theory of mind

Question 1

define theory of mind (CITE)

Answer 1

the ability to understand the mental states of others and to use mental states to predict/explain behaviour (Premack & Woodruff, 1978)

Question 2

theories of theory of mind

Answer 2

modularity theory (Baron-Cohen, 1995)
theory theory (Wellman 1990) ?

Question 3

modularity theory (CITE)

Answer 3

the theory that at least some cognitive functions are facilitated by innate neural structures that have been honed and selected through evolution
- intentionality detector
- eye direction detector
- shared attention mechanism
- ToM mechanism
(Baron-Cohen, 1995)

Question 4

theory theory (CITE)

Answer 4

Theory-theory states that children naturally attempt to construct theories to explain their observations
Guessing this means he thinks autistic ppl dont
(Wellman, 1990)

Question 5

what leads to the development of theory of mind?

Answer 5

cognitive development
social interactionist
early sensitivity to mental states

Question 6

cognitive development

Answer 6

ToM is dependent on the development of general cognitive mechanisms
Inhibition - gains in false belief related to improvements in behavioural conrtol
working memory - allows one to one two representations in mind simultaneously

Question 7

social interactionist (CITE)

Answer 7

interactions with caregivers, siblings, peers facilitates the development of theory of mind
evidence: children from larger families do better on false belief tasks (Jenkins & Astington, 1996)

Question 8

early sensitivity to mental states (CITE TWO)

Answer 8

Bartsch & Wellman (1995) mental states feature in speech of 2 y/os
Meltzoff (1995) infants imitated intended rather than actual actions

Question 9

unexpected transfer tasks:

Answer 9

wimmer & perner (1983) a character leaves an object in one location and while they are outside the room the object is transferred to a new location

Question 10

deceptive box task

Answer 10

perner et al, 1987: Experimenters ask children to predict another child’s perception about the contents of a box that looks as though it holds a candy called “Smarties” (that actually includes a pencil)

Question 11

why do 3 y/os fail false belief

Answer 11

conceptual deficit
performance accounts
lack of information processing capacity

Question 12

conceptual deficits account (Why do 3y/os fail false belief tasks)

Answer 12

children lack a conceptual understanding of beliefs
often seen as part of a broader problem with understanding that one thing can be represented in different ways

Question 13

performance accounts (Why do 3y/os fail false belief tasks)

Answer 13

tasks underestimate children’s competence
3 y/os dont really understand narrative

Question 14

other factors influencing tom

Answer 14

amount of time spent interacting with adults (lewis et al 1996)
link between false belief success and having a greater number of siblings (perner et al 1994) especially older siblings (Jenkins & Astington, 1996)
language ability plays an important part in succeeding on false belief tasks (De villiers & De villiers, 2000)

Question 15

false belief and deception

Answer 15

3 y/os capable of deception (Lewis et al, 1989)

Question 16

Sally Anne task

Answer 16

marble box basket (Baron-Cohen et al 1985)

Question 17

unexpected contents (smarties) task

Answer 17

In the “Smarties”
unexpected contents task (Perner et al., 1987), the child is shown that a tube of
Smarties contains pencils rather than the expected sweets, and is then asked what
someone else, who has not seen inside the tube, will think is in there before it is
opened

Question 18

cognitive and affective ToM (CITE)

Answer 18

cognitive: inferring about beliefs and knowledge
affective: inferring about emotions
Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2010