Why We Read Fiction_ Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine [7]
Consider Christopher, a bright teenager with Asperger syndrome from Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a novel drawing on Haddon's previous work with autistic individuals. Although Christopher "mostly [reads] books about math and science" and is not interested in what he calls "proper novels" (4), he does like murder mysteries, appreciating, in particular, their puzzlelike structure. Following the advice of his teacher (a figure based, perhaps, on Had don), Christopher decides to write his own mystery murder narrative. Christopher's novel will tell the true story of his quest to find the person who killed the neighbor's dog because, as he puts it, "it happened to me and I find it hard to imagine things which did not happen to me" (5).
In describing the story that Christopher wants to write, Haddon attempts to capture the boy's peculiar mind-reading profile. For example, Christopher can figure out, at least partially, some states of mind behind some behavior. Thus he guesses that, when an elderly lady tells him that she has a grandson his age, she is "doing what is called chatting, where people say things to each other which aren't questions and answers and aren't connected" (40). Similarly, Christopher knows that "people do a lot of talking without using any words." As his teacher tells him, "[I]f you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean 'I want to do sex with you' and it can also mean 'I think that what you just said was very stupid'" (14-15). This nonverbal communication—which requires reconstructing (and, inevitably, often misconstructing) a mental state behind an ambiguous gesture—is one reason that Christopher finds people "confusing."5 Consequently, his murder mystery novel is mostly lacking in attribution of thoughts, feelings, and attitudes to its protagonists (we, the readers, supply those missing mental states, thus making sense of the story). Still, as a novel authored by a child with a compromised Theory of Mind (even if this child is himself a fictional character), The Curious Incident is a much-needed reminder about the complexity of the issues involved in the relationship between autism and storytelling.''
4: "Effortless"Mind-Reading
"EFFORTLESS" MIND-READING
As we discuss mind-reading as an evolved cognitive capacity enabling
both our interaction with each other and our ability to make sense of fiction, we have to be aware of the definitional differences between the terminology used by cognitive scientists and that used by literary critics. Cognitive psychologists and philosophers of mind investigating our Theory of Mind ask such questions as, What is the evolutionary history of this adaptation, that is, in response to what environmental challenges did it evolve? At what age and in what forms does it begin to manifest itself? What are its neurological foundations? They focus on the ways "in which mind-reading [plays] an essential part in successful communication."1 When cognitive scientists turn to literary (or, as in the case below, cinematic) examples to illustrate our ability for investing fictional characters with a mind of their own and reading that mind, they stress the "effortlessness" with which we do so. As Daniel Dennett observes, "[W]atching a film with a highly original and unstereotyped plot, we see the hero smile at the villain and we all swiftly and effortlessly arrive at the same complex theoretical diagnosis: Aha!' we conclude (but perhaps not consciously), 'He wants her to think he doesn't know she intends to defraud her brother!'"2
Readers outside the cognitive-science community may find this emphasis on "effortlessness" and "success" unhelpful. Literary critics, in particular, know that the process of attributing thoughts, beliefs, and desires to other people may lead to misiyiterpreting those thoughts, beliefs, and desires. Thus they would rightly resist any notion that we could effortlessly—that is, correctly and unambiguously,