trait of humans in general, and there are no automatic reactions during interaction.

Eg: It took me decades to discover that when people say "I'm busy" they actually mean they don't want to spend time with me.

In my personal experience, I have zero ToM, ie I've no idea of what people are like, because I'm so very different from them - everyone.

My computer IS out to get me.



And I'm an unconscious animist. Automatically attribute intention and identity and personality to everything. And my "conscience" is a panther that rips and rends when I'm off base. It's a good thing though, even if a little harsh and unforgiving. This makes perfect sense to me--don't even question it. Is this ToM?

That is because you don't have that layer of physical personality functions that I refer to as "affective functions". The "affective functions", in my theory of cognitive behavior, are those functions that help you project a personality and emotions ("affect").

The NTs don't really listen to each other or see reality. They just read each others' affective functions. When they bond, they just coordinate the messages and signals each person sends to the other. Friends get their affective functions in synchrony.

That's how come they get so taken in by sociopaths, con artists and professionals who lie to them. They are more focused on reading each others' affect that the objective reality information is really secondary input. If what you are telling someone doesn't fit their feeling about a person, even though their feeling is totally irrational and you have a lot of evidence to back up what you are saying, they still won't believe you.

NTs can't figure us out and think we are ret*d, because they get disoriented when someone lacks affective functions. They get so used to reading affect that they rely very little on factual reality of objective observations in which to interpret each other. We lack insight into NT minds for a lot of reasons, but partly because we don't read affective functions, whereas that is what most of them are using to send information to each other with. We're supposed to read their faces, not their lips.

If what a lot of people -- many people -- do and say makes no sense to you, or seems irrational, or seems self-defeating and pointless, you lack a theory of mind. Most of the reason for NT behaviors comes from the head games they play with each other and themselves. If you don't get their games, they seem like irrational, corrupt and destructive people. But once you figure out a person's game, or psychology, then the things they do make sense (in their own little world).

If the behavior of other people seems clear to you, you have a Theory of Mind, and, in particular, you understand theirs.

Here's my ToM test that I fail, year after year.

What could I possibly buy others for Christmas that they would be happy to receive?

This is an amazing post. Thank you for your clarity.

ToM has been a very confusing thing since I came to believe that I am AS. I based the belief on other symptoms but my wife zeroed in on the ToM aspect and thought applied well to me. A few perceptual shifts (this is what I call a strange perceptual thing I get sometimes that is like a mild panic attack, that is, without the actual panic, but with more of a serious concern) later and I started to understand on some level what lacking ToM actually means. My "perceptual shifts" happened because of the "Oh crap, this has been going on for the last 35 years of my existence and I didn't realize it" factor.

Anyway, the lack of ToM explains alot, and now that I am over the shock, it has become a fascinating thing for me. In otherwords, trying to figure out what it really means, and what I am missing on a day to day level.

So, do I lack ToM? I think so, but the problem is, I think I have developed such a functional alternate approach to understand people that I didn't even notice. I guess I just told myself that most people are a bit foolish and boring. But your post above applies completely to me. I've even had conversations with my wife about this very thing and it is one of the things she likes about me; as I would put it "I can see past the BS."

Unfortunately, seeing the underlying motivations of people can often be a hinderance, as you point out, because most people don't respond well to it.

I had another revelation a couple days ago when I almost thought that I experienced true ToM. I was at work during a presentation, and the presenter said something very technical (which of course I understood completely) to one of the "personality People" (if you knwo what I mean) in the firm; she noded knowingly and convincingly. Just a couple seconds later I read her expression and understood that she had no idea what they were talking about. Now, becuase I read her expression and was not processing information about her actions (other than expressions) or things she said, I am guessing this was close to ToM. It actually freaked me out that I was able to do this to the extent that I almost needed to leave the situation to catch my breath (which supports my believe that I am impared in this way).

Does any of this make sense?

It's nice to know that some of my simian brothers and sisters are more advanced than I am in some ways.

I was given the "ball in the box" test at 25; I still fail it, no matter how much thought I put to it. It's sad, really.