by James Coulter
Imagine two girls playing with dolls. One girl is named Sally; the other, Anne. Sally puts her doll in a toy chest before leaving the room. Anne removes the doll from the chest and hides it in the closet.
When Sally comes back, where does she go to look for her doll? The toy chest? Or the closet?
Most people would say the toy chest because that’s where she left it. However, very young children (and many children with autism) might say the closet. Why? Because that’s where the doll is.
Yet the doll is only in the closet because Anne moved it there. And Sally was outside the room when the doll was moved. So, she wouldn’t know it was in the closet. She would assume it was in the last place she left it: the toy chest.
This thought exercise is known as the Sally-Anne Test, and psychologists often use it to assess a patient’s Theory of Mind, a concept many people with Autism often struggle with.
What is Theory of Mind?
Theory of Mind, as defined in a 2024 Springer Nature article, is “the ability…to attribute different mental states to themselves as well as to others.” In simpler terms, it’s recognizing that other people can hold beliefs, values, or information different from your own.
At first glance, this seems obvious. We all know people come from different backgrounds, have different perspectives, and hold different beliefs and opinions. But in practice, it’s surprisingly easy to assume others think the same way we do. We often default to believing others believe what we believe, until a misunderstanding reminds us they don’t.
Neurotypical people usually navigate this gap with ease. Through Theory of Mind, they can take others’ perspectives into account, adjust for differences in knowledge, and predict behavior based on beliefs rather than facts.
For people with Autism, however, Theory of Mind can be harder to grasp—not because they lack it (contrary to popular misconception) but because they have different thought processes.
Why Autistic People Struggle
Why do autistic people often struggle with Theory of Mind? Several autistic traits complicate matters.
One major factor is how autistic people process information. While many neurotypical people easily rely on intuition, autistic people tend to require more on obvious hints and clues. Instead of leaping to a conclusion, people with autism focus on details and assemble meaning piece by piece, needing to put together the puzzle before seeing the full picture.
As Embrace Autism explains, this means autistic people “build a big picture or make a decision based on compiling all the pieces of evidence or data,” and until those pieces are in place, “[they] are unable to see what the big picture is.”
When it comes to social situations as simple as everyday conversation, this bottom‑up approach can make Theory of Mind less automatic. Understanding another person’s perspective requires gathering and interpreting many subtle cues (tone, context, intention, prior knowledge) and people with autism often need more explicit information before the full picture becomes clear.
Another factor that complicates Theory of Mind for autistic people is their tendency toward literal interpretation. Many autistic individuals process language at face value, understanding speech and social situations in a direct, surface‑level way even to the point of interpreting idioms or figures of speech literally.
While neurotypical people often rely on intuition to “read between the lines” or “read the room,” autistic people may struggle to infer implied meaning, pretense, or subtext. They typically need explicit information to understand what someone intends rather than relying on unspoken cues.
As a result, autistic people may assume others mean exactly what they say and that everyone shares the same definitions, context, or understanding of the world. When those assumptions don’t hold, it can make differences in perspective or opinion confusing and difficult to navigate.
Automatic vs. Manual Transmission
When it comes to Theory of Mind, the difference between how neurotypical and autistic people use it is a bit like the difference between driving a car with automatic transmission versus manual.
For neurotypical people, Theory of Mind works like an automatic car. The mental “gears” shift on their own. Perspective‑taking happens intuitively, without conscious effort, allowing them to focus on the flow of the interaction rather than the mechanics behind it.
For autistic people, Theory of Mind functions more like driving a manual. You need to shift the gears yourself. That requires paying close attention to timing, cues, and context, processing each step deliberately rather than automatically. The route is the same, but getting there simply requires more conscious engagement.
And just as with cars, the difference between automatic and manual isn’t about one being “better” or “correct.” A manual transmission isn’t “broken”, and driving one isn’t “wrong”—it’s simply a different method that demands a different approach.
The same is true of Theory of Mind. Autistic people aren’t “broken” or “wrong.” They think differently from neurotypical people. And Theory of Mind itself reminds us that understanding others begins with recognizing that their way of thinking may not be the same as ours.
