learning about the social world

Question 1

at what age can children first understand others’ intentions? how is it tested

Answer 1

• 6 months
• tested using violation of expectation paradigm

Question 2

at what age can children distinguish between intentional and accidental actions?

Answer 2

• 9 months

Question 3

what is joint attention? when does it emerge?

Answer 3

• the shared attention of 2 people on the same object or event and awareness that they are paying attention to the same thing
• appears at 9-12 months
• difficulty with joint attention indicates ASD
• critical for learning from others

Question 4

what is imitation? when does it emerge?

Answer 4

• voluntarily matching another person’s behaviour
• appears at 9-12 months
• nativists argue that it is innate because newborns imitate sticking tongue out, but they don’t imitate any other behaviour so it could be coincidental
• critical for observational learning
• active rather than passive, since they imitate the goals of actions rather than the process itself

Question 5

why is it important to understand intentions?

Answer 5

• step toward understanding the minds of others
• enables joint attention
• enables immitation

Question 6

what is theory of mind? when does it emerge? how is it tested?

Answer 6

• the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, and to understand that other people can have desires, knowledge, and beliefs different from one’s own
• emerges around 1 year old
• tested using violation of expectation paradigm

Question 7

what is sense of self? when does it develop?

Answer 7

• sense of self: fully understand others’ desires requires the appreciation that other people are separate from the self
• we are born with implicit sense of self
• explicit sense of self (eg. recognizing oneself in the mirror) emerges later (1.5-2 years)

Question 8

at what age can a child predict a character’s actions based on the character’s desires rather than their own desires?

Answer 8

2 years old

Question 9

at what age do children understand other’s knowledge capabilities?

Answer 9

• 3 years old, at which age they can make judgements about other’s reliability
• 3 and 4 year olds understand that specific people may have specialized knowledge in certain areas

Question 10

what are false-belief problems? at what age do children understand them? what does this understanding imply?

Answer 10

• tasks that test a chid’s understanding that other people will behave consistently with their knowledge/beliefs, even if their beliefs are false
• most 3 year olds fail, while most 5 year olds pass
• correct responses indicate a developed theory of mind

Question 11

summarize the timeline for social cognition development

Answer 11

• 6 months: understanding others’ action intentions
• 9-12 months: joint attention and imitation
• 1 year: basic understanding other’s desires
• 1.5-2 years: explicit sense of self (eg. rouge test)
• 2 years old: greater understanding that others’ desires can be different from one’s own
• 3 years: sensitive to whether someone is knowledgeable in a topic or not; basic understanding that beliefs lead to action but fail at false-belief tests
• 5 years: more fully developed theory of mind and pass false-belief tests

Question 12

what are the three components to theory of mind?

Answer 12

intention, desire, knowledge

Question 13

are individual differences in social cognitive skills stable?

Answer 13

yes. a child who is better able to understand goal-directed action at 6 months will show better performance on false-belief tests at 4 years

Question 14

how does the nativist theory explain theory of mind?

Answer 14

innate brain mechanisms are devoted to understanding other people that matures over the first 5 years of life
- newborns have an inherent interest in faces
- culturally universal developmental trajectory of theory of mind
- link between temporoparietal junction (TPJ, active in theory of mind tasks) and ASD, since people with ASD have atypically sized TPJs and often struggle with theory of mind (especially false-belief tests)

Question 15

what is executive functioning? how does it explain theory of mind?

Answer 15

• set of cognitive processes that enable cognitive control of behaviour, eg. planning, focused attention, multitasking
• false-belief tests require executive functioning skills
• as executive functioning improves, so does theory of mind
• individual differences in executive functioning are responsible for individual differences in theory of mind

Question 16

why are interactions with other people important for the development of theory of mind?

Answer 16

• caregivers’ use of mental state talk is correlated with preschooler’s theory of mind ability (statements/questions that use words like “think”, “know”, and “want”)
• preschoolers that have siblings are better at theory of mind tasks, especially if the sibling is of a different gender

Question 17

how can caregivers foster children’s social cognition and theory of mind?

Answer 17

• using mental state talk (“think” “know” “want”)
• providing opportunities for interactions with different people
• encouraging joint attention

Question 18

what three explanations likely play a role in the development of theory of mind?

Answer 18

• maturation of brain regions involved in understanding others
• improved executive functioning ability
• interactions with other people

Question 19

what are the 4 ways in which children learn? when do they first emerge?

Answer 19

• trial and error (from birth)
• statistical learning (from birth)
• observation and imitation (9-12 months)
• taught by others (3 yrs)