3) Cognition and Development - Social Cognition - Theory of Mind

Question 1

What is Theory of Mind?

Answer 1

Our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling.
(Mind Reading)

Question 2

All disorders on the autism spectrum share impairments to three main areas, these are:

Answer 2

Empathy, Social communication and Social imagination

Question 3

Who conducted research into intentional reasoning in toddlers?

Answer 3

(Andrew) Meltzoff

Question 4

What did Meltzoff investigate into?

Answer 4

Intentional reasoning in toddlers

Question 5

What was Meltzoff’s study?

Answer 5

P - Meltzoff provided convincing evidence to show that toddlers (around 18months) have an understanding of adult intentions when carrying out simple actions.
E - Children of 18 months observed adults place beads into a jar.
In the experimental condition the adults appeared to struggle with this and dropped the beads but in the control condition the adults placed the beads successfully into the jar.
In both conditions the toddlers placed the beads into the jar, they did not drop any beads in the experimental condition.
E - This suggests that they were imitating what the adults intended to do.
L - This kind of research shows that very young children have a simple ToM.

Question 6

Why were false belief tasks developed?

Answer 6

To test whether children can understand that people can believe something that is not true.

Question 7

What was Wimmer and Perner’s false belief task study?

Answer 7

• They told 3-4yr olds a story in which Maxi left his chocolate in a blue cupboard in the kitchen and then went to the playground.
• Later Maxi’s mother used soe of the chocolate in her cooking and placed the remainder in the green cupboard.
• Children were asked where Maxi would look for his chocolate when he comes back from the playground.
• Most 3yr-olds incorrectly said that he would look in the green cupboard because Maxi doesn’t know his mother moved it.
• However most 4yr-olds correctly identified the blue cupboard.
• This suggests that ToM undergoes a shift and becomes more advanced at around 4yrs.

Question 8

Who developed the Sally-Anne task?

Answer 8

(Simon) Baron-Cohen et al

Question 9

What type of task is the Sally-Anna task?

Answer 9

A false belief task

Question 10

Describe the Sally-Anne task.

Answer 10

• Children were told a story involving two dolls, Sally and Anne.
• Sally places a marble in her basket but when Sally is not looking Anne moves the marble to her box.
• The task is to work out where Sally will look for the marble.
• Understanding that Sally does not know that Anne has moved the marble requires a understanding of Sally’s false belief about where it is.

Question 11

How did Baron-Cohen and colleagues use false-belief tasks (mainly the Sally-Anne task)?

Answer 11

To explore the links between ToM deficits and ASD.

Question 12

What does ASD stand for?

Answer 12

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Question 13

What was the procedure used by Baron-Cohen et al?

Answer 13

• 20 High functioning children diagnosed with ASD, a control group of 27 children without a diagnosis and 14 children with down syndrome were individually given the Sally-Anne task.

Question 14

What were the findings for Baron-Cohen et al’s study?

Answer 14

• 85% of children in the control groups correctly identified where Sally would look for her marble.
• However only 4 of the children with ASD (20%) were able to answer this.
• This dramatic difference demonstrated that ASD involves a ToM deficit.
• Baron-Cohen and his colleagues suggested that deficits in ToM might be a complete explanation for ASD.

Question 15

What did Baron-Cohen suggest about deficits in ToM in relation to ASD?

Answer 15

It might be a complete explanation of ASD

Question 16

What is Asperger Syndrome?

Answer 16

• A type of ASD.

- Characterised by problems with empathy, social communication and imagination but normal language development.

Question 17

What happened when older children/adults with AS took part in false-belief tasks?
What did this mean?

Answer 17

• They succeeded easily.

- This meant that the idea of ASD being explained by ToM deficits is incorrect as AS is a type of ASD.

Question 18

What task did Baron-Cohen develop to assess ToM in adolescents and adults?

Answer 18

The eye task

Question 19

Why was the eye-task developed?

Answer 19

• Sally-Anne task is too easy for adolescents and adults as they are older.

Question 20

What is the eye-task?

Answer 20

• Involves reading complex emotions in pictures of faces which only show a small area around the eyes.

Question 21

What did Baron-Cohen et al find out through the eye-task?

Answer 21

• Adults with AS and those with a diagnosis of high-functioning ASD struggled with the eyes task.
• This supports the idea that ToM deficits might be the cause of ASD.

Question 22

Give a limitation of false-belief tasks relating to validity.

Answer 22

P - Some psychologists are critical of the false-belief tasks as it is suggested that they lack validity.
E - One reason is because success in the false belief task requires other cognitive abilities apart from ToM, such as memory as the Sally-Anne story could be too much for 3yr-orlds to remember.
Some studies have given children with ASD visual aids to help them remember the stories and have found that younger children with ASD succeed quite often.
E - Another criticism is that a child can have a well-developed ToM and still struggle with false-belief tasks. Therefore children who cannot perform well on false belief tasks still enjoy pretend-play which requires a ToM.
L - Both criticism greatly challenge the validity of the false belief tasks which is a problem as this method has dominated ToM research.

Question 23

Give a limitation of ToM relating to perspective-taking.

Answer 23

P - Many of the methods that have been used to study ToM could be measures of perspective taking.
E - This can be seen in the Sally-Anne task as responses could be explained in terms of children’s ability to take Sally’s perspective.
E - This challenges the internal validity of ToM research as it is possible that perspective-taking is measured instead.