Can you mind-read?

"We can all mind-read effortlessly and automatically because the clues we need to make sense of someone or some social situation are right there on the faces of those in front of us." (213)

This is how we thin-slice other people, we mind-read.

When we express emotions on our faces it is an automatic action and they can be voluntary or involuntary. We as people always judge what a person is thinking or how they are feeling. In the blink of an eye these impressions simply come to us, because a face can be a rich map and source of emotion.

I have never connected autism with mind-reading but Gladwell has linked the two with such strength and understanding that I now view autism and mind-reading on a whole new level.

"Their first-impression apparatus is fundamentally disabled, and the way that people with autism see the world gives us a very good sense of what happens when our mind-reading faculties fail." (214)

People with this condition focus on what people say and their words, not a person's facial expressions and "nonverbal cues." Gladwell makes this point very clear when he says that when speaking with someone who is autistic you could pick your nose or pull down your pants and they would not notice.

Those with autism are mind-blind. When you lack this ability you cannot look at someones face and automatically mind-read. Faces are simply objects, and the emotion in them is lost.

An experiment which I read about that was fascinating consisted of watching a movie through the eyes of an autistic person and contrasting this to people without autism. Each group wore hats that tracked their eye movements. One example of where the eye movements were distinctly different was in a scene in the movie where a man says "Who did that painting" and then points to the wall. Someone with autism does not look to where the speaker is pointing or follow this path with their eyes because they are not able to interpret this action; they cannot mind-read. When hearing this line they will look for a wall and search for a painting. Say there are several paintings, they wouldn't know the specific piece.

People with autism are unable to mind-read, something that comes to most people as an automatic response done outside of their awareness.

Blink!