A new approach to "mind-reading" has been developed by researchers at Cardiff University and the Universities of Bath and London to assess how well we understand what others are thinking.
Mind-reading, sometimes referred to in psychology as "mentalising" or "theory of mind", is an important ability for social interaction we use on a daily basis. For example, it helps us to pick up on subtle behavioural cues that might indicate someone is thinking something they are not saying.
We all have different mind-reading abilities, with some of us inherently better at it than others. Some people may experience mind-reading difficulties, such as autistic people, and this can lead to challenges in building and maintaining social relationships.
The researchers designed a new, easy-to-use mind-reading test, and tested it in more than 4,000 autistic and non-autistic people in the UK and US.
They found that women are much better than men at reading minds and they also found that autistic people experience more mind-reading difficulties than non-autistic people.
Their new tool is published today, along with the research findings, in the journal Psychological Assessment.
Senior author Dr Lucy Livingston, from Cardiff University's School of Psychology, said: "The ability to understand other people's minds is really important for successful social interaction among humans. However, so far we know very little about why some people are particularly good at – or struggle with – mind-reading."
