Ontogeny Of Mentalising Flashcards
Is development stage like
–Evidence from traditional FB task and its modifications
–Evidence from FB tasks using implicit measures
–Evidence of overapplication of ‘ToM rules’ in older children
Factors contributing to theory of mind development
Executive fu ctioning
What is theory of mind
The insight that people hold mental states and that these govern behaviour
Examples of mental states
belief, desire, goals, etc..
What does a theory of mind do
Allow us to make sense of the social world – to predict and explain people’s actions
Desire based theory of mind
- People’s desires are idiosyncratic and constantly changing
* Do children understand that other people may have desires that differ from theirs?
People’s desires are
Idiosyncratic and constantly changing
Desire based theory of mind
Repacholi and Gopnik 1997
- 18m but not 14m understood that the experimenter’s desired food differed from theirs
- Suggests they understand that desire is a subjective mental state that can differ from person to person
Belief based theory of mind
- Distinction between mind / world
- Requires the notion that a person has a representation of the world, the contents of which may be quite different from the contents of the world itself
- Shift from a situation-based to a representation-based understanding of behaviour
A belief based theory of mind requires the notion that a person as a
Representation of the world, the content of which may be quite different from the contents of the world itself
A belief based theory of mind is a shift from
A sitiauation based to a representation based understanding of behaviour
False beliefs tasks include
- Unexpected transfer task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)
- Deceptive box task (Gopnik & Astington, 1988)
- State change test (Wimmer & Hartl, 1991)
Unexpected transfer task is a false belief task used by
Simmer and Perner 1983
Gopnik and Astington 1988 used what false belief task?
Deceptive box task
The state change test was used by who as a false belief task
Simmer and Hartl 1991
Interpreting the findings
•3 year old children usually fail FB tasks
•4 year old children usually pass FB tasks
Traditionally taken as evidence that around this time children ‘acquire’ a theory of mind
•I.e. Radical conceptual shift and stage-like development around 4 years
•But perhaps the FB task underestimates younger children’s ability?
3 year old children usually…
Fail false belief tasks
4 year old children usually….
Pass false belief tasks
At 4 years old children acquire a
Theory of mind
Radical conceptual shift and stage like development occurs
Problem with FB tasks?
Could underestimate younger children’s ability
Performance on any cognitive task reflects at least 2 factors
Competence
Performance
Definition of competence and performance,
- Competence = conceptual understanding required to solve the problem
- Performance = other cognitive skills required to access and express understanding (e.g. ability to remember key info, focus attention, comprehend the question)
Perhaps younger children can showe better performance when…
The tasks are simplified
Do we KNOW that 3 year olds don’t have theory of mind
•lack of positive evidence doesn’t necessarily mean lack of competence
•Performance limitations masking children’s competence?
•problem with language?
–temporal marking
–test question – “where will maxi look first of all?”
(Siegal & Beattie, 1991)
–story comprehension (Lewis et al. 1994)
•Simplifying the task improves performance but not dramatically – *see ch in Mitchell & Ziegler for summary
3 year olds and theory of mind Iissue
Lack of positive evidence doesn’t necessarily mean lack of competence
Performance limitations masking children’s competence
Problem with lanaguage and 3 year olds theory of mind
–temporal marking
–test question – “where will maxi look first of all?”
(Siegal & Beattie, 1991)
–story comprehension (Lewis et al. 1994)
Problems with language and 3 year olds TOM Siegel and Beattie 1991
Question “where will Maxi look FIRST OF ALL
Problems with language and 3 year olds TOM Lewis et al 1994
Story comprehension
Mitchell and Ziegler 3 year olds and Tom: simplifying the task…
Improves performance,ace but not dramatically
The big debate includes
Boosters vs Scoffers
Boosters
‘Boosters’
•Early onset view
•Early Competence
- Posits:
- Early competence is masked by performance limitations
- task manipulations may enhance performance
- 3yr.o. should be able to perform above chance
Scoffers
- Delayed onset view
- Conceptual change
- Posits:
- performance must change from incorrect to systematically above chance
- Developmental change on FB tasks reflects genuine conceptual change
Wellman Cross and Watson 2001
Meta analysis of 178 studies
•Support for substantial developmental effect over preschool years:
30mos: 80% incorrect
44mos: 50% correct
56mos: 75% correct
Greater than 3.5 years below chance
Less than 4 yrs above chance
Factors affecting Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001:
meta-analysis of 178 studies
- Which task variables make a difference?
