Lecture 2 - Development ToM Flashcards
What is the Theory of Mind
Insight people hold mental states and these govern behaviour (act according our perception reality)
Allows make sense social world - predict and explain
What is Desire-based ToM?
Desires are idiosyncratic (personal and subjective) constantly changing
Do children understand that other people may have desires that differ from theirs?
Repacholi and Gopbik 1997
18 month olds but not 14 month olds understood experimenters desired food differed from their own
Understanding desire is subjective mental state that differs from person to person
What is Belief Based ToM?
Distinction between mind and world
Requires notion person has representation of world, contents of which may be quite different from contents of world itself
Shift from situation based to representation based
What are false belief tasks
Test whether child can represent what another person believes in contrast to their own beliefs or reality
What is the FB Sally-Ann Task
One object is moved from one location to next without child watching
Sally puts ball in basket. Ann moves ball to box without Sally watching.
Child asked where Sally will look for ball
What is the consequence of the Sally-Ann task?
Child has to inhibit own knowledge of ball in box and understand their is a FB
What is the Maxi task of FB?
Maxi puts chocolate in his cupboard. Whilst he is out playing his mother puts it in fridge. Maxi comes back wanting his chocolate. Child asked where Maxi will look.
Results of Maxi FB task
Poor performance (failure understand FB) children under 5 years old
Who investigated the Smartie Task of FB?
Perner 1987
What is the smartie task of FB?
Child shown smarties tube. Guess what is inside
Then shown pencils inside
Pencils put back in and sealed
Then asked what their friend would think is in the smarties tube
Age 3 poor performance
What does Gopnik add to the Smartie Tube Test
Asked children when you first saw the tube what did you think was inside it
3-4 yrs old difficulty with this task
Can only consider current mental state not previous
Interpreting the findings of FB tasks
3 years old usually fail
4 years old usually pass
Around this age acquire ToM
Stage like development
Do FB tasks underestimate younger children’s ability?
Lack of story or question comprehension - question doesn’t make sense
Can younger children show better performance when tasks are simplified?
What happens when we clarify the test question for FB tasks
Siegel and Beattie 1991
“Where will Maxi look first of all?”
Performance improves at 3 years but not significantly
Who investigated the BIG DEBATE on development of children
Wellman at al 2001
Who are the 2 opposing sides of the BIG DEBATE
Boosters
Scoffers
What do the Boosters believe in the BIG DEBATE
Early onset view
Early competence masked by performance limitations
Task manipulations May enhance performance
3 year olds be able perform above Chance
What do the Scoffers believe in the BIG DEBATE
Delayed onset view
Conceptual change in understanding
Developmental change on FB tasks reflect genuine conceptual change
Task demands/processing limitations should not account completely for performance
Wellman, Cross and Watson 2001: meta analysis of 178 studies
Support substantial development over pre-school years
Below 3.5 years 80% incorrect systematically choosing own belief
4 years 50% correct
56 months 75% correct
What variables improved performance on Wellmans et al meta analysis
Deceptive motive
Active participation
Salience if mental state improve performance
Summary of Wellmans et al 2001 meta analysis
In line with conceptual change
In line with Scoffers account
Manipulating variables improved performance across all ages
None improved performance of 3 year olds above Chance
What 2 factors contribute to ToM development?
Social experience
Biological maturation
Outline social experience contributing to ToM development?
Aiding understanding mental states
Arises from interactions from other people
Outline biological maturation contributing to ToM development?
