Cognition + development - social cognition - theory of mind

Question 1

What is theory of mind?

Answer 1

Knowing that another person has different thoughts and feelings.

The ability to attribute mental states - beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge, to oneself and to others and to understand that others have them that are different from oneself.

(The capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them. These mental states may be different from your own.)

Question 2

What is lack of theory of mind?

Answer 2

Also called ‘mind blindness’
The inability to read others’ minds
Lack of theory of mind is theorised to be due to a failure of an innate, biological Theory of Mind Mechanism (ToMM)
Suggested explanation for autism spectrum disorder

Question 3

What tests can be used to show when a child lacks theory of mind?
What do they test?

Answer 3

False belief tests eg. Sally-Anne test

• Sees if a child can understand that someone can hold a belief which you know to be false
• See if they understand that they have a separate mind with its own beliefs which can be different to your own

Question 4

How and why did Baron-Cohen develop a ‘false belief’ test?

Answer 4

• Baron-Cohen developed this test to research lack of theory of mind in children with autism
• 3 groups of participants: children with autism, children with Down’s syndrome with lower IQs than the other groups, and ‘normal’ children

Question 5

Why was there a group of children with Down’s syndrome?

Answer 5

To show that it wasn’t testing IQ.

Also to control for having any diagnosis in childhood.

Question 6

What happens in the Sally-Anne test?

Answer 6

Sally puts her ball in a basket and leaves
Anne moves the ball into a box
Sally comes back
Children are asked: where will Sally look for her ball?

Question 7

Children watched Anne move the ball and were then asked ‘where is the ball?’ - why were they asked this question?

Answer 7

To show that they understood where it had been and where it ended up. Prevents a wild guess.

Question 8

What were the findings of the Sally-Anne test?

Answer 8

85% of the ‘normal’ and Down’s groups correctly answered the question as basket.
Only 20% of the children with autism answered correctly.

Question 9

What do the results of the Sally-Anne test show?

Answer 9

• Theory of mind is impaired in most children with autism (80%)
• Children with Down’s syndrome scored the same as the ‘normal’ group, meaning it was not because of IQ
• This is not a universal impairment in autism (20% passed and have a working theory of mind)
• Also, 15% of ‘normal’ group had impaired theory of mind

Question 10

What test is used for adults to test theory of mind?

Answer 10

The Eyes Task

• Adults with autism could often pass the Sally-Anne test; they used reasoning and experience to work out the correct answer
• The Eyes Task tests whether adults with autism could ‘read’ the mental state of other people from their eyes; that is whether they showed an understanding that the appearance of the eyes would be different depending on the person’s state of mind

Question 11

What were the findings of the Eyes Task?

Answer 11

Autism group:
- Mean score: 16.3
- Range: 13-23
'Normal' group:
- Mean score: 20.3
- Range: 16-25

Question 12

What do the findings of the Eyes Task tell us about autism and ToM?

Answer 12

• People with autism do less well on the task suggesting impaired theory of mind
• At least one person with autism scored higher than the mean for the normal group.
• Shows theory of mind cannot be a full explanation for autism

Question 13

What are the strengths of Theory of Mind?

Answer 13

• There is lots of evidence to support ToM as an explanation for autism (Sally-Anne, Eyes Task)
• There is neuroscientific evidence to support the idea of ToMM (evidence from brain scanning research suggests areas of brain are activated when ToM tasks are being performed, shows theory is innate
• ToM has applications to real life - lead to interventions to improve the functioning of people with autism eg. TV show The Transporters (helps children with autism to learn what emotions are associated with certain facial expressions)

Question 14

What are the limitations of Theory of Mind as an explanation for autism?

Answer 14

• Findings of Eyes Task show that ToM is an incomplete explanation for autism: it is not a universal lack of theory of mind, some were able to score highly
• Eyes Task lacks ecological validity - in real life, you get to see a person’s whole face, their body language, their tone of voice, you get a wider range of emotions of choice and you get longer than 3 seconds to look