Theory of mind

Question 1

social cognition

Answer 1

allows us to INTERPRET & RESPOND to social info (communication, written, sharing space & interpretation of thoughts/ action)

Question 2

Theory of Mind

Answer 2

is a person’s ability to ‘attribute mental states (such as beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.) to [oneself] and other people, as a way of making sense of and predict behavior.’ (Premack & Woodruff, 1978)

Question 3

mental state?

Answer 3

beliefs, intentions, desires

Question 4

timeline of ToM development backed up by who?

Answer 4

Astington & Edward, (2010)

Question 5

12 months? ToM

Answer 5

Kristen et al. (2011) joint attention
- JA may scaffold the later consolidation of ToM
BUT
Shaw et al (2017): independent systems BUT their tasks allowed no verbal or physical connection - unlike real world

Question 6

2-3 years? ToM - pretense

Answer 6

1) Pretense:
- Jarrold et al. (1994) – lack of relationship BUT task was weird
- Bigham (2010) only included frequency of play & false belief task
- Chan et al. (2016) uses multiple ToM tasks & types of play assessed; found association - results show that the better ToM – better play

Question 7

2-3 years? ToM - intentions & desires

Answer 7

ToM & intentions = important roles in influencing each other (Karuppali &Bhat, 2011)
- Wellman (1990): when lacking ToM STILL able to predict act
BUT
Broekhof (2015)
- didnt account for the fact the child may add in their own desires
- ASD added in their own desires to predict actions
- can’t appreciate subjectivity of desires
ALSO
- can see when a behaviour happens by accident (i.e. lack of intention) BUT NOT intention from social sharing

Question 8

4+ TOM

Answer 8

• “Realization of false belief tasks” i.e. sally anne & smarties

Question 9

criticism of false belief tasks & studies showing otherwise (4)

Answer 9

1) misinterpret the question & Lewis & Osbourne, 1990
2) burden of immature processing skills i.e. memory & reasoning & (Flavell & Miller, 1998)
3) may not be ToM deficit but a language & attentional deficit (Mauchley (2016) & Korkiakangas et al. 2016)
4) more to tasks than ToM 2 year olds have partially ToM

Question 10

Is ToM universal?

Answer 10

Liu et al. (2008) - chinese vs american meta-analysis = universal
Shahaeian et al (2013) - culturally appropriate smarties task was used = overall ToM skill was universal but constituents of ToM weren’t
AND
Su & Wang (2008) - diff times

Question 11

Do parent affect ToM?

Answer 11

Talk about cognition was significantly correlated with ToM - Slaughter et al. (2007)
BUT
it isn’t that simply talk of it - maybe maternal sensitivity (Harris 2005)
BUT
Taumoepeau & Ruffman (2006) - accounted for sensitivity & found it was the talk that predicted

Question 12

Do siblings affect ToM?

Answer 12

Shaheaian (2015) - iranian
- Having sibling or coming from a certain size family = not predictors BUT they dont allow arguments (belief undrstanding)
AND
no. of days spent = significant (quality of play NOT just having siblings, Mizokawa & Komiya (2014)

Question 13

Why do we need ToM?

1) deception

Answer 13

1) deception
Talwar & Lee (2008)
BUT 
Wilson et al. (2003)
BUT
El Haj et al. (2017)

Question 14

why do we need ToM? social relationships

Answer 14

1) Slaughter et al. (2015) meta-analysis: more popular = higher ToM
(small effect size)
*BUT: all lit looks at positive*
2) Hughes & Leekam (2004)
- NEG & POS

Question 15

ToM and bullying

Answer 15

1) Sutton, smith & Swettenham (1999)
- ringleaders have superior
2) Gasser & Keller (2009)
- distinction
3) Dijk et al. (2017)
- motives vs aggression
- different measure
- no difference
4) Shakoor et al. (2012)
- difference in longitudinal
- build up of poor ToM effects

Question 16

Baron-cohen, leslie & frith 1985

& later hypothesis

Answer 16

ToM hypothesis:

• children with autism showed poor understanding of false belief tasks
  (2002) - male brain: systematising > empathy

Question 17

eval of Baron cohen
False belief probs (2)
Earlier diagnosis
pass rate of 20%?
Bias in diagnosis

Answer 17

• language deficit (Korkiakagas et al. 2016)
• more to these tasks that ToM: working memory, JA, pretend play (Mauchley, 2016)
• can diagnose children earlier than 4 (Zwaigenbaum, 2010)
• strategies can be learnt from ASD (Ghim et al. 2014)
• men more likely to be diagnosed - women display symps diff (Gould & Ashton-smith, 2011)