Week 12 - Theory of mind

Question 1

explain the concept of theory of mind and describe different approaches and what they suggest about the way we understand others

Answer 1

Theory of mind - the intuitive understanding of ones own and other peoples minds or mental states, including thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, knowledge, intentions, desires and emotions, and how those mental states influence behaviour.
Toolbox for theory of mind - identifying agents, recognising goals, assessing intentionality + Imitation, mimicry, empathy + joint attention, visual perspective taking + projection, simulation + mental state inference.

Developmental approach - Piaget - children increasingly learn to separate their perspective from others.
Metacognitive approach - 1 - the nature of cognisors (thinkers) 2 - the nature of different cognitive tasks - 3 - strategies that can be applied to find solutions to different tasks.

Mental state theories - theory theory (everyday framework of how people think) modularity theory (theory of body and mind mechanisms develop) Simulation theory (empathy possible because we simulate other physicality and feelings)

Question 2

outline what a false belief is and explore how false belief tasks have been used to study theory of mind

Answer 2

False belief test - box of crayons, asks
‘what do you think is in the box?’ ‘crayons’
opens box, it’s candles.
When asked, ‘what DID you think was in the box?’
3year old - candles. They cant differentiate between i thought this, but now i know this.
4-5 year old - ‘crayons, but its actually candles’
Around 4 the ability to process differentiating thoughts of themselves and others develops.

Question 3

describe the idea of a ‘cheater detection’ module and discuss why it is might be important

Answer 3

If we have genes geared towards altruism, then we must have mechanisms that allow us to detect cheaters

Game theory - a trade off that allows groups of cooperates to recognise cheaters (i.e. cooperation= share food, if reciprocation doesn’t occur= they don’t share food back later, they’re a cheater and are ostracised)

Question 4

describe the Wason card sorting task and discuss, with examples, the effect of context and content on performance in this task.

Answer 4

Wason card test - 4 cards, 2 are numbers and 2 are colours. Then given a rule.
Only 10% of people follow rule to solve.
But when cards are changed to age and alcoholic drink (attached to a social rule we practice a lot) we can figure the task out easier

Works on a premise of transference but transference is highly contextual.