- Type of task/question, nature of protagonist/object irrelevant
- Deceptive motive, active participation and salience of mental state improve performance
Wellman et al (2001) conclude that their findings are
More in line when the conceptual change (scoffers) account
- Although manipulating several variables improved performance, this was the case across all ages rather than just younger children –not selectively unmasking early competence
- None of the variable manipulations improved performance of 3yos above chance
Callaghan et al 2005
Universality
Cross Cultural Comparisons
Despite leading very different lives children in industrialized societies and those in more rural societies show similar developmental shift between 3 and 5 years
Factors contributing to Theory of Mind development
- Role of social experience in aiding understanding of mental states –arises from interactions from other people
- Biological maturation enables children to express their understanding of mental states – arises from improvement in executive functioning
Harris 1999
Role of experience
- Conversations in general are crucial for exposing children to other people’s perspectives
- They provide children with the vocabulary needed to discuss and reflect on mental states
Perner, Ruffman, & Leekham, 1994; Ruffman, Perner, Naito, Parkin, & Clements,1998)
Role of experience
Children with older siblings show earlier ToM
Dunn et al., 1991; Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002)
Role of experience:
Children whose parents talk about mental states more understand false belief earlier than other children
Peterson & Siegel, 1995
Role of experience:
Deaf children of hearing parents show a developmental lag on FB taks
Peterson & Siegal, 1999)
•In contrast, deaf children of signing parents are comparable with hearing children
Theory of mind scale
Wellman and Liu 2004
- Diverse Desires: people can have different desires for the same thing
- Diverse Beliefs: people can have different beliefs about the same situation
- Knowledge-access: something can be true, but someone might not know that
- False Belief: something can be true, but someone might falsely believe something different
Wellman and Liu 2004
Diverse desires
people can have different desires for the same thing
Wellman and Liu 2004
Diverse beliefs
people can have different beliefs about the same situation
Wellman and Liu 2004
Knowledge access
something can be true, but someone might not know that
False belief
Wellman and Liu 2004
something can be true, but someone might falsely believe something different
Wellman et al 2006
Cross cultural differences
•Children in Western countries:
DD>DB>KA>FB>HE
•Chinese and Iranian children:
DD>KA>DB>FB>HE
Thought to be related to differences in cultural values: collectivist vs. individualism
The role of executive functioning
•Children’s failures on ToM tasks may stem not from pure conceptual limitations but rather from problems translating conceptual knowledge into successful action
critical role of executive functions in ability to pass ToM tasks
Children’s failures on the theory of mind d tasks may stem not from pure conceptual limitations but rather …
From problems translating conceptual knowledge into successful action.
Executive functions
A set of domain-general cognitive abilities that help us to control and guide our attention and behaviour
E.g. Using card machine
Executive functions
Inhibition.
•Ignoring distracting information or suppressing unwanted responses
•Real life
–Stop yourself reaching for that bar of chocolate!
Executive functions
Cognitive flexibility
•Responding to the same thing in different ways depending on the context
•Real life
–Multiple passwords/pin numbers
Executive functions
Working memory
- Holding important information or your ‘goal’ in mind.
- Manipulating information in your head
- Real life
- Mental shopping list
- Mental arithmetic
- In the lab
- Digit span
- Spatial span
The role of executive function in false belief tasks
•EF skills are clearly necessary for successful performance on false belief tasks. E.g.:
- cognitive inhibition to disengage from a salient real-world situation to attend to an intangible abstract representation
- response inhibition to inhibit a prepotent or habitual way of responding (i.e., pointing to the ‘‘true’’ location of the object)
- working memory to indicate the correct answer while holding in mind two different and conflicting representations
The frontal lobes of the brain are very important for. ..
Diamond and Taylor 1996
Executive functions
•They take a long time to develop
•Important developments in Inhibitory control (IC) take place in the first 6 years of life, with marked improvement between age 3 and 6
Carlson and Moses2001
Sabbagh et al 2007
The role of EF in false belief tasks
Evidence of strong positive correlation between children’s inhibitory control (e.g. on Bear/Dragon task) and FB performance
•Suggests that: development in IC and ToM may be related
•IC may be a crucial enabling factor for ToM development, possibly affecting both the emergence and expression of mental state knowledge.
Carlson and Moses 2001
What is related?
IC and TOM
IC may be a crucial enabling factor for TOM development, possibility affecting both the…
Emergence and expression of mental state knowledge
Children with explicit and implicit judgement
Above task requires child to make an explicit judgement about another’s mental state
Do children demonstrate earlier, implicit understanding of belief?
Levels of knowledge
•Explicit knowledge
–knowledge easily accessible to the child
–Measure via elicited response, e.g. verbal answer to a question
•Implicit knowledge
–Knowledge the child is unaware of
–Measure via spontaneous response, e.g.:
•Emotional response (Moll, Kane & McGowan, 2016)
•Anticipatory looking (Clements & Perner, 1994)
•Violation of expectancy (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005)
Explicit knowledge
–knowledge easily accessible to the child
–Measure via elicited response, e.g. verbal answer to a question
Implicit knowledge
–Knowledge the child is unaware of
–Measure via spontaneous response, e.g.:
•Emotional response (Moll, Kane & McGowan, 2016)
•Anticipatory looking (Clements & Perner, 1994)
•Violation of expectancy (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005)
Implicit understanding of FB
Moll et al 2016
- Investigated children’s facial expressions as indices of their belief understanding
- Predicted that if 3 yos are aware of the conflict between a person’s belief and reality, they will show signs of suspense (e.g. lip biting and brow furrowing) when observing an actor about to act on basis of their false belief
Implicit understanding of FB Moll et al 2016 results
Results:
•Found greater instances of expressed tension in the false belief cf. true belief condition
•Suggests 3 yos were aware of another’s false belief and recognised the affective consequences of the false belief
•In contrast, children’s performance on a classic FB task was poor and unrelated to the amount of expressions they displayed while watching the FB videos
suggests expressions are independent from and emerge prior to explicit knowledge of false beliefs.
