Mind-blindness can be described as an inability to develop an awareness of what is in the mind of another human. It is not necessarily caused by an inability to imagine an answer, but is often due to not being able to gather enough information to work out which of the many possible answers is correct. Mind-blindness is the opposite of empathy. Simon Baron-Cohen was the first person to use the term 'mind-blindness' to help understand some of the problems encountered by people with autism or Asperger syndrome or other developmental disorders. Generally speaking, the "Mind-blindness" Theory asserts that children with these conditions are delayed in developing a theory of mind, which normally allows developing children to put themselves "into someone else's shoes, to imagine their thoughts and feelings."[1] Thus, autistic children often cannot conceptualize, understand, or predict emotional states in other people.[2]
More at Wikipedia
