lecture 8 - the development of theory of mind Flashcards
recap piaget
-three mountains task
-believed that children couldnt take on the perspective of another person until 6 years old.
-showed children (4-8) years old_ three models of mountains
-the child could explore the model from all angles
-child is asked what viewpoint can be seen by a viewer seated directly across from them
three mountains task findings
ages 4-5 struggle to answer
age 7 can reliably answer correctly
-therefore , children are egocentric until age 7
-they view the world only from ones own perspective
-inability to look at a situation from someone else’s perspective
criticisms of the three mountain task findings
- Children might lack the ability to imagine what the other viewpoint looks like
- Children might have perspective taking abilities before age 7
-they often used a doll and asked what it would look like from that perspective
-this may be a limitation and the child may not be able to take on the perspective of something thats not living
what does theory theory say
there is a theory about theories
Theory theory posits that children are “little scientists”
- Children are born with a tendency to form theories which help them make sense of the world
- Theories are non-scientific
- Children update their theories as they test them
theory theory - wellman and gelman 1998
the 4 blocks of theory theory
- Children divide the world into fundamentally different categories
- e.g., physical objects have a separate theory from the human mind
- Children understand that each domain involves different causes
* e.g., an object moves because it was hit by a different object that was moving; human behaviours are caused by intentions - There are distinctive underlying constructs in their understandings
* e.g., the mind consists of mental representations, but solid objects are composed of physical substances. - Concepts form a larger system
.* e.g., the desire for candy
intention to obtain candy a trip to the store
how do children test their theories
through play, instruction and observation
-just through experiencing life
why do we care about theory theory
Theory theory has led researchers to want to study how theories about the mind (i.e., “Theory of Mind”) develop:
- How does theory of mind develop?
- Is theory of mind cultural?
- What interactions advance theory of mind?
- Can theory of mind predict social behaviours in children?
- Do children believe that humans are different from other entities?
when do infants start to recognise that people are separate categories ?
- animate -inanimate distinction
-what is this, when do we see this in children
-is it uniform across cultures
The ability to detect whether an object is an animate or inanimate entity
- Demonstrates an ability to sort items in functional categories
- May serve an evolutionary purpose
- Manifests early in infancy (Rakison & Poulin-Dubois, 2001
)* Has neurological correlates (Caramazza & Shelton, 1998) - Uniform across cultures (Atran, 1999
what did piaget believe about person-object distinction
Piaget (1952):
* Believed that the distinction doesn’t develop until 8 months
when are children able to distinguish person-object
-conclusion and limitation
3-month-olds
- Show a looking-time preference for a person over:
- A musical mobile, toy monkey, manikin, toy doll
- 2-month-olds:
- Smile and coo for a person compared to a toy monkey
Infants might show the animate-inanimate distinction by 2 months!
* But these studies did not control for familiarity or activity of the human
study on person-object distinction whilst controlling familiarity and activity (legerstee et al 1987)
-describe the study
Longitudinal study of infants from 3 to 25 weeks of age, very long study
-tracked whether they liked these dolls or humans
* Presented infant with a doll vs. human
study on person-object distinction whilst controlling familiarity and activity (legerstee et al 1987)
-results of the study
- At 9 weeks – smiled more at human
- At 4 months – reached for doll more than human
When comparing persons vs objects, infants can detect a difference as young as 9 weeks when controlling for familiarity and activity!
case study - are people more special than other animals
-wintrop and kellog 1933
Raised Donald (son, 10 months) and Gua (chimp, 7 months) together
* Initial purpose: to examine if Gua would imitate Donald’s behaviours
- Findings
:* Donald imitated Gua’s crawling and food calls!
means infants had a preference for living things , but we don’t know whether or not Donald has a preference for humans
-remember we cant rely on case studies alone
study using a looking preference task
Heron-Delaney, Wirth & Pascalis (2011
-describe the study
-preferential looking task
-presented infants with a human face and a chimp face (which one do they prefer)
-another phase where the presented the human and full body and then chimp and full body
study using a looking preference task
Heron-Delaney, Wirth & Pascalis (2011
-findings of study
At 3.5 months
- Preference for human faces
- No preference between humans and primates for faces+body
- Did not examine infants younger than 3.5 months
theory of mind
Theory of Mind (ToM) :
the ability to imagine what other people are thinking, to predict their behaviour and intentions, to speculate about their beliefs and perceptions
understanding intentions
can infants understand someone elses intentions based on their actions?
