Social Cognition: theory of mind Flashcards
theory of mind definition
our personal understanding of wat other people are thinking and feeling. it is sometimes called mind-reading
autism definition
broad term for a wide range of features. autistic people face challenge with social interaction/communication and repetitive /restricted behaviours. as a spectrum condition, autism affects people in different ways co-occurs with learning disability in some
sally-Anne study definition
uses the Sally-anne task to assess theory of mind. toi understand the story participants have to identify that sally will look for a marble in the wrong place because she does not know that Anne has moved it. Autistic children and very young non-autistic children find this challenging
what does theory of mind refer to
ability that each of us has to mind read or to have a personal theory of what other people know or are feeling or thinking. each of us have a theory of mind when we have a belief about what is in someone else’s mind
what methods of ToM are used
different methods are used at different points of development. the emergence of a simple ToM can be seen in toddlers by means of intentional reasoning research. more sophisticated ToM can be assessed in 3-4 year olds using false belief tasks. in older children and adults ToM has been tested with eyes task in which participants judge complex emotions with minimal information about facial expression
who did research on intentional reasoning in toddlers
Meltzoff
what did Meltzoff study show
evidence to show that toddlers aged about 18 months have an understanding of adult intentions when carrying out simple actions
intentional reasoning in toddlers - Meltzoff procedure
-children of 18 months observed adults place beads into a jar
-in experimental condition the adults appeared to struggle with this and some beads fell outside the jar
-in control condition adults placed beads successfully in the jar
intentional reasoning in toddlers - Meltzoff findings
-in both conditions toddlers did successfully place the ebads in the jar, they dropped no more beads in the experimental condition
-suggests the toddlers were imitating what the adult intended to do rather than what the adults actually did. this shows that very you g children have a simple ToM
why were false belief tasks developed
in order to test whether children can understand that people can believe something if it is not true
who first developed a false belief task
Wimmer and Perner
Wimmer and Perner false belief task - procedure
told 3-4-year olds a story in which Maxi left his chocolate in a blue cupboard in the kitchen and then went to the playground
-later, Maxi’s mum used some of the chocolate in her cooking and placed the reminder in the green cupboard
-children were asked where Maxi would look for chocolate when he comes back from the playground
Wimmer and Perner false belief task - findings and conclusions
-most 3 year olds incorrectly said he would look in the green cupboard because they are assuming that Maxi knows what they know (Mother moved the chocolate)
-however, most 4 year olds correctly identifies the blue cupboard
-suggests ToM undergoes a shift and becomes more advanced at around age of 4 year old
who did Sally-Anne task
Baron-Cohen et al
what type of task is Sally-Anne
false belief
Baron-Cohen at al Sally-Anne task - procedure
-given to 20 autistic children, 27 no-autistic children and 14 children with down syndrome (control groups)
-Sally places a marble in her basket
-when Sally is not looking, Anne moves her marble to her box
-children are asked were Sally will look for her marble
Baron-Cohen at al Sally-Anne task - findings
-85% of children in control groups correctly identifies where Sally would look for her marble
-only 4 autistic children (20%) were able to answer this
-Baron-Cohen et al argued this difference showed autism involved a ToM deficit and that this may in fact be a complete explanation for autism
why can the Sally-Anne study be used as an explanation of autism
-understanding Sally does not know where Anne has moved the marble requires an understanding of Sally false belief about where it is
-Baron-Cohen and colleagues have explored the links between ToM deficits and autism using false belief tasks
-much of the research has made use of Sally-Anne task
how can autism affect people
-many autistic people who do not have a learning disability have challenges with empathy, social communication and imagination but their language development may be relatively unaffected
what did studies of older autistic children and adults show (without a learning disability)
this group could succeed in false belief task
-this was a blow to the idea that autism could be explained by ToM deficits
what task did Baron-Cohen et al develop for assess ToM in adolescents and adults
eyes task
what does eyes task involve
reading complex emotions in pictures of faces just showing as small area around the eyes
Baron-Cohen et al findings for eye task
many autistic adults without a learning disability struggled with eyes task, supports idea that ToM deficits might be a cause of autism
limitation of theory of mind as an explanation for social cognition - false belief tasks
-reliance on false belief tasks of the theory
-hundreds of studies have made use of false belief tasks such as the Sally-Anne task, however, false belief tasks may have serious problems of validity (Bloom and German 2000). on reason for this is that false belief tasks require other cognitive abilities such as visual memory- failure on a false belief task may thus be due to deficit in memory rather than ToM. also some children who can engage successfully in pretend play, which requires some ToM ability, nonetheless find false belief tasks difficult –> this means that false belief tasks may not really measure ToM and therefore ToM lacks key research evidence
limitation of theory of mind as an explanation for social cognition - theory of mind vs perspective-taking
-research techniques fail to distinguish ToM form perspective taking
-perspective-taking and ToM are related but are actually different cognitive abilities. it can be very difficult to be sure we are measuring on and not the other. for example, in intentional reasoning tasks a child might be visualising the beads task form the adult perspective rather than expressing a conscious understanding of their intention. in Sally-Anne task a child might be switching perspective between Sally and Anne – means that with the exception of the eyes task, tasks designed to measure ToM may actually measure perspective-taking
strength of theory of mind as an explanation for social cognition - real-world application
-application into understanding autism
-test used to assess ToM are challenging for some autistic people, possibly because they may not fully understanding what other people are thinking. this in turn offers an explanation for why some autistic people find social interaction difficult (hard to interact with someone if you don’t have any sense of what they are thinking or feeling). in contrast, it is often assumed that most neurotypical people can pick up another person’s thoughts and feelings with little effort –> means that ToM research has real-world relevance
limitation of theory of mind as an explanation for social cognition - counterpoint to real-world application
-nevertheless ToM does not provide a complete explanation for autism. not every autistic person experiences ToM issues and ToM problems are not limited to only autistic people. Also a lack of ToM cannot explain all characteristics of autism such as cognitive strengths of autistic people –> means that there must be other factors that are involved in autism, and the association between autism and ToM is not as strong as first believed
evaluation of theory of mind as an explanation for social cognition - nature and nurture
-Perner et al suggested that ToM is an innate ability which develops alongside other cognitive abilities, largely as a result of maturity. this in line develops as we get older and the brain matures. Cross-cultural studies (such as Liu et al) have found a similar pattern of development of ToM abilities in different cultures
-In contracts, Wilde Astington suggest a more vygotskian explanation. she suggests ToM develops as a consequence of our interactions with others, and gradually the concept of ToM is internalised. the study by Liu et al noted that ToM abilities did not necessarily develop at the same age in different cultures, just in the same sequence
