Theory of Mind Flashcards
Theory of Mind
The ability to interpret, predict, and explain the actions of others based on their internal mental states
- Beliefs, knowledge, desires, pretense
False beliefs:
beliefs that are outdated/not necessarily correct
Agent:
an entity capable of moving on its own, perceiving the environment around it, and interacting with that environment
Ex: People, Animals, Entities that (appear to) meet these criteria
Agents vs. Objects
Objects behave according to the laws of Newtonian physics
Agents violate some of these laws
Ex: Self-propelled motion
(Move themselves around)
React to internal mental states
(Goal-directed behavior)
Understanding Goals in Infancy
Study:
- Babies are habituated to the first image
- 2nd image: hand reaches in the same place, but the goal is different because they are grabbing the bear rather than the ball (Same trajectory, different goal)
Results:
- Infants looked longer at the surprising event
- Infants can keep track of goals!
6 month old infants infer goals
Study:
- Grasping hand (agent)
- Infants track the goal of hand
- Expect others to reach for what they “want” even in new places
Claw (non-agent)
- Infants track the motion path, not the goal
Understanding Goals: Imitation
Study: Do 18-month-olds imitate agents’ goals?
- The actor tries to pull apart the dumbbell, but failing
- The infants were given the dumbbell
- They imitated the goal the adult was trying to do/achieve
Results:
- Toddlers only imitate the person (agent), not the machine
- Imitate the person’s goal, not the motion pattern
- Imitation is based on the “rationality” of the action
Conflicting Representations: Different Goals/Desires
Study + Results:
- 18 month olds understand someone can want something different
Ex: The experimenter either says: “yum broccoli, yucky cracker” or “Ew broccoli, yummy cracker”
- 14 month old always gave cracker
- 18 month old gave what experimenter likes
Conflicting Representations: Pretense
- Children engage in and are entertained by, pretend play
- Emerges around 18-24 months
- Requires dissociating reality from an underlying mental state
Understanding Beliefs - False Belief Task Switched Location
Picture of a marble switching location when Sally walks away, where is the marble now?
The majority of 3 year olds fail, but 4 year olds pass
False Belief Task: Deceptive Box
What if you ask about one’s own beliefs?
Study: Deceptive Box of Smarties
- when you first saw this tube with a Smarties label, what did you think was in here?
Show them that they are wrong, it is a pencil
- Your friend is outside. If I show her this tube, what will she think is in there?
What will they ask the friend?
Results:
Conner (4-year-old) passed, but 3-year-old girl couldn’t separate her individual beliefs from others
Explaining the Shift in False Belief Performance
- Theory of mind concepts do not change , the ability to express the knowledge changes
- Change in performance
- 4 years of age has a conceptual shift
Development of Inhibitory Processing
Study:
-The child has to wait until the bell is rung to get M&M
Older kid waited
Younger kid ate M&M right away
- Clear developmental trend in inhibitory control
- Kids get better at inhibitory control as they get older
Reducing Inhibitory Demands: The ‘Look First’ Procedure
Study:
- Where will Sally look FIRST for her marble?
- Inhibitory demands are reduced when “first” is mentioned
- Can reduce inhibitory faster by just adding in the word “first”
- Saying “first” increases initial concentration to be stronger
Results:
- can turn 3-year-olds into 4-year-olds by saying “first”
- 3 year olds pass!
Reducing Inhibitory Demands: The ‘Posting’ (Mailing) Procedure
Study:
- boost strength of original belief
Results:
If salience of original belief is increased, and inhibitory demands are decreased, 3-year-olds will pass
Also can manipulate inhibitory demands and make 4-year-olds into 3-year-olds who don’t pass
False Belief in Infancy: Violation of Expectation
Study:
- 15 month olds
- Yellow and green boxes with objects inside
Results:
15 month of age babies show some ability to follow demands
Belief Understanding in Infancy: Other Findings
- 7 month olds attribute beliefs
- Use what others can see to interpret action (12.5-month-olds)
- False beliefs can be corrected by communication (18 month olds)
Theory of Mind Autism & Down Syndrome
- Children with autism fail the false belief task
(Deficit is specific to children with autism (Down Syndrome does not have the same difficulty)) - Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; average age = 11 years)
- Children with Down Syndrome (average age = 10 years)
False photograph task - Do children with autism fail the false belief task because they don’t understand mental states
Study:
(same structure as the false belief task, but does not involve mental states)
- Show Sally taking a picture of a cat on a bedroom chair
- Take out the photo, put it to the side, move the cat from the chair to the bed
- Ask: in the photograph, where is the cat?
Results:
Children with autism pass the false photograph task, but not the false belief task
Children with autism
- Difficulty with reasoning about beliefs (conceptual)
- Like typically developing 3-year-olds
- Difficulty with task demands (inhibitory control)
- Competence vs. performance difficulties in the theory of mind reasoning
Everyday Mindreading
- The ability to think about other people’s mental states starts early
Ex: Reasoning about, and imitating, other
people’s desires and intentions in infancy
Pretense
Belief reasoning in infancy and early childhood - False belief tasks as a test of mental state reasoning
Ex: Competence vs. Performance - Children with autism may have particular difficulties reasoning about other people’s mental states
