theory of mind
theory of mind noun: the ability to form an opinion about what other people are thinking.
Noun (1)
theory of mind (countable and uncountable, plural theories of mind)
- The ability to form an opinion about what other people are thinking.
- Lack of theory of mind is a classic symptom of autism-spectrum disorders
- Older kids understand more broadly that other people have different thoughts, beliefs, and knowledge than they, the landmark of achieving Theory of Mind (ToM).2017, Robert Sapolsky, chapter 7, in Behave, Penguin, →ISBN
- Antonyms:
- mindblindness
- The intellectual ability to understand that different persons (other than the self) might have different intentions and knowledge.
Noun (2) capitalized: Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind (countable and uncountable, plural Theories of Mind)
- Alternative letter-case form of theory of mind.
Antonyms of theory of mind
Forms of theory of mind
| plural | theories of mind |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Theory of Mind |
| alternative initialism | ToM |
| plural | Theories of Mind |
Questions about theory of mind
- What does theory of mind mean?
- Theory of mind means the ability to form an opinion about what other people are thinking.
- What part of speech is theory of mind?
- Theory of mind is a noun.
- What is the plural of theory of mind?
- The plural of theory of mind is theories of mind.
Words near theory of mind in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: theory of mind (page history and authors); Theory of Mind (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “theory of mind.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/theory_of_mind. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.