Lecture 7 - Theory of mind

Question 1

What are the 3 definitions of the theory of mind?

Answer 1

• The ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others (Premack & Woodruff 1978)
• ‘Theory of mind underlies the ability to explain, predict and interpret actions and speech by attributing mental states - such as beliefs, desires, intentions and emotions - to oneself and to other people’ (Astington & Hughes 2013)
• This involves understanding alternative perspectives and decentring from egocentric representations (Piaget)

Question 2

Failures in theory of mind?

Answer 2

• Children need exposure and experience of the world to develop this
• A good e.g. is hide and seek
• Young children often stand in plain sight and cover their eyes
• Here they fail to appreciate others can see when they can’t

Question 3

What is false belief?

Answer 3

• the understanding that someone can have a different view to your own
• demonstrating false belief shows theory of mind

Question 4

The maxi task - Wimmer and Perner?

Answer 4

• children are told a story about a boy called Maxi, they see toy characters and cupboards too
• maxi’s puts chocolate into a cupboard but his mum moves it
• younger children can’t work out that Maxi doesn’t know it has moved – they can’t assign a false belief to him
• the conclusion is that Theory of Mind develops at 5 years or more

Question 5

Sally Anne task?

Answer 5

• Sally puts a ball in her basket
• Then she leaves
• Anne moves the ball to a box
• Where will Sally look for the ball?
• Results: 3 year olds fail but 4 year olds pass
• Conclusion: the Sally-Ann task suggests that the false belief aspect of theory of mind develops at 4 years

Question 6

The smarties task?

Answer 6

• Child sees Smarties tube
• E: “What’s in the box?”
• C: “Sweets”
• E shows C that it actually contains pencils
• E: “When your friend comes in I’m going to show her this box. What will she think is in the box?”
• C: 3 yrs: “pencils”. 4 yrs: “sweets”
• E: “What did you think was in the box before it was opened?”
• C: 3 yrs: “pencils”. 4 yrs: “sweets”
• Conclusion: The false belief aspect of ToM, and the ability to have insight into one’s own prior beliefs (‘representational change’) develop at 4 years

Question 7

What is the smarties task measuring?

Answer 7

• False belief: He thinks this is X but I think it’s Y
• Representational change: I once thought X but now I think Y
• Appearance-reality: This looks like X but in fact is Y
• Performance on a number of tasks suggests that there might be a universal, stage-like development of theory of mind at around 4-5 years

Question 8

What is a problem with these tasks?

Answer 8

• they aren’t straightforward as we have:
  -> multiple objects
  -> complex sentences
  -> people coming and going
  -> often run by an unfamiliar adult

Question 9

Woodward?

Answer 9

• looked at if infants attend to aspects of an action that are related to the goals of the actor
• a 9 month old baby watches a hand reaching for an object - then the hand reaches for the same object (goal) in a different location or a different object (goal) in the same location
• results: 9-month-olds look longer to the new goal than the new location, 5-month-olds do not show these effects
• conclusion: By 6-9 months, infants perceive not just movement paths, but the relation between an human agent and a goal
• they seem to infer the intentions of the actor (their mental state)

Question 10

False belief in infancy - Onishi & Baillargeon?

Answer 10

• Object moves into yellow box, and actor sees the move so has a true belief that it’s in the yellow box
• Object moves into yellow box & back to green, actor does not see the move, so has a false belief that it’s in the yellow box
• On the test trial, the infant either sees the actor look in the green box, or in the yellow box
• In the crucial false belief conditions, will she look longer if the actor looks in the correct box, or in the box where the actor thinks it is?
• Results: babies look longer if the actor looks in the correct box, they expected the actor to look in the incorrect box because they thought the actor had a false belief
• So 15 month olds can notice and learn that someone has a false belief (“it’s in the yellow box”), and use that to predict their behavior (“she should look in the yellow box”)
• If the actor’s behavior goes against that prediction (she looks in the green box), the baby seems surprised (looks longer)
• This study suggests that infants of 15 months possess theory of mind

Question 11

Dualist theory - Clements & Perner?

Answer 11

• looks at implicit vs explicit theory of mind
• implicit TOM emerges before 4 years, looking time, pretend play, deception
• explicit emerges at 4 years, verbal performance only

Question 12

The duple task?

Answer 12

• 3.5 year olds in this experiment, 80% failed the Smarties task, but 80% passed the Duplo task
• When the Duplo girl disappeared from the scene, 80% failed it, so keeping track of perspective is crucial
• When they made a verbal response, 80% failed it, so avoiding the pull of the real is crucial
• There is no discontinuity in development, but a perspective-tracking system present early on that is initially fragile, this argues against dualist theories