Constants, Variables, Cognition, and Perception

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Some thoughts on theory of mind that I thought would be interesting to share with people interested in cognition and perception differences...

I've read about how theory of mind tends to be clinically delayed in autistic-spectrum people, and in the low-functioning cases, may never develop at all...and I heard that NTs and Aspies often can't understand each other's theories of mind. But, being NT myself, I've observed that theory of mind miscalculations happen a lot even between two NT's. Hell, books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus are all about the kinds of difficulties we natives of the Solar System can have with understanding each other.

Theory of mind, in all its forms, can be thought of as variations on the famous "putting yourself in another's shoes." So you can split the essential components of theory of mind into two domains: the constants, or "yourself," and the variables, or " the other's shoes." Theory of mind miscalculations occur when you hold things constant that should be variables in that case - i.e., you assume that people are like you in ways they are not. It seems that all people, whatever their neurology, are prone to this error. You assume that what X means when they say Y is what you would mean when you say Y, but X was coming from somewhere else entirely.

All people can have differences in cognition and perception, even if they fall in the same neurological category, and cognitive and perceptual parameters tend to be held constant by default, taken for granted even. But differences in key areas can be critical for communication. I communicate much better with my Aspie friend than with my touchy-feely mother. I have cognitive and perceptual similarities to and differences from both of them, and wouldn't be surprised if I were equally different from both...but it seems that the specific differences between my mother and me seem to hit right where it hurts communication, by the luck of the draw.

I think a lot of the trouble that Aspies might have understanding normal people, and vice versa, might be a more extreme version of the trouble normal people have understanding normal people. When there are many fundamental differences in cognition and perception between two people, the likes of which the "other person" can hardly even imagine and might have never thought existed, coming to a common understanding will probably be very tricky, as neither person will be able to properly adjust the constant and variable settings in his or her theory of mind. An interesting difference between my Aspie friend and myself is that my Aspie friend reports feelings and actions being kind of "on or off" with him, a binary mind, can't do or perceive half-throttle, while intermediate states of emotion and activity come naturally to me. I had never heard of this trait specifically in what I'd read about autistic-spectrum people, so I imagine that it could really throw off a lot of people. Very exotic stuff. And I can imagine there would be a lot of cases where one person simply cannot provide what the other person wants because of such critical cognitive-perceptual differences or other things not destined to change anytime soon. Those may be the people, of all neurologies, who just plain don't get along.[/u]