Lecture 5 - Theory of Mind Development

Question 1

What is theory of mind?

Answer 1

• The ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and to understand that others have different views, beliefs and attitudes that are different to ones own.
• As we can’t access other’s mental states directly we seek to make sense of other’s behaviours by figuring out what someone is trying/wanting to do/thinking.

Question 2

‘Sally Anne’ false belief task

Answer 2

• Children presented with a character called Sally, Sally will put a marble in a basket and then Anne moves the marble into a box without Sally seeing.
• Children are then asked when Sally comes back where will she look for her marble?
• 4 year olds pass and say basket whereas 3 year olds fail and say the box

Question 3

The ‘Smarties’ test

Answer 3

• Child is shown a smarties tube and asked what is inside (they say smarties) but in fact they are shown that there are pencils inside. They are then asked what their friend will think is inside
• 4 year olds pass and say smarties whereas 3 year olds fail and say pencils
• They are then asked what they would have thought was inside if they hadn’t seen
• 4 year olds pass and say smarties whereas 3 year olds fail and say pencils

Question 4

Deception

Answer 4

• Deception emerges around age 5
• [Peskin, 1992] children picked a sticker that they liked and one that they didn’t like. They were then introduced to a puppet that liked to take away stickers that children liked. The puppet then asked the children which stickers they liked.
• 3 year olds didn’t deceive even if it meant loosing their sticker
• 4 year olds don’t deceive spontaneously but learn after a number of trials
• 5 year olds deceive

Question 5

ToM in infancy

Answer 5

From 6 months infants understand that people act on their intentions

Question 6

ToM in toddlers

Answer 6

• 2 year olds understand that their thoughts can be different from the state of reality, shown through pretend play
• From 3 years they use words involving cognitive states e.g. ‘know’ ‘think’

Question 7

False beliefs - Infancy

Answer 7

• Infants see an actor reach in a green box for an object repeatedly
• The location of the boxes are then switched and the actors eyes are either covered or not
• The actor then reaches again for the object in the same green or yellow box (same location)
• Infants look longer (are surprised) when the actor reaches to the wrong (yellow) box but only when their eyes weren’t covered

Question 8

Theories of ToM

Answer 8

• Theory-theory [Wellmann,1990]
• Meta-representation [Perner,1991]
• Executive function accounts [Carlson and Moses,2001]

Question 9

Theory-theory [Wellmann,1990]

Answer 9

• 2 year olds have a theory based on desire - people’s desires influence behaviour
• 3 year olds have a theory based on belief desire - take into account other’s desires and beliefs
• Only at 4 do children realise that beliefs may be inaccurate

Question 10

Meta-representations [Perner,1991]

Answer 10

• Preschoolers struggle on false belief tasks because they cannot hold two representations of an object simultaneously
• Argued that 4 year olds pass false belief tasks when they can have 2 ideas of an object simultaneously

Question 11

Executive function accounts [Carlson and Moses,2001]

Answer 11

• Rather than preschoolers failing because they can’t hold 2 ideas, failure may stem from a cognitive deficit
• Preschoolers have poor executive function skills and in order to succeed in ToM tasks they need these basic processing skills

Question 12

Individual differences in ToM

Answer 12

• Better language skills associated with better ToM skills
• The more you interact with others the more you understand that others have different thoughts/beliefs
• Autism involves a ToM impairment and find it difficult to deceive