Week 4 - Goals, perceptions, desires, false beliefs

Question 1

Social Agent

Answer 1

aka people or animals

Question 2

Inanimate Object

Answer 2

can’t move on their own

Question 3

Social Agent vs. Inanimate Objects for Infants

Answer 3

5- to 7-month-olds understand that social agents can act on something without having direct contact, but inanimate objects cannot

Question 4

Study: Social Agents or Inanimate Objects: Who Can Create Order?

Answer 4

12-month-old infants
• Watched a ball or an agent (bird) create order and disorder
Result: understand that inanimate object can’t order things

Question 5

What is Theory of Mind (ToM)?

Answer 5

Ability to reason about the mental states of others
• Others have desires, goals, beliefs, knowledge
- Understanding that the way we interact with the world is guided by our mental states, not how the world actually is

Question 6

The Development of Theory of Mind

Answer 6

Two key developments:

1. Awareness of others’ perceptions, goals, and desires
2. Understanding of false beliefs

Question 7

Study: Do Infants Understand that Others Have Goals/Intentions (hand/rod Woodward task)

Answer 7

• 5 month-olds and 9-month-olds
• Randomly assigned to one of two conditions
- hand condition
- rod condition
Results:
- hand: dishabituated more strongly when hand reached for a new object in the same location
- rod: dishabituated more strongly when rod reached for the same object in a new location

Question 8

Study: Does Experience Help Infants to Represent Goals/Intentions?

Answer 8

3-month-olds completed two tasks
(1) Action 
Wore sticky mittens
Played with a ball and a bear 
(2) Watch
Completed the Woodward task
Habituate: Hand reaching for a ball or a bear
Test:New goal or new location

Results: Infants who acted first were better at representing actor’s goal than were infants who watched first

Question 9

Study: Do Infants Understand Means-End Problem Solving (toy on/off cloth)

Answer 9

12-month-olds
• Watched an actor getting a toy by acting on another object
- new goal or new means at test
Answer: yes

Question 10

Study: Does Experience Help Infants to Understand Means-End Problem Solving?

Answer 10

9-month-olds
(1) Action task
Infants play with a toy duck
Experimenter takes toy duck and places it on the far edge of a red cloth
(2) Watch task
- toy on cloth

Results: 9-month-olds were not sensitive to the ultimate goal (getting the toy)
• Performing the action task was not sufficient for infants to represent this goal

Question 11

Study: Do Infants Understand Others Desires and Wants?

Answer 11

12-month-olds and 18-month-olds
• Children play with two female experimenters (E1 and E2)
• Play with two novel toys
Experimental condition
• E1 leaves the room
• E2 stays and gets out a third new toy that she and the child then play with
• E1 returns to the room
• E2 places all three toys on a tray on the table
• E1 says “Wow! Look at that! Give it to me
please!”
Results: by 12-months-of-age, children know what’s new for another person (even when it’s not new for them)
• Know that people get excited about new things

Question 12

First-order false belief

Answer 12

Knowing that someone can have a belief about the world that is wrong

Question 13

Classic False Belief Tasks:

Answer 13

Location Tasks

Content Tasks

Question 14

Who passes Classic ToM tasks?

Answer 14

4-year-olds pass

• 3-year-olds do not pass

Question 15

Why Do 3-Year-Olds Fail Classic Theory of Mind Tasks?

Answer 15

(1) Discontinuous development

(2) Task demands

Question 16

Study: Do Children Younger than 4-Years Understand False Belief? (toy in yellow or green box)

Answer 16

15-month-old infants
• See an actor looking through a window
• See a toy, a yellow box, and a green box
• Actor places the toy in the green box and reaches for the green box twice
• Randomly assigned to one of four conditions:
(1) True Belief Green
Infant and actor see yellow box move toward green box
and then go back
(2) True Belief Yellow
(3) False Belief Green
The toy is moved from the green to the yellow box, but
the window is closed so the actor doesn’t see it happen.
(4) False Belief Yellow
Infant and actor see the toy get moved from green box
to yellow box. The window closes, and the toy is
moved back.
Results: suggests that 15-month-olds understand false belief
• Violation of expectation is indirect assessment of understanding of false belief

Question 17

Study: Measuring False Belief Understanding in Preverbal Children (eye tracking)

Answer 17

25-month-olds
• An actor witnessed a toy being hidden
• Toy is moved when the actor is not looking
• When actor comes back, where do babies expect that actors will look?
• Chime sounds and the window lights up to signify actor is coming back
• First eye movement when the chime sounds
• Nearly all babies look towards the box where the actor thought the ball was

Question 18

Study: Measuring False Beliefs in Young Children (help unlocking box)

Answer 18

2.5 year olds
(1) False belief condition
E2 says he forgot his keys and leaves the room
E1 moves the toy from one box to the other and locks both the boxes
(2) True belief condition
E2 stays in the room and watches as the E1 moves the toy
Looks away when E1 locks the boxes
Test
• E2 approaches the box he put the toy in (which is now empty)
• Tries to open the box but gets stuck
• Child is allowed to go
and help
• Which box do they open?

Question 19

No, for Serious, Why are 3-Year-Olds Failing False Belief Tasks?

Answer 19

(1) Task demands
Multiple characters
Storyline
Characters are coming and going
“Where will they look?”
–> Duplo task
(2) Curse of knowledge
- Your knowledge influences your judgments of what other people know
• In classic false-belief tasks, you know where the object really is and you have to override that knowledge to answer correctly
• It might be really hard for younger children to do that
–> Percy and kinder toys

Question 20

What happens between 3- and 4-years-of age (ToM)

Answer 20

• Improved concentration
  • Improved verbal skills
  • Better ability to recover from disruptions in perspective taking

Question 21

Second-order false belief

Answer 21

• belief about someone else’s belief that is wrong

- 7 yo understand second-order false belief tasks