The more disabled they are, the less able they will be able to adapt to or interact with systems that are not 100% predictable. The extent to which they are “hyper-systemizers” will vary with level of functioning. They will be good, on the other hand, at evaluating non-human systems, such as machines, scientific phenomena, or a collection of objects, down to the lowest level of detail. Because of this, their deficits will be in the realm of intuiting other humans’ mental states and feelings, and predicting or manipulating their behavior. A person with an ASD has trouble reading not just thoughts, but feelings.Īlthough people with ASDs lack a strong empathic sense, they are viewed in this framework as incredible systemizers. This builds on the mindblindness concept by including a more specific emotional aspect. People with autism spectrum disorders, in contrast, are viewed as lacking to an astounding degree the ability to empathize –to read via expression, body language, actions, and words emotions, intentions, and perceptions. Empathizing allows you to predict a person’s behavior, and to care about how others feel.” 2 Systemizing, on the other hand, is “the drive to analyze the variables in a system, to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of a system… Systemizing allows you to predict the behavior of a system –rather than human beings- and to control it.” 3Ī very balanced person would possess these abilities in equal measure, with the average man leaning more heavily on the side of systemizing, and the average woman leaning more heavily on the side of empathizing. “Empathizing,” he wrote, “is the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion. He described two brain “types”: an empathizing, female brain (which, on average, more women would have) and a systemizing, male brain (which, on average, more men would have). In 2002, Simon Baron-Cohen expanded on his mindblindness theory by weaving in another concept: empathy. In addition, he is Director of the nearby Autism Research Centre. *Simon Baron-Cohen is a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Trinity College, also in Cambridge. To lack this ability, to be blind to others’ intentions or beliefs, is to be at a terrible disadvantage. Is the person approaching with that bat going to ask me to play ball or smash my skull in with it? Instant judgments must be made, and action taken. The ability to discern whether another human is friend or foe is necessary to survival. This is essential for beings who are not only social creatures, but who have the potential to be each other’s predators. They are not psychic they are simply wired from birth to quickly acquire the ability to make a good guess at what others are thinking or planning. Typical humans “mind read” easily and naturally. They become “blind” to others’ mental states. Already hampered by the inability to achieve joint attention with others, they become unable to build on that fundamental step to intuit what others are thinking, perceiving, intending, or believing. In his 1995 book, "Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind," 1 Simon Baron-Cohen* explored what has become one of the central theoretical concepts of autism: theory of mind.īaron-Cohen proposed that children with autism suffer from mindblindness.
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