Thoughts on the Sally-Ann Test
Misc: Erika Hammerschmidt @ Wednesday 22 February 2006 - 20:12:29
I wish I had a memory of taking the Sally-Ann test. If I could remember why I said Sally knew the marble was in Ann's basket, I might have a deeper understanding of myself and autism in general.
Maybe it really was because I had no theory of mind. But that's not the only possibility. People put too much stock in this test, because there are lots of different reasons to get it wrong.
Maybe I didn't understand the test. It's a complicated situation-- just try explaining it to anyone without pictures or dolls. And it's likely I thought the dolls were boring and wasn't watching them anyway.
Maybe I had trouble understanding that the dolls were supposed to represent real people. Children under 3 or 4 are known to have some trouble comprehending the idea of symbols (that a toy car symbolizes a car, that a doll symbolizes a person)... and autistics are more literal than most.
Maybe the doctor asked "where will Sally *look for* her marble," and the doctor and I had different interpretations of the phrase "look for." I met someone on AFF who actually gave the "wrong" answer because of that-- she reasoned that you couldn't "look for" something unless you knew it was missing, and she thought the doctor was asking where Sally would look *after* she noticed the marble wasn't in her box.
Maybe they did the test badly. Maybe instead of putting the Sally doll where she clearly couldn't see Ann putting her marble in her basket, they just set her off to the side. Maybe they used a basket with no lid, so Sally obviously would have seen that the marble was there as soon as she came into the room.
Or maybe-- most dismal possibility of all-- maybe other kids had played tricks on me and taken my stuff so many times that I had come to expect it, even at that young age. Maybe I knew from experience that the most natural assumption, when you've left your property in a room with someone else, is that it will have been stolen by the time you get back. If Sally had grown up with the kind of peers some of us have, maybe she *would* look in Ann's basket first.
That was the inspiration behind strips two, three and four of my webcomic "Abby and Norma". (Now I wish I had ideas for some new ones. Oh well. Inspiration will strike eventually, I guess. At least I'm not on a weekly schedule.)
Maybe it really was because I had no theory of mind. But that's not the only possibility. People put too much stock in this test, because there are lots of different reasons to get it wrong.
Maybe I didn't understand the test. It's a complicated situation-- just try explaining it to anyone without pictures or dolls. And it's likely I thought the dolls were boring and wasn't watching them anyway.
Maybe I had trouble understanding that the dolls were supposed to represent real people. Children under 3 or 4 are known to have some trouble comprehending the idea of symbols (that a toy car symbolizes a car, that a doll symbolizes a person)... and autistics are more literal than most.
Maybe the doctor asked "where will Sally *look for* her marble," and the doctor and I had different interpretations of the phrase "look for." I met someone on AFF who actually gave the "wrong" answer because of that-- she reasoned that you couldn't "look for" something unless you knew it was missing, and she thought the doctor was asking where Sally would look *after* she noticed the marble wasn't in her box.
Maybe they did the test badly. Maybe instead of putting the Sally doll where she clearly couldn't see Ann putting her marble in her basket, they just set her off to the side. Maybe they used a basket with no lid, so Sally obviously would have seen that the marble was there as soon as she came into the room.
Or maybe-- most dismal possibility of all-- maybe other kids had played tricks on me and taken my stuff so many times that I had come to expect it, even at that young age. Maybe I knew from experience that the most natural assumption, when you've left your property in a room with someone else, is that it will have been stolen by the time you get back. If Sally had grown up with the kind of peers some of us have, maybe she *would* look in Ann's basket first.
That was the inspiration behind strips two, three and four of my webcomic "Abby and Norma". (Now I wish I had ideas for some new ones. Oh well. Inspiration will strike eventually, I guess. At least I'm not on a weekly schedule.)
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