Lecture 5: Theory of Mind Flashcards
Learning objectives:
Part 1: Overview of Theory of Mind (ToM)
Part 2: The Development of ToM
Part 3: Theories of ToM Development
Part 4: Individual Differences in ToM
- Explain what “theory of mind” is and how it is measured
- Describe how theory of mind develops
- Explain and discuss accounts of theory of mind development
- Discuss individual differences in theory of mind development
Part 1: Overview of ToM
What is theory of mind?
Because we can’t access others’ mental states directly, we seek to make sense of others’ behaviours by figuring out what someone is trying (or intending) to do, what they want and what they are thinking.
This requires two things:
- That we view others’ as intentional agents – we do things to achieve goals/cause things to happen.
- An ability to take another person’s perspective.
Definition: Theory of mind at a basic level is attributing (unobservable) mental states (thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions) to others.
A big part of this is the understanding that other people’s desires, beliefs and thoughts about the world can be:
Different to our own
Wrong (a false belief)
Part 1: Overview of ToM
Why is ToM important?
In our complex social world, theory of mind is vital for helping us to understand, explain and predict (even manipulate) others’ behaviour because people tend to act on their beliefs and intentions.
It’s also important for:
- Understanding art and literature
- Intentional communication with others
- Repairing failed communication with others
- Teaching others
- Persuading others
- Deceiving other people
- Building shared plans and goals
- Pretending
(Baron-Cohen, 1999)
Part 1: Overview of ToM
How is ToM measured in children?
False Belief Tasks:
A crucial test of ToM is the ability to attribute false beliefs to others.
For example, if a child was to tell you that she is putting her tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy, although you know that the tooth fairy does not exist, you understand that her behaviour is being driven by the mistaken belief that it does.
Standard False Belief Task - Character A places an item in box A
Then, without Character A knowing, the item is moved to box B by Character B.
Child is asked “where will Character A look for the item?”
The crucial test is whether children are able to attribute a false belief to the character and say box A (where they originally put the item).
Part 2: The Development of ToM
ToM in Preschoolers
*** Sally Anne Task-
To succeed, children must separate their own (true) beliefs from other peoples. They must also attribute a false belief to Sally.
How do children respond?
- 4-year-olds pass. They say the basket.
- 3-year-olds fail. They say the box (where it currently is).
This pattern of performance has been reported across the globe, even children living in remote rainforests in Cameroon
***Keeping track of our own and others’ beliefs
The Smarties Test Part A:
A child is shown a smarties tube and asked what is inside. Naturally, they say smarties. In fact, the experimenter shows them there are pencils inside.
Children are then asked what a friend (who hasn’t seen inside the tube) will think is inside when shown the smarties tube.
Again, 3 year olds fail and 4 year olds pass.
Tests own vs others false beliefs. The results suggest that 3-year-olds have a lack of understanding of not just others beliefs but their own mind (that earlier, they thought something different). They easily forget their earlier beliefs.
Smarties Test Part B:
In the second part, children are asked what they would have thought was inside the smarties tube if they hadn’t seen inside.
3 yos still fail - poor understanding of even their own beliefs, 4yos pass
Part 2: The Development of ToM
ToM after age 4: Surprise
It’s not until age 5 that children can use the idea of false beliefs to predict when a person will be surprised
Four- and 5-year-olds were told about a boy Tommy who loved chocolate and his mum bought him some smarties. Then the experimenter replaced the smarties with jelly babies.
Both 4- and 5-year-olds knew that Tommy would look at the box and think there were smarties in it (they attribute a false belief to Tommy).
But only 5-year-olds said Tommy would be surprised when he opened the box.
Part 2: The Development of ToM
ToM after age 4: Deception
The use of deception emerges around age 5:
Sarah (age 3): “Mummy, go out of the kitchen.”
Mum: “Why Sarah?”
Sarah: “Because I want to take a cookie.”
Illustrates how young children don’t realise they need to deceive someone (deprive someone of knowledge) if they want something they are not allowed, to deceive them.
Study: Peskin 1992
- In this study, children picked a sticker they liked and one they did not like.
They then were introduced to a ‘nasty puppet’ who would take away a sticker. They were told that this puppet liked to take away stickers the child liked.
The puppet asked the child ‘which sticker do you like?’
3-year-olds did not spontaneously deceive - even if this meant the mean puppet took away their preferred sticker. And even after practice and much frustration. This suggests they do not realise they can instil false beliefs in others.
4-year-olds don’t deceive spontaneously but over a few go’s at losing the sticker on this game, they did learn to deceive.
5-year-olds can deceive - when asked will say they like the other sticker to avoid losing the one they like.
Part 2: The Development of ToM
ToM, Deception and Lying
Theory of mind seems to be causally related to the ability to lie
Ding et al (2015) trained theory of mind skills in 3-year-olds or trained them on physical concepts (control group). Those in the theory of mind training group were more likely to lie after training than those in the control group.
Part 2: The Development of ToM
When does ToM first develop?
On false belief tasks, around age 4.
Doesn’t mean that ToM is absent in children before age 4… Toddlers and infants show early forms of ToM…
Part 2: The Development of ToM
ToM in Infancy: Understanding others as intentional agents
6-month-olds understand people act on their intentions – a basic building block of ToM
Infants are first shown person reaching for teddy on right (ball on left) repeatedly until they start to look away:
The location then switches (teddy and ball switch sides) and they are shown scene A or scene B:
A - same target, reaching for tedding in diff place
B - diff target - reaching for ball in place teddy used to be
Findings:
6-month-olds look longer at scene A: when the actor reaches towards a different object then before
3-month-olds do not do this.