-20-24 months
-12-14 months
exeriments
20-24 months
Asked to show an item to someone else
* Baby orients object towards other person (eg show me the teddy bear and child turns it there)
* Indicates understanding of other person’s intention to see the object
12-14 months
Adult turns gaze towards an object
* Infant follows adult’s gaze and will even move if there is a barrier
* Indicates understanding that there is something to see (rather than action imitation)
-do infants around 8-12 months understand intentions
intentions paradigm
-phases
1) habituation phase
infant habituated to adult reaching for a ball over a barrier (shown an adult reaching over a barrier to pick up something)
does infant understand the intention
2) test phase
-show infant two novel stimuli, one is the adult reaching for the object directly (A) (without the barrier) in the indirect reach without a barrier as well but picks up the ball going up and down (as if there is a barrier)(B)
possible hypothesis’ of the intentions paradigm
if infant Looking longer at A > B (novel stimuli!)
* Infant is look at the novel stimuli (no understanding of intentions)
- Looking longer at B > A
- Infant recognized that there was no need for adult to reach over an empty space (violates expectation)
- Infant understands the intention of the action
findings of the intentions paradigm experiment
-infants can / cannot detect purpose of action through the intentions paradigm ?
Looking at B > A
* Infant recognized that there was no need for adult to reach over an empty space (violates expectation)
* Infant understands the intention of the action
* Infant understood the goal, not simply the action
* As young as 8 months old!
Infants detect the purpose of actions through the intentions paradigm
representational understanding
-what is this
Understanding intentions is representational understanding
* i.e., the infant understands that the action represented a goal
false belief problems
Critical component: Understanding that others may hold beliefs that may be wrong
* Tests of false belief have been developed to assess this ability
false belief test
Child is presented with problems, in which another person believes something to be true that the child knows is false
Does the child think that the other person will act in accord with his/ her own false belief or with the child’s correct understanding of the situation?
Studying such situations reveals whether children understand that other people’s actions are determined by the contents of their own minds, rather than the objective truth of the situation or the child’s understanding of it
false beliefs - the unexpected transfer task
description
results
-in scene one child will see maxi put choc in the cupboard
-in scene 2 mum removes the choc and puts it in the fridge
“Where will Maxi look for the chocolate when he comes back?”
- 3-year-olds will answer “In the fridge” (child doesnt understand)
- Sharp increase in the number of children who answer correctly around the age of 4 years
- Finding is extremely robust:
- Review of 178 studies using different forms of the problem, different questions and societies(Wellman et al., 2001)
false beliefs - sally anne task
-sally has a basket
-anne has a box
-sally has a marble and puts it in the basket
-sally leaves
-anne gets the marble from the basket and puts it inside the box
-anne leaves
-sally comes back and wants to play with the marble ,where will sally look for the marble
-3 year olds cant figure this out- they cant answer that sally does know where the marble is- even though the child knows the truth they cant recognise that sally wont know the truth
false beliefs deceptive container tasks
-child is shown a smarties box and asked what’s inside
-then shown the contents , which are pencils and this violates their expectations because most children would say smarties
-the child is then asked if john will say is in the box,
- a 3 year old will say john will know there is pencils in the box
-4 year old will say smarties
false beliefs - in preschool years
- looking across cultures
Preschool years:* Children go from below-chance to above-chance performance on false-beliefs tasks
- Across cultures:
- Similar developmental trajectory of understanding of false beliefs
theory of mind - early development
- at what age to children understand that desires lead to actions
Children’s understanding that desires lead to actions is firmly established by age 2
* E.g. children predict that characters in stories will act in accord with their own desires, even when they differ from the child’s wishes
at age 2 do children understand that beliefs are likewise very influential?
