Ontogeny of mentalising: Development of Theory of Mind Flashcards
describe how Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) investigated implicit FB understanding in 15 month old infants?
- violation of expectancy method
- familiarise infant to event
- present test behaviour that is consistent/inconsistent with prior event
- infants look longer at inconsistent event
- indicates some level of knowledge about what should happen
what is theory of mind?
- the insight that people hold mental states and these govern behaviour (beliefs, desires, goals)
- allows us to make sense of the social world and predict and explain other’s actions
what is a desire based theory of mind?
people’s desires are idiosyncratic (personal to themselves) and constantly changing
describe results of the broccoli/crackers study by Repacholi & Gopnik (1997)
- 18 month old but not 14 month old children understood experimenter’s desired food (broccoli) differed from theirs (crackers)
- suggests they understand desire is subjective mental state than can differ from person to person
what is a belief based theory of mind?
- distinction between mind/world (reality)
- requires notion that person has representation of world, the contents of which may be different from contents of world itself or from our own beliefs
- shift from a situation based to representation based understanding of behaviour
describe the false belief task?
- tests whether child can represent what another person believes in contrast to their own beliefs or reality
what are two false belief tasks?
1) unexpected transfer task, also known as Maxi-Chocolate task and Sally-Ann task
2) deceptive box task, also known as Smarties task
describe the unexpected transfer or Maxi task method (Wimmer & Lerner, 1983)
- maxi puts his chocolate in cupboard
- while maxi is out playing, his mum takes chocolate from cupboard and grates some it it into a cake
- mum puts his chocolate in the fridge
- maxi is returning from play, he wants his chocolate
- where will he look for his chocolate?
- had various questions assessing child’s memory too
how will children answer the question ‘where will maxi look for his chocolate?’ if they don’t have an understanding of theory of mind?
they will say maxi will look in fridge or respond randomly
what are the results of the unexpected transfer task/maxi chocolate task (Wimmer & Lerner, 1983)
- 5+ year olds judge maxi will look for chocolate where he put it (ToM)
less than 5 years judge - maxi will look where they will look (fridge) - egocentric response
describe the sally-ann task (Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985)
- sally puts a block in box
- ann puts block in basket while sally is away
- asks ‘where will sally think the block is when she comes back?’
what were the results of Gopnik & Astington (1988) replication of the deceptive box task?
3-4 year olds have difficulty acknowledging false belief in others and own prior false belief once know what is inside smarties tube
are the findings of the deceptive box task consistent with the maxi-task and sally-ann task?
yes:
- 3 year old children usually fail FB tasks
- 4 year old children usually pass FB tasks
- however individual differences
why may the false belief task be a problem with language?
- temporal marking (children focus on the word WHERE when asked - where will maxi look for the chocolate, and immediately say where it is)
when the test question of the unexpected transfer task was altered to “where will maxi look first of all” (Siegal & Beattie, 1991), did this improve task performance?
yes but not dramatically, not enough to reveal underlying competence
what 2 ways has the unexpected transfer task been altered to simplify the task?
- alter question “where will maxi look first of all?” (Siegal & Beattie, 1991)
- check children’s story comprehension as it progressed (Lewis et al., 1994)
in Wellman, Cross & Watson’s (2001) meta-analysis of 178 studies, what did they find support for?
substantial developmental effect over preschool years:
- less than 3.5 years = children tend to fail FB
- over 4 years, children tend to pass FB
Wellman, Cross & Watson’s (2001) meta-analysis of 178 studies revealed which task variables improved performance on FB tasks?
- deceptive motive (person moving object was trying to deceive other)
- active participation (when child helped move object)
- salience of mental state (thought bubble showing mental state of characters)
however, they did not dramatically improve performance
are the results of FB tasks universal (Callaghan et al., 2005)?
yes, in Peru, India, Samoa, Canada:
- children systematically fail at 3 years
- majority of children transition at 4 years
- children systematically pass at 5 years
- support for universality of developmental shift between 3-5 years
what 2 factors contribute to ToM development?
1) social experience aids understanding of mental states (arises from interactions from others)
2) biological maturation (enables children to express understanding of mental states, arises from improvement in executive functioning)
how does biological maturation contribute to ToM development?
enables children to express understanding of mental states, arises from improvement in executive functioning
how are conversations crucial for exposing children to other people’s perspectives and ToM? (Harris, 1999)
- learn that other people have different internal worlds that differ from our own & reality
- provide children with vocab needed to discuss & reflect on mental states (the word thought)
do children with older siblings show an earlier or later ToM development? (Perner, Ruffman & Leekham, 1994)
earlier ToM - additional exposure to another child’s desires/mental states
what children show a developmental lag on FB tasks (Peterson & Siegel, 1995)
deaf children of hearing parents - own sign language tends to be basic, less exposure to sign language that talks about mental states
