Week 2 lecture 1 (Theory of Mind)

Question 1

What is theory of mind

Answer 1

It is the attribution of mental states to oneself and other people

Question 2

An experiment is set up where a child wants milk. The experimenter has a bottle of milk and orange juice in front of the child. The experimenter tells the child Fred likes Orange Juice. If the child is able to understand that Fred would be more likely to grab the orange juice rather than the milk then this is an example of the child understanding

Answer 2

Diverse desires

Question 3

ToM is “the ability to put oneself into someone else’s shoes, to imagine their thoughts and feelings”, who said this ?

Answer 3

BaronCohen, 2009

Question 4

Who introduced the concept of ToM ?

Answer 4

Premack and Woodruff (1978)

Question 5

ToM develops alongside what other developments ?

Answer 5

1) Biological Development
2) Cognitive Development
3) Social Development

Question 6

Cognitive development

Answer 6

Integration of various cognitive skills

Question 7

Biological development

Answer 7

Maturation of brain systems

Question 8

Social development

Answer 8

Development shaped by cultural and social experiences

Question 9

Diverse beliefs

Answer 9

Evidenced when the child predicts another person’s choice, when the person has opposite BELIEFS to the child

Question 10

Diverse desires

Answer 10

Evidenced when the child predicts another person’s choice, when the person has opposite DESIRES to the child

Question 11

Knowledge access

Answer 11

Evidence when the child predicts another person’s belief, when the child knows something that the person does not

Question 12

False belief understanding

Answer 12

Evidenced when the child predicts another person’s beliefs/actions when the child sees something incongruent
informs social cognition, social interaction, executive function
most 3 yo show no evidence of FBU
most 5 yo show evidence of FBU

Question 13

Hidden beliefs, real-apparent emotion

Answer 13

Evidenced when the child predicts another person’s emotion/action, when reality is incongruent with desire
e.g., when person doesn’t get what they want, when person feels differently from their expressed emotion

Question 14

Which task did Scott & Baillargeon, (2017) make

Answer 14

‘Sally and Anne’ false belief task

Sally wants a toy and leaves, Anne saw it is elsewhere. where does Sally look?

Question 15

Siegler et al., (2017)

Answer 15

Smarties / M&M false belief task

Question 16

In Quinn & Eiman (1996), the time infants spent looking at an image of a cat or dog operationalised what construct?

Answer 16

Perceptual categorisation

Question 17

What is “theory theory”

Answer 17

People derive theories about the mental states of others
people construct a set of causal/explanatory laws that relate: external stimuli to internal states; inner states to other inner states; inner states to behaviour

Question 18

What is “simulation” theory

Answer 18

People use their own mental mechanisms to calculate and predict others’ mental processes
a person simulates the thought processes, desires, beliefs & preferences of another to predict their next decision or action

Question 19

Nativists

Answer 19

We possess innate knowledge”
They argue that there is a ToM module (ToMM) in the brain that is devoted to understanding other human beings
This ToMM matures over the first 5 years

Question 20

Empiricists

Answer 20

We possess knowledge from experience”
They argue that psychological understanding arises from interactions with other people
(environment)
Pre-schoolers who have older siblings outperform children without siblings on ToM

Question 21

Information-processing theorists

Answer 21

Argue that the growth of information-processing skills (such as reasoning and inhibition of thoughts) aids ToM ability