Understanding Other's Minds Flashcards
Ted Talk
2 pirates and a cheese sandwich that blows away
the 5 yr old could understand that others could have false beliefs and the consequences of those actions
the 3 yr old does not
also moral judgment develops and is like an adults starting at age 7
Theory of Mind: Inferring things about other people’s interior experience based on behavior and circumstance.
ToM tests–false belief tests.
There have to be different components present for ToM tests to be passed.
Understanding of false belief - age 5
Moral Judgment of false belief - age 7
UNDERSTANDING OTHER MINDS
Is it part of intelligence?
Yes. Sociopaths have this intelligence without the emotional component.
What is the neural developmental trajectory of understanding other minds between age 5 to adulthood?
Children use the same parts of the brain as their adult counterparts, but the use of the Temporoparietal Junction progresses through adulthood.
False Belief Tests
They are used to test Theory of Mind
Different tests can yield different results
Standard tests:
Sally-Anne or Maxi test (change of location)–similar to the pirate test. Friend moved her marble to a different box.
Where is she going to look for her marble, once moved?
3 yos fail, 4+ pass
Is the test too difficult for three year olds? There may be too many steps, too much working memory.
Smarties test (deceptive box)
Pencil in the smarties box.
Sally-Anne (Maxi) test
The Sally–Anne test is a psychological test, used in developmental psychology to measure a person’s social cognitive ability to attribute false beliefs to others.
Sally takes a marble and hides it in her basket. She then “leaves” the room and goes for a walk. While she is away, Anne takes the marble out of Sally’s basket and puts it in her own box. Sally is then reintroduced and the child is asked the key question, the “Belief Question”: “Where will Sally look for her marble?”[2]
- 3-year-olds say box (fail)
- 4+-year-olds say basket
For a participant to “pass” this test, they must answer the “Belief Question” correctly by indicating that Sally believes that the marble is in her own basket. This answer is continuous with Sally’s perspective, but not with the participant’s own. If the participant cannot take an alternative perspective, they will indicate that Sally has cause to believe, as the participant does, that the marble has moved. Passing the test is thus seen as the manifestation of a participant understanding that Sally has her own beliefs that may not correlate with reality
Clements & Perner (1994)
standard ‘Sally-Anne’ scenario BUT: • Measured to which location children looked in anticipation of the protagonist’s return. • Evidence of implicit understanding at age 2;11.
Smarties test
There is a pencil in a smarties box. 1st child is told that. Then he is told that a 2nd child is coming in, asked what the 2nd child will say is in the smarties box.
3-year-olds fail (say pencil)
4+-year-olds pass (say Smarties)
False Belief Tests: General Findings
- younger than 3 1⁄2 years: below chance (choose incorrect)
- 3 1⁄2 - 4 years: at chance
- older than 4 years: above chance (choose correct)
Is there evidence for continuous development?
Well. Of course.
What are the precursors for theory of mind?
Understanding what is going on cognitively.
Understanding of intention. A two year old can understand intent.
False Belief Tests For Younger Children
Researchers wanted to remove language component.
15 month olds watch as actor takes object, plays, puts in green box. [Pause, curtain]
Actor reaches into green box as if to take object. [Pause, curtain]
Belief induction trial:
False Belief (unseen switch): infant but not actor sees object move from green to yellow box.
Test trial: e.g., actor reaches into yellow box. [Pause until trial ends]
Results
Infants looked longer during the test when the actor reached to the location that was NOT where the actor thought the object was -> False belief understanding at 15-mos
15 mo – acted out change of location test.
Indicated surprise when the person looked in the strange box, indicating a primitive experience of ToM.
False Belief Tests On Even Younger Children
Same location versus Same Object tests
Ball/teddy bear on left or right.
Same object different location, different object same location.
The surprising one would be same location different object.
5 month olds expect human arms to reach towards the same OBJECT, not in the same direction - reeeeeally early ToM evidence (intention)
If the arm is mechanical, they expect the arm to go to the same DIRECTION. – recognize robots have no intent.
What does this demonstrate?
By 5 months, infants expect human behavior to be lead by intention
False Belief Tests: Other factors
Executive function
• Performance on false belief tasks is related to performance on executive function tasks (e.g., inhibition, working memory) - Working memory/inhibition help with false belief tasks
• In versions with no ‘pull of the real’ (the object is no longer in the container), many 3- year-olds pass - “Pull of the real” tasks tend to trick three year olds, often they pass when reality is not an influence. More like BELIEF tests.
Language
• Question asked (“where will she look first?” helps a little) – but verbal and nonverbal tests yield similar results
• Correlations between false belief understanding and language skills (e.g.‘I know that x’; ‘She thinks x’) - language helps
• Deaf children of non-signing parents show delays in false belief understanding
Family
• Children with older (not younger) siblings do better (they’re trying to trick you all the time).
• Children whose mothers generally talk more about mental states/ the insides of brains do better
Brene Brown
Empathy fuels connection, sympathy drives disconnection
4 qualities of empathy: perspective taking, staying out of judgment, recognizing emotion in other people, and communicating that emotion
Empathy requires vulnerability because you have to connect with something inside of you that understands that feeling. Sympathy is just like “oh, sorry that sucks” or “atleast…”!!
Other bits about empathy vs sympathy, not Brene Brown
Empathy – an adoption of the mental states of another person for the sake of understanding and helping
Sympathy – an intellectual understandings of the difficulties of another person, while maintaining emotional distance.
Open-mindedness and agreeability correlate positively with empathy levels.
Similar personality patterns are associated with empathy in four different countries
Cognitive versus Affective (Emotional) Empathy
- Emotional empathy, also called affective empathy or primitive empathy, is the subjective state resulting from emotional contagion. It is our automatic drive to respond appropriately to another’s emotions. This kind of empathy happens automatically, and often unconsciously. It has also been referred to as the vicarious sharing of emotions.
- Cognitive empathy is the largely conscious drive to recognize accurately and understand another’s emotional state. Sometimes we call this kind of empathy “perspective taking.”
Bullying in adolescents was negatively associated with cognitive and especially with affective empathy.
