Social Cognition

Question 1

Goal-directed:
- Teddy bear and ball VOE
- Velcro sticky mittens
- Experimenter uses cane to get toy

Answer 1

• 5 and 6 months
• 3 months
• 10 monthsa

Question 2

Imitation of goals
- Turn light on with head
- Actor succeeds/fails to take apart dumbbell
- Intentional or accidental ways to make bird feeder work

Answer 2

• 14 months
• 18 months
• 14-18 months

Question 3

Joint attention:
- Infants prompted to follow gaze of experimenter w/ eyes closed/open
- Learning identity of objects by pointing
- Fearful vs Happy expression visual cliff paradigm

Answer 3

• 9-11 months
• 12-18 months
• 12 months

Question 4

Protoimperative vs Protodeclarative

Answer 4

Infant wants object “Give me that”
Invitation for adult to share attention “Look at that”

Question 5

Conflicting desires:
- Broccoli and crackers

Answer 5

• 14 and 18 months

Question 6

Probability:
- Experimented prefers boring object over attractive

Answer 6

• 16 -29 months

Question 7

Discrepant beliefs:
- Sam’s incorrect belief about his dog’s location vs Character wants to find something

(Understanding others’ intentions but not representations)

Answer 7

• 2 years

Question 8

Theory of mind
Why do we test false beliefs?

Answer 8

Being able to attribute mental states to oneself and others
Understand that other have beliefs, desires, and intentions different from one’s own

Many people hold same true beliefs so it’s hard to tell if the child is representing someone else’s belief as distinct from their own

Question 9

False belief:
- Sally-Anne task
- Smarties

Problems?

Answer 9

• 3 and 5 years
• 3 and 4 years

Problems:
Task demands (following 2 characters, remembering locations, action-based/explicit tasks take longer)
Language

Question 10

Why 3 year old children fail on false belief tasks?
- Performance deficit
- Belief-specific deficit
- Domain-general deficit

Answer 10

Inhibitory control - Can’t stop themselves from blurting out right answer

Most beliefs are true- More evidence needed to prove people can have false beliefs

Struggle with meta-representations

Question 11

Implicit ToM:
- Belief-induction VOE (Agent doesn’t know watermelon moved boxes)
- Agent doesn’t see where item moved (Anticipatory moving)
- Help experimenter open box (Spontaneous helping)

Answer 11

• 15 months
• 2 years
• 1.5-2.5 years

Question 12

Naive utility calculus

Answer 12

Ppl don’t always pursue what they want if costs is larger than rewards

Question 13

Naïve utility calculus:
- Puppet chooses watermelon or banana
- Two puppets try novel fruits
- Tomato behind door

Answer 13

• 5 and 6 years
• 4 and 5 years
• 4 and 5 years