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Developmental Psychology > Theory of Mind > Flashcards

Theory of Mind Flashcards

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1
Q

How do we make sense of others’ behaviour?

A

We try and figure out what someone is trying to do, what they want to do and what they are thinking

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2
Q

What does making sense of other peoples’ behaviour require?

A

That we view others’ as intentional agents - we do things to achieve goals/cause things to happen
An ability to take another person’s perspective

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3
Q

What is the Theory of Mind?

A

Attributing (unobservable) mental states (thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, intentions) to others

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4
Q

Who created the Theory of Mind?

A

Premack & Woodruff (1978)

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5
Q

A big part of ToM is the understanding that people’s desires, beliefs and thoughts about the world can be…

A

Different to our own

Wrong (a false belief)

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6
Q

What is ToM important for?

A 
Understanding literature 
Intentional communication with others
Repairing failed communication with others 
Teaching others 
Persuading others 
Deceiving other people 
Building and sharing plans and goals 
Pretending
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7
Q

What is a crucial test of ToM in children?

A

The ability to attribute false beliefs

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8
Q

Standard false belief task

A

Character A places an item in box A
Without character A knowing, the item is moved to box B by character B
Child asked where will character A look for the item

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9
Q

Results of standard false belief task

A

Is the child able to attribute the false belief to the character and say box A, where they originally put the item

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10
Q

Who did the standard false belief test?

A

Wimmer & Perner (1983)

Frith (2003)

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11
Q

‘Sally-Anne’ false belief task (Frith, 2003)

A

Sally has a basket
Anne has a box
Sally has a marble, she puts it in her basket and leaves
Anne takes the marble and puts it in her box
Where will Sally look for the marble?

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12
Q

Results of Sally-Anne test

A

To succeed, the child must separate their own (true) belief from other peoples and attribute a false belief to Sally
4 year olds tend to pass
3 year olds tend to fail

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13
Q

Sabbath et al (2006)

A

The pattern of ToM performance is reported across the globe

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14
Q

Avis & Harris (1991)

A

Even children living in remote rainforests in Cameroon report the same pattern of performance in the ToM task

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15
Q

The Smarties Test Part A (Perner, Leekam & Wimmer, 1987)

A

A child is shown a smarties tube and asked what is inside
Naturally they say smarties
But then they are shown pencils inside
Then asked what they think another child who hasn’t seen inside will say

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16
Q

The Smarties Test Part A results

A

3 year olds say pencils (their current understanding)

4 year olds say smarties (what they know the other children understand)

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17
Q

The Smarties Test Part B

A

Children are asked what they would have thought was inside the smarties tube if they hadn’t seen inside

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18
Q

The Smarties Test Part B results

A

3 year olds fail as they have a poor understanding of even their own beliefs
4 year olds pass

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19
Q

At what age can children use the idea of false beliefs to predict when a person will be surprised?

A

5 years old

Hadwin & Perner (1991)

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20
Q

Tommy test

A

Told about a boy called Tommy who loves chocolate and his mum bought him some smarties
The experimenter replaced the smarties with jelly babies
Asked what Tommy would think is inside and asked to choose a neutral or surprised facial expression

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21
Q

Tommy test results

A

4 and 5 year olds knew that Tommy would look at the box and think there were smarties in it
Only 5 year olds were able to say that Tommy would be surprised

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22
Q

What does this anecdote show?

Sarah (age 3): ‘Mummy, go out of the kitchen’

Mum: ‘Why?’

Sarah: ‘Because I want to take a cookie.’

A

Young children don’t understand that they need to deceive someone (deprive them of knowledge) if they want something they are not allowed

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23
Q

Sticker study (Peskin, 1992)

A

Children asked to pick a sticker they liked and one they didn’t like
They were also introduced to a nasty puppet who would take away the sticker that they liked
They were then asked by the puppet which sticker they liked

24
Q

Sticker study results

A

3 year olds didn’t spontaneously deceive, even if this meant that the puppet took away their favourite sticker
This happened even after practise and much frustration (they don’t realise that they can instil false beliefs in others)
4 year olds don’t deceive spontaneously but realise after a few go’s at losing the sticker
5 year olds can spontaneously deceive to avoid losing the one they like

25
Q

ToM seems to be _____ related to the ability to lie

A

Causally

26
Q

Ding et al (2015)

A

Trained ToM skills in 3 year olds or trained them on physical concepts (control)
Those in ToM group were more likely to lie after training

27
Q

What age does ToM develop?