Implicit understanding of FB
Clements and Perner 1995
Aim and Method
- Aim: to get evidence for a period of implicit understanding of FB that precedes the onset of explicit understanding
- Method: Tested 44 children aged 2y5m – 4y6m on ‘unexpected transfer task’
–Implicit measure – anticipatory looking
–Explicit measure – standard verbal response
Younger kids show
Non verbal Fb understanding
But these tasks may draw on different levels of knowledge (implicit vs explicit)
Children may sometimes overapply …
Theory of mind rules
Adults are not as good at
Mentalising as we might assume
Sodian and Wimmer 1987
Ruffman 1996
Over application of rules
•cannot see, but •children aged <6yrs: “it was an m&m” •would someone else (with the same info) know it was an m&m? •“No” – show inference neglect
Over application of not seeing = not knowing the rule? Knowledge through inference without awareness
Evidence for access rule
Wimmer et al 1988
–3-4 yr olds attribute knowledge to observer who sees or is told content of a container and
–ignorance to observer with neither informational access
Evidence for No Access Rule ( over application)
Ruffman 1996
–Attribute ignorance of observer who has not seen/being told even if the observer has some other source of information about event
–Ignore non-visual sources of info (logical inference)
Theory of mind rules
3
Theory - Theory = Gopnik and Wellman 1992
Access rule = Wimmer et al 1988
No Access Rule (Overapplication) = Ruffman 1996
Theory - Theory (TOM Rule) Gopnik and Wellman 1992
children’s understanding of mind resembles a scientific theory
–Form and revise coherent set of rules
–Failure due to incorrect or misapplied rules
•evidence that children:
–initially understand the relationship between seeing and knowing and rigidly follow:
seeing/being told = knowing (Access Rule),
–then overextend rule to form the rule that:
not seeing or not being told = ignorance
(No-Access Rule)
–Overapplication?
I walk -> I walk-ed, I run -> I run-ed
Heyes 2014 comment
argues that infants may represent the events in these experiments as “colours, shapes and movements rather than as actions on objects by agents”
Clements and Perner 1994 experiment
Implicit understanding of FB
Note: control condition – true belief task
Anticipation prompt:
“Sam is waking up. He’s going to get his cheese. I wonder where he’s going to look”
<2 sec pause – record child’s eye gaze> = Indirect Measure
Test Question: “Which box will he open first?” = Direct Measure
Implicit understanding of FB
Clements and Perner 1994
Results
- 86% children over 2y11m showed looking pattern indicative of FB understanding
- Only 1 child under 2y11m
Wiesmann et al 2017
Dissociation of implicit - explicit understanding of belief
- 3yr olds looked to correct location even though gave incorrect answer!
- Large gap between implicit and explicit understanding from 2y11m
Data suggest that children develop an implicit or unconscious understanding of false belief at an earlier age than they develop an explicit or conscious understanding
Southgate, Senju and Csibra (2007)
Action Anticipation through Attribution of
False Belief by Two-Year-Olds
•Used anticipatory looking
•Earlier FB understanding than Clements & Perner (1994) may be due to methodological differences e.g.:
–Non-verbal prompt
–Toy is removed from the scene to avoid “reality bias”
Surian Caldi Sperber 2007
Supporting evidence
Evidence of infants’ FB understanding using an active behavioural measure rather than looking time, see Buttlemann et al. (2009)
Onishi & Baillargeon (2005)
Even earlier false belief understanding in infancy?
•Used a totally nonverbal task to test for implicit FB understanding in 15 month old infants
•Violation of expectancy method
Summary:
significantly longer looking when expectation violated, i.e., actor’s action inconsistent with actor’s belief:
- when actor reaches in wrong box when has true belief belief, or
-reaches in right box, when actually has false belief
- suggests infants expect people to search for objects consistent with their beliefs about the object location, not where the objects are in reality
- Evidence that ToM is inborn?
Looking time studies with infants:
Violation-of-expectancy method
•Familiarise infant to an event
•Present test behaviour that is either:
–Consistent
–Inconsistent
With the prior event
•If infant looks longer at inconsistent event taken as evidence that they are surprised
•Indicates some level of knowledge about what should happen
According to the ‘early onset account’ results with infants provide evidence for early
FB understanding when using spontaneous-response tasks
•Suggests ToM development is gradual
•Pre-schoolers’ difficulty with traditional elicited response tasks stem primarily from immature executive function processes - inability to inhibit responding on the basis of own perspective
•This is supported by evidence of correlations between inhibitory control measures and false belief
