Contact The MIT Press Information on how to order from The MIT Press Access your saved shopping cart, e-mail list subscriptions, order history, address book, and other info in the Your Profile area MIT Press Home Page


February 1997
197 pp., 43 illus.
$26.00/£15.95 (PAPER)
Trade

ISBN-10:
0-262-52225-X
ISBN-13:
978-0-262-52225-0

Other Editions
Cloth (1995)
Series
Bradford Books
Related Links
Open this site in a new browser window.
Find this book in a library
Request Exam/Desk Copy
Table of Contents
Mindblindness
An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind
Simon Baron-Cohen

Table of Contents and Sample Chapters

foreword by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby


In Mindblindness, Simon Baron-Cohen presents a model of the evolution and development of "mindreading." He argues that we mindread all the time, effortlessly, automatically, and mostly unconsciously. It is the natural way in which we interpret, predict, and participate in social behavior and communication. We ascribe mental states to people: states such as thoughts, desires, knowledge, and intentions.

Building on many years of research, Baron-Cohen concludes that children with autism, suffer from "mindblindness" as a result of a selective impairment in mindreading. For these children, the world is essentially devoid of mental things.

Baron-Cohen develops a theory that draws on data from comparative psychology, from developmental, and from neuropsychology. He argues that specific neurocognitive mechanisms have evolved that allow us to mindread, to make sense of actions, to interpret gazes as meaningful, and to decode "the language of the eyes."

A Bradford Book. Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change series

About the Author

Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor in Developmental Psychopathology and Director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, is the author of Mindblindness (MIT Press, 1997) and The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Mind.


Endorsements

"Wow! in this lucid, compelling book Simon Baron-Cohen guides us deep into the realm of the mind....This fascinating book captures the excitment of an emerging field, and advances that field."
Henry M. Wellman, University of Michigan





See Other Titles In:
Cognition, Brain, & Behavior
 Cognition & Psychology
 General
 Philosophy of Mind
Humanities
 Psychology
Neuroscience
 General
 Neuropsychology
Philosophy
 Philosophy of Mind
 
Join an E-mail Alert List


 
 
TECHNOLOGY PARTNER: Azility, Inc. TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY | COPYRIGHT © 2009