2-year-olds show little understanding that beliefs are likewise influential
- By 3 years, children show some understanding of the relation between beliefs and actions and know how beliefs originate, but understanding is still very limited
theory of mind - age 4 and the conceptual shift
Age 4 – children negotiate a conceptual shift, a sudden understanding , new knowledge , the child now has a new ability
- Equips them with a representational ToM that allows them to acknowledge false belief
≠ Piaget: characterised children below about 7 years of age as egocentric
are there specific brain mechanisms that are devoted to understanding other human beings?
Researchers (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Leslie, 2000)
-evidence
Researchers (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Leslie, 2000)hypothesized brain mechanism devoted to understanding other human beings
* Matures over the first years, producing increasingly sophisticated ToM
- Supported by brain imaging studies showing consistent activation in certain areas of the brain in representing beliefs across different tasks
- Differ from those involved in other complex cognitiveprocesses
is there a role of general information processing skills and development in a child’s theory of mind development, rather than specific brain areas?
Other researchers (e.g. Perner) emphasize the growth of general information- processing skills and executive functions (EF) as essential to children’s ToM development
- Understanding false-belief problems correlates with ability to reason about complex counter factual statements and inhibition (e.g. Carlson et al., 2004; German & Nichols,2003)
- Studies suggest correlation between EF and ToM (e.g., Meta-Analysis Perner & Lang,1999)
- Longitudinal data suggests that EF at 3.3 years predicted False belief at 4.5 years(Hughes, 1998)
in conclusion what factors contribute to TOM development
- Experience
- Brain maturation
- Improved cognitive capacity
factors influencing development
-describe conceptual vs gradual change
Children seem to move onto a radically different level of understanding at about 4 years of age
* Suggests conceptual change
#
* However, evidence suggests that gradual changes occur with development and improve probability that the child will give a correct judgement depending on task demands
can the false belief test detect degrees of performance
False-belief test is incapable of detecting degrees of performance (they only pass or fail)
* Makes development appear as occurring in stages
* Instead of focusing on whether child passes/ fails test, enquire probability of the child passing at any given time
studies that look at how to detect small changes in children development of theory of mind across time
Evidence (e.g., Gopnik & Astington, 1988) that many children pass one test of false belief but fail another
- Giving correct judgement in one test does not guarantee future success (Mayes et al.,1996)
- Longitudinal studies indicate that number of false belief tests a child passes increases gradually with age (e.g., Flynn et al., 2004
influencing factor
-test conditions in the smarties task
3-years-olds succeed in Smarties task if experimenter tells them that they are going to play a trick on another child by hiding pencils in a Smarties box and ask the child to help him infilling the box with pencils (Sullivan & Winner, 1993)
Infants’ and children’s competence can often be underestimated by performance measures when they make too many demands on their abilities
Performance factors may mask early signs of ToM competence
influencing factors of TOM development - siblings
Siblings could be advantageous or disadvantageous for ToM development
- Child with many siblings would encounter the potentially beneficial experience of exposure to other points of view
- Potentially beneficial adult input would have to be divided
evidence that having siblings can impact a childs tom development
Children aged 3 years who had siblings were more likely to pass false belief test ;those with several siblings outperformed those with just one or two (Perner et al.,1994)
- Beneficial effect of having siblings was confined to those with only older siblings(Jenkins & Astington, 1996)
- Stronger effects for siblings of the opposite sex
Interacting with people whose interests, desires, and motives are different from their own broadens children’s understanding of the mind
influencing factors of TOM development - adults
Evidence that toddlers gain great deal from verbal explanations in psychological terms by mind minded parents explaining behaviour (Dunn et al.,1991)
- Individual differences in how mothers interacted with 33-month-olds, when mother read a book to child
-some mothers simply read the book
Some provided narrative on the actions of people or on the characters in pretend scenarios that included references to psychological motives and motives - Children tested for their ability to acknowledge false beliefs 6 months later
Children who were successful tended to have parents who had given explanations of behaviour with reference to psychological states and motives
influencing factors of tom development - child characteristics
Because social environment appears to influence ToM development, it does not follow that intrinsic characteristics of the child are unimportant
* Probably complex interaction between child and environmental factors
