Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind

This text presents a model of the evolution and development of "mindreading." It argues that we mindread all the time, automatically and, for the most part, unconsciously. It is the natural way in which we interpret, predict and participate in social behaviour and communication. People ascribe mental states to other people, states such as thoughts, desires, knowledge and intentions. Building on many years of research, the author concludes that children with autism suffer from "mindblindness" as a result of a selective impairment in mindreading. For these children the world is essentially devoid of mental things. Baron-Cohen develops a theory that draws on data from comparative, developmental and neuropsychology. He argues that specific neurocognitive mechanisms have evolved that allow us to mindread, to make sense of actions, to interpret gazes as meaningful and to decode "the language of the eyes."