Lecture 1 - Introduction to ToM

Question 1

define ToM

Answer 1

a socail cognitive ability that allows one to represent and take into account the mental states of others (and oneself) - intentions, thoughts, beliefs, - to predict and explain their behaviour

Question 2

mindreading is a type of ..

Answer 2

social cognition

Question 3

define social cognition

Answer 3

cognitive adaptions to process and respond to the properties of other organisms

Question 4

paper which argued animals had ToM and what did they say

Answer 4

Premack and Woodruff 1978 Sarah the linguisticaly trained chimp shown a problem via video then shown pictures which could be the solution to the problem sarah chose photos depicitng the correct solution - she understood the problem faced by the human In the BPS paper they argued that for this she had to understand the intentions and desires of the human actor (as well as how to fulfil them) - going beyond behaviour of the actor to read his mind

Question 5

premack and woodruff quote 1978

Answer 5

an individual has a thoery of mind if he imputes mental states to humself and others. a system like this is properly viewed as a theory because such states are not directly observable and the system can be used to make predictions about the behaviour of others

Question 6

push back against premack and woodruff 1978, what did they say

Answer 6

was easy to generate alternative explanations: - learnt certain actions are typically followed by other actions and therefore could make correct anticipations based on physical and behavioural reasoning (or just associations). No need to invoke mental state attribution

Question 7

Zenon Pylyshyn on ToM

Answer 7

having ToM might require a special, sophisticated type of cognitive mechanism - meta representation - that might be beyond the reach of nonhumans

Question 8

Daniel Dennett on ToM

Answer 8

false belief understanding suggested - uses an example of children watching punch and judy: the children understand that Punch (falsely) believes that Judy is in the box

Question 9

wimmer and perner 1983

Answer 9

Sally Anne doll test to understand false belief understanding in children - first called max and the chococlates key finding - by 4 years old children begin to pass it children who failed it did so by answering not randomly, but by predicting search in the current location of the object (reality response) this is a novel cognitive skill that seems to emerge within the period of 4-6 years ie “is not a mere side effect of an increase in memory and central processing capacity,” instead is a novel cognitive skill

Question 10

ToM as belief-desire reasoning

Answer 10

ToM is not just about false beliefs, but a varied and complex series of mental states and how they causally relate to each other and to behaviour

Question 11

developmental timeline of ToM abilities in children

Answer 11

2-3 months: sensitivity to emotions (beginnings of intersubjectivity)
12 months: percption / attention / intention
18-24 months: Pretend actions (make believe play)
2-3 years: desires
3-4 years: knowledge / ignorance
4-5 years: false belief

Question 12

children understand x before y

Answer 12

children understand seeing equals knowing (at around 3 years old) before false belief (4/5 years old)

Question 13

when does gaze following and pointing devlop in children

Answer 13

9-18 months
Gaze following is a mechanism that brings adults and infants into
perceptual contact with the same objects and events in the world,
facilitating word learning and social communication. After interacting
with an adult (left), a 12-month-old infant sees an adult look at one of
two identical objects (middle) and immediately follows her gaze
(right)”