lecture 8 - the development of theory of mind Flashcards

Question

false beliefs - sally anne task

Answer 1

-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

Answer 2

-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

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

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

Answer 8

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)

Answer 9

* Experience * Brain maturation * Improved cognitive capacity

Answer 10

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

Answer 11

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

Answer 12

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

Answer 13

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

Answer 14

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

Answer 15

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

Answer 16

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

Answer 17

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