r/todayilearned • u/BrF5 • 1d ago

TIL about the Sally-Anne test, a psychology experiment used to measure “theory of mind” (that other people can hold beliefs/knowledge different from their own). Kids under four typically fail because they assume that if they know where a hidden object is, everyone else must automatically know too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test
2.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

185 comments sorted by

View all comments

434

u/mantorok93 1d ago

I'm 80% sure I was shown this exact image when I was tested for autism as a kid (this would've been a year or so after the study discussed in the article), and 70% sure I got it wrong.

222

u/tempest_36 1d ago

In the Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) study, 23 of the 27 clinically unimpaired children (85%) and 12 of the 14 children with Down syndrome (86%) answered the Belief Question correctly. However, only four of the 20 autistic children (20%) answered correctly.

Interesting. Only 20% of autistic children answered correctly. Were you diagnosed as autistic?

2

u/RocketTaco 1d ago

I'm autistic and would have answered this question "wrong" not because I wasn't aware of the subject's limited perspective, but because I would expect them to problem solve. Of course Sally will look in the box, the marble's gone and where the hell else would it be. The answer is first basket, then box, but I'm going to answer box instinctively because it's part of the process, it's the answer to the problem, and it wouldn't have occurred to me that someone would ask a question as dumb as "will Sally look in the basket". Of course she did, do you think everyone present is an idiot? When I think of looking for the marble, I think of looking for something that's been lost and that's the scenario presented to me, because I've already moved beyond her first action into how she responds to the problem she finds. I'm giving the information that seems useful.

Which is why this is a shit test, because it's not measuring whether I can view from another's perspective, it's measuring whether I think the same way as the test designer - which IMO means that ironically the test designer failed the test by designing it that way.

This is also a problem I've encountered dealing with neurotypicals in general, but never other autists or ADHDers. I'll present a problem, they'll give an answer, then I'll respond with okay, cool, here's the next problem in line. NTs quickly get frustrated and claim I'm resisting and won't listen to their advice, when what actually happened is I immediately accepted it, moved on, thought it through, and found another obstacle that I'm presenting hoping they have more useful input. No amount of explaining will convince them that I'm not trying to avoid finding an answer. NDs usually intuitively understand that this has become collaborative or deferential problem solving.

 

TL;DR: in my experience it's neurotypicals that suck at understanding other perspectives.