A

Develops on false belief tasks around 4 (Wellman et al, 2001)

28
Q

ToM in infancy - understanding others as intentional agents (Woodward, 1998)

A

Infants first shown a scene repeatedly until they start to look away
The location then switches and they are shown scene A or B (scene A is a new goal and scene B is the same goal)

29
Q

Understanding others as intentional agents results (Woodward, 1998)

A

6 month olds look longer at scene A when the actor reaches towards a different object
3 month olds do not do this

30
Q

Sticky mitten intervention (Sommerville, Woodward, Needham, 2005)

A

3 month olds looked longer when the actors goal changed than infants without the intervention
The intervention leads them to produce more goal directed actions
Experience may facilitate the understanding of intentions

31
Q

Toddlers - understanding mental states (Leslie, 1987)

A

Two year olds seem to understand that their thoughts can be different from the state of reality (shown through pretend play)
Three year olds have an awareness that thought exists, they understand mental entities have different properties to physical ones (you can’t touch a dream) (Estes, Wellman & Woolley, 1989)

32
Q

From what age do children use words like ‘know’ and ‘think’

A

Age 3

33
Q

What does using two cognitive state words together show?

A

An understanding of contrasting mental states (reality vs belief)

34
Q

Food bowl experiment (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997)

A

An experimenter presents two bowls of food, crackers and broccoli
The child tastes them and states what they prefer
Then the experimenter tastes them and presents either a disgusted or happy facial expression
They then ask for more and hold out their hand

35
Q

Food bowl experiment results

A

18 month olds give experimenters preferred food regardless of their own personal preference
14 month olds give their own preferred food

36
Q

If a child learns that a character thinks books are only on the shelf, not in the top box…

A

Children will guess that the character will look only on the shelf, even if the child themselves knows that the books are in the toy box too (Wellman, 1990)

37
Q

Understanding of ____ beliefs seems to be easier than understanding _____ beliefs

A

Incomplete

False

38
Q

Which building blocks of ToM begin to form early in development?

A 
Others are intentional agents 
Mental states exist 
Other people have beliefs 
Other people have desires that may be different to ours 
People may act on incomplete beliefs
39
Q

ToM in infancy - false beliefs

A

Infants see an actor reach in a green box for an object repeatedly
The location of the boxes is then switched and the actors eyes during the switch are either covered (false belief) or not covered (control)
The actor then reaches for the object in the same green box or a yellow box (different box, same location)

40
Q

Infancy false beliefs results

A

Infants look longer in the true belief condition when the actor reaches to the wrong box (because the actor saw the switch, they should know that it has moved location)
Infants also look longer in the false belief condition when the actor reaches to the right box (because the actor didn’t see the switch, they should still reach in the same location and so reach for the yellow box)

41
Q

What does the infancy false beliefs test show?

A

That infants understand both that people act on the basis of their beliefs; and that these beliefs can be false

42
Q

Why do children perform badly and infants do well?

A

There may be two systems for ToM

43
Q

What are the two potential systems for ToM?

A

Implicit ToM

Explicit ToM

44
Q

Implicit ToM

A

This is innate or very early learned
Without awareness
Children maintain this skill but can’t express it verbally

45
Q

Explicit ToM

A

Learned more slowly and with awareness

46
Q

Theory-Theory of ToM (Wellman, 1990)

A

2 year olds have a theory based on desire psychology (people’s desires influence their behaviour)
3 year olds have theory based on belief-desire psychology (take into account others’ desires and beliefs, but only true ones, not so much wrong ones)
At 4 years old children make the realisation that beliefs can be inaccurate

47
Q

Meta-representation theory (Perner, 1991)

A

Children struggle on false belief task as they cannot hold two representations of an object simultaneously
At around 4 they are able to do this

48
Q

Criticism of meta-representation theory

A

Children do have meta-representations from about 2 as they engage in pretend play

49
Q

Executive function accounts theory (Carlson & Moses, 2001)

A

Rather than a representational deficit, they may have a cognitive deficit
Preschoolers have poor executive function skills (working memory and inhibitory control)

50
Q

Hughes & Ensor (2007)

A

Executive function skills come before ToM skills suggesting that executive function skills support ToM

51
Q

Better ____ skills are associated with better ToM skills

A

Language

52
Q

Interactions with others, especially those involving mental state language and with older people are correlated with…

A

Greater ToM

53
Q

ToM in autism spectrum disorders (Baron-Cohen et al, 1985)

A

80% typically developing 4 year olds pass Sally-Anne task
80% of children with Downs syndrome passed (mental age of 4)
Only 20% ASD children passed (mental age of 4)

54
Q

ASD picture task (Baron-Cohen et al, 1986)

A

Children with ASD can sort pictures to make a mechanical story
Sort pictures to make a behavioural story
Cannot sort pictures of a mentalistic story where they would have to infer someone’s thoughts

55
Q

ASD puppet task (Sodian & Frith, 1992)

A

Children with ASD can lock the box to stop the puppet from stealing a sweet (perform an action)
They are unable to deceive a puppet by claiming that the box is locked

56
Q

ToM deficit cannot explain….

A

All symptoms of ASD

57
Q

ToM deficit account cannot fully explain ASD because..

A

A proportion of children still pass false belief tasks

Therefore it is not a universal deficit

Developmental Psychology (15 decks)

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