I'm often puzzled by the evidence used to define "mind blindness" or Theory of Mind. The one most often cited is the Sally Anne experiment - that one with two dolls and a ball or marble. Sally puts the marble in her basket and goes out; while she is out, Anne moves the marble into her own box - the question is when she comes back where will Sally look for her marble? Allegedly non autistic children can tell that Sally will look in her basket, whereas autistic children expect her to look in Anne's box.
The argument is that Autistic Children lack theory of mind, or are mind blind - they cannot anticipate what other people are thinking. It implies they don't have a sense that Sally will look for it where she left it, based on her prior knowledge. She wouldn't know that Anne had moved it.
The trouble is this experiment was carried out on pre-school children. Autism is for life. And it might not prove that people on the spectrum couldn't anticipate other people's thoughts, as the other option - 50% - is they considered whether they last saw it - not the same thing as mind blindness surely? How does this kind of analogy work for people's whole life experiences?
My thinking would rather put forward the door-handle problem. People on the spectrum are more driven by a certain kind of logic, which they tend to rely upon, and don't so readily use trial and error, which is a more natural response for non-autistic people.
Most people get caught out once in a while by door handles that don't turn logically away from the latch, but people on the spectrum get caught out often, and may actually be unable to open the door and keep trying to turn the handle the "right way". Non-autistic people are more ready to experiment - if it doesn't work one way, try the other - trial and error. Now there's no Theory of Mind involved here, but it is a phenomenon that catches out people on the spectrum.
How does this response differ from Mind Blindness experiments? Well for all we know non-autistic children probably considered both options more or less simulteneously, and compared and thought through and arrived at an answer. But maybe the autistic children went for the "logical" option, which is where they last saw it placed, and being hooked on that concept, didn't readily consider the alternative.
Consequently, given the logic factor, its not that people on the spectrum have no theory of mind, just they aren't well disposed to trial and error.
Nuff said?