This relies on two things: the fact that people reach for things based on what they want (goal-directed actions) and the fact that infants look longer at things they’re surprised at. The idea here is the infants do not just go on spatial properties they understand the actor will reach for something they want. This is a huge milestone and it is necessary to have this in order to have ToM.
This may have its origins in infants’ experience of their own goal-directed actions…
3-month-old infants given experience wearing sticky mittens leads them to produce more goal-directed actions.
Following this, infants looked longer when the actors goal had changed in the teddy experiment. So active experience may facilitate the understanding of intentions.
Part 2: The Development of ToM
ToM in Toddlers: Understanding Mental States
Two-year-olds seem to understand that their thoughts can be different from the state of reality, as shown through pretend play, which just starts to develop around this time
3yos - aware thought exists, and that mental entities have different properties to physical ones e.g. you can’t touch a dream
2yos - start to use words like ‘want’, ‘see’, ‘taste’ but it’s only from about age 3 they start to use words involving cognitive states like: ‘know’ and ‘think.’
When 3-year-olds use “want” and “think” together (which at age 3 they start to do), this shows an understanding of contrasting mental states (reality vs belief) e.g. I thought it was a crocodile but now i know it’s an alligator
Part 2: The Development of ToM
ToM in Toddlers: Understanding Others Have Desires
18 mo infants can understand people may have desires different to their own
- An experimenter presents two bowls of food (crackers or broccoli).
- The child tastes each and says what they prefer.
- Then the experimenter tastes each one and presents either a disgusted facial expression or a happy facial expression. They then ask for more and hold their hand out.
18-month-olds give the experimenters preferred food (regardless of their own personal preferred food) whereas 14-month-olds just give their preferred food.
Part 2: The Development of ToM
It seems that ToM development starts early… Theory of mind and infancy and false beliefs
Based on this research with infants and toddlers it seems that early forms of ToM – the building blocks of ToM – begin to form early in development.
These include understanding that:
- Others are intentional agents.
- Mental states exist.
- Other people have beliefs.
- Other people have desires that may be different to ours.
- People may act on incomplete beliefs.
But is it possible for infants to understand false beliefs – the holy grail of ToM understanding?
- Infants see an actor reach in a green box for an object repeatedly.
- The location of the boxes is then switched and the actors eyes during this switch are either:
- Not covered (true belief condition)
- Fully covered (false belief condition)
- The actor then reaches again for the object in the same green box or a yellow box (different box, same location).
Findings:
- Infants look longer (i.e., are ‘surprised’) when the actor reaches to the wrong box (yellow box) but only in the true belief condition (when their eyes aren’t covered!). In other words, because the actor saw this switch surely they should know it’s moved and change their reaching location.
- In contrast, infants look longer in the false belief condition when the actor reaches to the right box (green box). In other words, because the actor did not see this switch, they should still reach in the same location and so reach for the yellow box.
Conclusions: 15-month-old infants have false-belief understanding because they look longer (show surprise) when an actor reaches towards a location that is not where the actor will have thought the object was.
In other words… they understand the actor has a false belief.
It is hard to reconcile the finding that 15-month-olds understand false beliefs but fail false belief tasks at age 3.
How can we explain this?
There may be two systems for ToM (Leslie, German & Polizzi, 2005):
- Implicit ToM: This is innate or very early learned. It is there without awareness, and children will maintain this skill but can’t express it verbally.
- Explicit ToM: Learned more slowly and with awareness.
…In fact, 3-year-olds who fail false beliefs tasks usually look at the box where the character should look, which indicates that they might actually know the correct answer although they do not express it
Part 3: Theories of ToM Development
***1. Theory-Theory
2-year-olds:
have a theory based on desire psychology => they assume that people‘s desires influence their behaviour.
3-year-olds:
have a theory based on belief-desire psychology => they take into account other‘s desires and beliefs (though they only do so about true ones, not that much about wrong ones).
4 years:
make the crucial realisation that beliefs are interpretations and like all interpretations, they may be inaccurate (may be a false belief).
Therefore, children‘s ToM and the theories they use are much like a scientist’s in that they are modified and become more specific.
***2. Meta-representations (Perner, 1991)
According to this theory, preschoolers struggle on false belief tasks because they cannot hold two representations of an object simultaneously (a meta-representations). An example of a meta-representation is a photograph of a pyramid. A photograph from the side would suggest they are triangular but we understand this is a representation of the pyramid and this photograph doesn’t equal reality.
Perner argued that 4-year-olds pass false belief tasks when they can have meta-representations so become able to understand the object being hidden (e.g., a marble) is truly in location B but also assumed to be in location A.
HOWEVER…
children engage in pretend play from around 2 years onwards which involves meta-representations – e.g, if pretending a phone is a banana the child has to have the representation that the object is really a banana and also that is a phone
Both of these representational accounts of ToM struggle to explain early competencies in some aspects of ToM that we covered earlier…
***3. Executive Function Accounts
Suggests cognitive deficit rather than representational
Preschoolers have poor executive function skills (working memory and inhibitory control over automatic incorrect actions) - both needed in order to succeed on ToM tasks.
In fact, executive function skills come before ToM skills suggesting that executive function skills support ToM
Part 4: Individual Differences in ToM
Theory of Mind and Individual Skills
Language skills -
better lang skills are associated with better ToM skills, while delayed language development is associated with delayed ToM development
Interactions with others –
especially those involving mental state language and with people older than the child– are correlated with greater ToM – these may be with mothers, older siblings or other family members
