Mindblind

Natural History, Sept, 1997 by Simon Baron-Cohen

Imagine a movie that begins with the following scene: a woman enters a bedroom, walks around in it, and then leaves. Most people could not witness such a scene without thinking about the woman's behavior. Maybe she was looking for something she thought was in the bedroom. Or maybe she heard something in the bedroom and wanted to find out what made the noise. Or maybe, we might even imagine, she had intended to go into the kitchen and forgot where she was going.

All these explanations are based on our inferences about the woman's mental state. What we are attempting to do, in essence, is read her mind. Most of us engage in such mind reading all the time. Without it, we would be "mindblind," unaware of other people's mental existence, of the existence of thoughts, emotions, intentions, knowledge, memories. We would be unable to make sense of the actions of others, a terrible dilemma for a member of a social species such as ours.

Tragically, mindblindness is not the product of an idle thought experiment or a piece of science fiction. For children and adults with autism -- a severe neurological disorder that often interferes with, among other things, the ability to develop normal human relationships -- mindblindness is all too real. Scientists study conditions like autism for several reasons. The most obvious is to discover their causes and, if possible, effective treatments. But these disorders of the brain, like some of the neurological problems that follow strokes or traumatic head injury, can also help explain how the healthy mind works.

Autism starts early in childhood. Sufferers find it difficult to communicate or connect socially with others (hence the name "autism," which comes from the Greek word for "self"). Their imagination appears impoverished; their play, for example, lacks the element of make-believe. They tend to be very upset by changes in their environment and seek to maintain strict order in all aspects of their lives, often by withdrawing into a world of repetition and sameness -- performing rituals and routines and occupying themselves with lists, timetables. or calendars.

Most children with autism show little interest in people. They do form attachments to familiar adults and will approach a parent, for example, when they need something, but otherwise they mostly appear to be satisfied with a nonhuman world of objects, machines, and routines. Whereas most children take pleasure in an exchange of humor, a shared game, or a conversation, children with autism are indifferent to such social interactions. Lacking a concept of the other person as an interested listener with a mind of his or her own, they often talk too loudly, too softly, or with little inflection. They may tell you things you already know (such as your name and address) or things you have shown no interest in knowing (such as exactly how many song tracks are on an album).

A quick look at certain milestones in the early development of "normal" children provides insight into why children with autism are so isolated. In their first year, most infants monitor where someone else is looking and turn to gaze in the same direction. By the time they are fourteen months old, these infants are pointing out interesting things in their environment and turning to look at what someone else is pointing at. Toddlers also bring things to their parents or other caregivers, simply to show them. All these actions bring child and adult together in what University of Sussex psychologist George Butterworth calls "a meeting of minds."

Also by fourteen months of age, most children show interest in another person's attitude or intentions toward them. They watch facial expressions carefully to assess whether the other person is being serious or playful, threatening or affectionately teasing. Pretend play, alone and with others, begins at about the same time. A child may pretend that a coat is a blanket and put it over a doll. Or the child may put a spoonful of imaginary food to his mother's lips, laughing with delight when she says, "Mmm, good!" Pretend play is particularly fascinating because it requires a child to recognize two realities: that of the physical world and that construed in the mind.

In children with autism, all these early milestones of development are missing or greatly delayed for months, sometimes years, depending on the severity of the disorder (and of the other conditions often associated with autism, such as epilepsy, mental retardation, and a variety of brain pathologies). And as children grow older, further signs of mindblindness typically show up. When they start to speak, children with autism tend to talk about only one level of existence: the physical. Unlike most three-year-old children -- who say things like "Mommy thinks I'm sleeping, but I'm just pretending" -- they use few, if any, words that refer to the contents of their own or other people's minds.

By four years of age, normal children are becoming even more sophisticated: they begin to deceive. This might be in play (as in a game of hide-and-seek) or an attempt to get away with something (a little girl saving she has no idea what happened to the last cookie, for instance, while the crumbs on her face tell the true tale). While we may frown on the actions of the cookie thief, they are further evidence of the very human interest in reading, and manipulating, minds. Children with autism have real difficulty understanding deception, and they rarely, if ever, lie.