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Friths interest in theory of mind in autism began with a test to identify the age at which children can reason about other peoples mindsets. She and her colleagues adapted the test using a story about two dolls, Sally and Anne: Sally puts a marble into a basket and then leaves. Anne takes the marble out of the basket and places it inside a box. When Sally returns, the clinician asks the child where Sally will look for the marble.

By age 4, most non-autistic children and those with Down syndrome can answer correctly that Sally will look in the basket, Frith and her colleagues found. The children understand that Sally holds a false belief: She does not know that Anne has moved her marble. By contrast, most of the autistic children they assessed, including those older than 4, could not answer correctly, suggesting the difficulty was somehow specific to autism.

Suddenly, these kind of puzzling things about autism slotted in and made sense. Francesca Happ

It was really a captivating idea, says Noah Sasson, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas, who studies social interactions in autism.

The proposed theory seemed to explain social difficulties in autism, as well as why autistic people tend not to lie or keep secrets, says Francesca Happ, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Kings College London. Before that, we really just had this notion that autistic people werent very interested in social stuff. It was really that amorphous. Suddenly, these kind of puzzling things about autism slotted in and made sense.

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Theory of mind in autism: A research field reborn