Mindblindness

Journal 4: Summary 2

This book is a very helpful and relevant source. Baron-Cohen presents his theory about Thory of Mind which he calls ‘mindreading’ and delves into the evolution of its components. He describe how the average person, if almost completely unbeknownst to themselves, mindread every day and that that is how we interact with and learn from the world around us. Our interpretation of actions is what allows us to predict and understand situations. He goes further to explain that autistic individuals are what he terms ‘mind blind’. They are unable to interpret the actions of other people. Baron-Cohen describes the world of an autistic individual as being “devoid of mental things.” He discusses how important eye contact and the’ language of the eyes’ are to social interaction. He describes how so many thing can be said in glare such as ’the evil eye’ or what a look of surprise can mean in certain situations. Autistic individual cannot decipher between different eye expressions and Baron-Cohen describes that this too is a result of their ’mindblindness’.

Citation:

Baron-Cohen, Simon. Mindblindness. London; MTI press, 1995.