Psychology Atlas

How The Mind Works
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Psychological Phenomena

Mind-Blindness

Developmental Phenomena

Mind-blindness is a theory, proposed by Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues around 1990, describing a difficulty or delay in developing a theory of mind, the ability to attribute beliefs, desires, intentions, and other mental states to oneself and to other people in order to explain and predict behavior. The theory holds that this difficulty is a core feature of autism, since a reduced ability to represent others' mental states could account for the social and communication difficulties often observed. The concept remains actively debated within autism research, with critics pointing to inconsistent experimental evidence and to autistic individuals who perform well on some theory-of-mind tasks while still experiencing social difficulties.

Facts
Partially Attested
First Described Year
1990 2
Mind-blindness is a widely disputed theory initially proposed in 1990 that claims autistic people have a lack or developmental delay of theory of mind. (w-bbfill-psychology6-0926)
Classification
Type of Phenomenon
Cognitive Phenomenon 1
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Mind-blindness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-blindness
Quote, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-blindness
claims that all autistic people have a lack or developmental delay of theory of mind
2. Wikipedia: Mind-blindness
Wikipedia article text
Quote, Wikipedia article text
Mind-blindness is a widely disputed theory initially proposed in 1990 that claims autistic people have a lack or developmental delay of theory of mind.
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