Development of Theory of Mind Flashcards
what is theory of mind?
- The insight that people hold mental states and that govern behaviour
- mental states - e.g. belief, desire, goals, etc…
- allow us to make sense of the social world - to predict and explain people’s actions
desire-based TOM
- people’s desires and idiosyncratic and constantly changing
what is belief-based TOM?
- distinction between mind/world
- requires the notion that a person has a representation of the world, the contents of which may be quite different from the contents of the world itself or from our own beliefs
- shift from a situation-based to a representation based understanding of behaviour
what is a false belief task?
- tests whether child can represent what another person believes in contrast to their own beliefs or reality
Unexpected transfer task also known as the Maxi chocolate task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)
- while maxi is out pplaying, his mum takes the chocolate from the cupboard and grates some of it into cake
- Maxi returning from play, feeling hungry. He wants his chocolate
- TEST Q: where will Maxi look for the chocolate?
- MEMORY Q: where did Maxi put his chocolate?
- REALITY Q: Where did Mum put his chocolate?
- under 5 years judge that maxi will look for the chocolate where he put it
- over 5 years judge that maxi will look where they will look (the fridge)
do children understand other people may have desires that differ from theirs?
- 18 months but not 14 months understood that the experimenter’s desired food differed from theirs
- suggests they understand that desire is a subjective mental state can differ from person to person
what is the Sally-Ann task? Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith (1985)
- unexpected transfer task
- Sally doll put block in the box and goes away to play
- Doll Anne put the block in the basket while Sally was away
- child asked when sally comes back inside where they think sally will look for the block
-children younger than 4 do not pass the unexpected transfer test
Perner et al. (1987), Gopnik and Astington (1988) descriptive box test
- what is inside this tube (guess) (they think smarties)
- what is in it? (see) (actually saw a pencil)
- what will your friend XXX say is inside the tube
- 3-4 years old have difficulty acknowledging false belief in others and own prior false belief once they know what is inside
ToM revealed in natural conversion
Me: I wonder if bunny ate all her cookie.
Maya (2y4m): No, bunny not got cookie, Moz got cookie.
Me: Ok.. Let’s go to your room to see.
Me: (on entering M’s room) Look, bunny has the cookie. I was right!
Maya: Yeah. I thought Moz got the cookie!
→ i.e. Spontaneously reflected on her own previous false belief
Wllman, Cross & Watson, 2001
- meta-analysis of 178 studies
- support for substantial developmental effect over preschool years
- below 3.5 years below chance performance
- above 4 years above chance
- found that task/question, nature of protagonist/object was irrelevant
- descriptive motive, active participation and salience of mental state improve performance
How do we KNOW that 3 year olds don’t have ToM?
- lack of positive evidence doesn’t necessarily mean lack of competence
- performance limitations masking children’s competence?
- problem with language?
→ temporal marking
→ test question - “where will maxi look first of all?” (siegal and Beattie, 1991)
→ story comprehension (Lewis et al. 1994) - simplifying the task improves but not dramatically
universality: Cross cultural comparisons (Callaghan et al. 2005)
Despite leading very different lives children in industrialized societies and those in more rural societies show similar developmental shift between 3 and 5 years
what factors contribute to ToM development?
- Role of social experience in aiding understanding of mental states –arises from interactions from other people
- Biological maturation enables children to express their understanding of mental states – arises from improvement in executive functioning
Role of experience Harris (1999)
- Conversations in general are crucial for exposing children to other people’s perspectives
- They provide children with the vocabulary needed to discuss and reflect on mental states
Role of experience further studies
- Children with older siblings show earlier ToM (Perner, Ruffman, & Leekham, 1994; Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin, & Clements,1998)
- Children whose parents talk about mental states more understand false belief earlier than other children (Dunn et al., 1991; Meins et al 2002; Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002)
- Deaf children of hearing parents show a developmental lag on FB tasks (Peterson & Siegel, 1995)
- In contrast, deaf children of signing parents are comparable with hearing children (Peterson & Siegal, 1999)
