Transcript

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

Her name is Sally.

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

All right? When Sally stands over there, then we've got another doll. And this one is called Anne.

BOY 1:

Yeah.

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

Anne's over there. Now which one is Anne? Good. And which one is Sally? Good.

Now look at this. Sally's got a yellow box.

This is a test of whether the child can appreciate that someone else might have a different belief about a situation to the child's own belief.

Sally has also got a little marble.

BOY 1:

Yeah.

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

And she puts it inside her yellow box. And now she goes for a walk. Off she goes.

BOY 1:

Yeah.

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

She's gone for a walk. Anne goes over to Sally's box, takes out the marble, and puts it into her blue box.

The child knows that the marble has been moved. The child has also seen that Sally has gone out of the room or left the scene when that transition occurred. So she shouldn't know that the objects now are being moved.

So when asked the question where will Sally look, to pass this test, the child should point to where Sally thinks it is rather than to where the marble really is.

Here comes Sally back from her walk.

BOY1:

Yeah.

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

Where will Sally look for her marble?

[TAP]

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

Right. And where was the marble in the beginning?

[TAP]

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

And where is the marble really?

[TAP]

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

Very good.

What we've seen with this autistic child and indeed with the majority that we've tested is that the child actually points to where the marble really is rather than to where Sally thinks it is and in this case demonstrates no ability to distinguish between their own belief and that of someone else's.

Here she is. Where will she look for her marble?

BOY 2:

Yellow box.

SIMON BARON-COHEN:

It's very important to actually rule out that maybe other non-autistic children might also have the same difficulty. So what we've done is to do exactly the same test with a group of non-autistic, what we could call normal kids of about four years old, and find the majority have no trouble at all with this task they can easily distinguish between where they know the object to be and where Sally falsely believes it to be.

Where will she look for her marble? Right. Now where is the marble really? That's right. Where was the marble in the beginning? Very good.