Enables children to express their understanding of mental states arising from improvement in executive functioning
What does Harris 1999 see as the Role of Experience
Conversations crucial exposing children to other people’s perspectives
Provide children with vocabulary needed discuss and reflect on mental states
What is the role of experience of ToM
Children with older siblings show earlier ToM - more exposure
Older siblings talk about what they want
Children whose parents talk about mental states more understanding FB earlier than other children
What is the Universality of Cross-Cultural Comparisons of ToM
Callaghan et al 2005
Peru, India, Canada, Thailand consistent findings of failure at 3 years old but could express understanding at 5 years
Industrialised and rural societies show similar developmental shift between 3 and 5 years
Who created the ToM scale
Wellman and Liu 2004
What is the ToM scale
Diverse Desires
Diverse Beliefs
Knowledge Access
False Belief
Hidden Emotions
What are diverse desires and diverse beliefs
Diverse desires: people can have different desires for same thing
Diverse beliefs: people can have different beliefs about same situation
What is knowledge access, false belief and hidden emotions
Knowledge Access: something can be true, but someone might not know that
False Belief: something can be true, but someone may falsely believe something different
Hidden Emotions: someone can feel one way but display a different emotion
What across Cross Cultural differences did Wellman et al 2006 find
Children in Western countries have diverse beliefs before understanding knowledge access
Chinese and Iranian children had knowledge access before diverse beliefs
What can explain Wellman et als 2006 cross cultural differences
Differences in cultural values
Collectivist - parents don’t tolerate children holding independent views
vs Individualism
What is the role of executive functioning
Children’s failures on ToM tasks may stem not from pure conceptual limitations but rather from problems translating conceptual knowledge into successful action
Critical role executive functions ability pass TM tasks
What are Executive Functions and what are the 3 main Executive functions
Set domain general cognitive abilities help us control and guide our attention and behaviour
- Inhibition
- Cognitive Flexibility
- Working Memory
What is inhibition in executive functioning
Ignoring distracting info or suppressing unwanted responses
Preventing reaching for bar chocolate
Bear/Dragon Task. STROOP
Impulsivity/Inhibition not developed by 3 years can’t inhibit in Maxi Task where they know where chocolate is
What is cognitive flexibility in executive functioning
Responding to same thing in different ways depending on context
Multiple passwords
Wisconsin card sorting task. Task switching paradigm
What is Working Memory in executive functioning
Holding important info or goal in mind
Manipulating info in head
Mental shopping list. Mental arithmetic.
Digit span. Spatial span.
Role of Executive Functioning in FB tasks
Cognitive Inhibition/ disengage from salient real world attend to intangible abstract representation
Response Inhibition: inhibit a prepotent or habitual way responding I.e. pointing to true location of object
Working memory: indicate correct answer whilst holding in mind 2 different and conflicting representations
When do Executive Functions develop
Develop frontal lobes takes long time
Important developments in inhibitory control take placed first 6 years life. Marked improvement between 3-6 - Diamond and Taylor 1996
Role of Executive Functioning in FB task of Bear/Dragon
Bear = good. Dragon = bad. Bear asks us to do something we do it. Dragon asks do something we do not.
Development in inhibitory control and ToM May be related
IC affects emergence and expression mental state knowledge of ToM development
Who investigated the Bear/Dragon Paradigm
Carlson and Moses 2001
Sabbagh et al 2007
Implicit understanding of FB Moll et al 2016
Investigated children’s facial expressions as indices of their belief understanding
3 years: aware conflict between persons belief and reality showing signs suspense - lip biting, brow furrowing when observing FB
Implicit understanding of FB Clements and Perner 1994
Period implicit understanding FB precedes onset of explicit
Unexpected transfer task
86% over 2 years 11 months implicit measure of looking pattern was indicative FB understanding
Southgate, Senju and Csibra 2007 implicit measures FB
Anticipatory looking earlier FB understanding
Bear puts something in box then women turns away and does not see bear moving it into another box
Non-verbal prompt. Toy removed from scene avoid reality bias
Earlier FB understanding in infancy - Onishi and Baillargeon 2005
Nonverbal Task year implicit FB understanding in 15 month olds
Violation of Expectancy method
Who investigate Violation of Expectancy method
Onishi and Baillargeon 2005
What is the Violation of Expectancy method telling us
If infant looks longer at inconsistent even taken as evidence that they are surprise
Indicates some level knowledge about what should happen
Outline Onishi and Baillargeon 2005 study on looking time in 15 month olds
Woman puts toy in box. Toy is moved when woman not looking. Woman comes back and either searches in original location or where it actually is.
Outline results of Onishi and Baillargeon 2005
FB understanding look for longer when she looks in correct location = potion of Expectancy
Infants expect searching be consistent with their beliefs about object location not objects reality
ToM is innate?
What is Heyes 2014 criticism of FB tasks
Infants may represent events in these experiments as colours, shapes, and movements rather than as actions on objects by agents
Theory-Theory ToM Rules
Form and revise coherent set rules. Failure due to incorrect or misapplied rules.
Initially relation between seeing and knowing. Rigidly follow: seeing/being told = knowing (Access rule)
Evidence of Access Rule
3-4yrs attribute knowledge to observer who sees or it told content of container.
Ignorance oversteer with neither informational access
What is the No-Access rule
Overapplication
Over extend rule to form rule that: not seeing or being told = ignorance
I walk -> I walk-ed
I run -> I run-ed
Evidence for No-Access Rule
Attribute ignorance observer who has not seen/being told even if observer some other source information about ever
Ignore non-visual sources of info
Sodian and Wimmer 1987 study on Over Application of Rules
Child not shown contents container e.g. m&ms bag.
Told they took something out bag and put it in box. Over 6yrs understand it was m&m.
Asked if someone else same info know it was an m&m believed no = inference neglect
Knowledge = inference without awareness
