Theory of Mind

Question 1

Theory of Mind (what is it)

Answer 1

Understanding the mental state of yourself and others

Appreciating the link between mental states and behavior

Question 2

Early abilities

Answer 2

Face-to-face interactions (2-3 month olds)
Joint attention (9 month olds)

Question 3

Intention sensitivity research

Answer 3

Meltzoff
Fumble a task, then ask 18 month old child to do it
Child will complete it successfully
Do much better when imitating humans vs machines

Question 4

Wellman theory- stages

Answer 4

Pretense (1.5 y/os +)
Desire Theory of Mind (2-3 y/os +)
Belief Theory of Mind (4-5 y/os +)

Question 5

Desire Theory of Mind- food preference procedure

Answer 5

Repacholi and Gopnik
14 ad 18 month olds
Experimenter expresses food preference opposite of child; asks “give me one”
14 month olds give what they like; 18 month olds give what the experimenter likes

Question 6

Belief Theory of Mind- representational change task

Answer 6

Shown candy box; actually has pencils inside
What did you think was inside before I showed you? what would other people think is inside?
3 y/os say pencils; 5 y/os say candy

Question 7

Belief ToM- Sally-Ann test

Answer 7

Sally puts down a marble and leaves
Ann moves it while she’s gone
Where would Sally look for the marble when she comes back?

Question 8

Belief ToM- mean monkey task

Answer 8

Mean monkey always picks your favorite sticker; which one do you tell him is your favorite?
Testing for deception/trickery

Question 9

Belief ToM- deception guessing game

Answer 9

Talwor and Lee
3-8 year olds
Child is turned around; experimenter plays with familiar toys and asks child to guess what they are
Leaves the room; tells child not to peek
Comes back; plays with Barney with unknown sound
Ask child who the toy is; how they know; if they peeked
6+ y/o children mostly give probable explanation for knowing
Ability to maintain lie strongly associated with strong performance on other Belief ToM tasks

Question 10

Executive function tests

Answer 10

Bear/Dragon test: do what nice bear says; ignore mean dragon (measure # of times child follows dragon)

Whisper task: show child photos of characters; ask them to whisper their names (measure # of times child yells)

Gift delay task: ask child to turn around while you wrap a present for them (grade on how much they peek)

Dimensional change card sort: ask child to sort cards based on either color or shape, then swap sorting rule

Question 11

Role of executive function in Theory of Mind acquisition

Answer 11

Necessary but not sufficient

Also need real-world interactions

Question 12

Theory of Personality- Boseovski 2006

Answer 12

3-6 year olds
Given variable amount of info about character (1-5 pieces); all either good or bad
Asked to make basic personality judgement
Kids always judge people as nice regardless of info amount
Takes 5 pieces of info to make mean judgement

Question 13

Theory of Personality- Boseovski 2012

Answer 13

3-7 year olds
Asked to listen to informants to make personality judgments with reliable and unreliable informants
Child always trusts informant who says person is nice, regardless of reliability and age of informant