Social cognition: theory of mind (ToM)

What is theory of mind?

Our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling- sometimes called ‘mine reading’

What are the different methods used to study ToM at different points in development?

• The emergence of simple ToM can be seen in toddlers using intentional reasoning research

• More sophisticated level of ToM can be assessed in 3-4 y/os using false belief tasks

• In older children and adults advanced ToM has been tested using eye tasks (participants judge complex emotions with minimal info about facial expressions

What was the study that Andrew Meltzoff (1988) conducted for intentional reasoning in toddlers?

• provided convincing evidence to show that toddlers (around 18 months) have an understanding of adult intentions when carrying out simple actions

• Children of 18 months observed adults place beads into a jar- experimental conditions- the adults appeared to struggle with this and dropped the beads, control condition- the adults placed the beads successfully into the jar

• In both conditions the toddlers placed the beads in the jar; they dropped no more beads in the experimental condition

• Suggests they were imitating what the adult intended to do- this kind of research shows that very young children have a simple ToM

What are false belief tasks?

Developed in order to test whether children can understand that people can believe something that isn’t true

what is the procedure of the false beliefs task by Wimmer and Perner (1983)?

• they told 3-4 y/os a story in which Maxi left his chocolate in a blue cupboard in the kitchen and then went to the playground

• Later, Maxis mother used the chocolate in her cooking and placed tbe remainder in the green cupboard

• Children were asked where Maxi would look for the chocolate when he comes back from the playground

What are the findings from this false beliefs task?

• most 3 y/os incorrectly said he would look in the green cupboard because Maxi doesn’t know his mother moved it

• But most 4 y/os correctly identified the blue cupboard

• This suggests that ToM undergoes a shift and becomes more advanced at around 4 years

What is autism (ASD)?

• umbrella term for wide range of symptoms

• All disorders on the spectrum share impairments to 3 main areas: empathy, social communication and social imagination

Who conducted the Sally-Anne false belief test?

Simon Baron-Cohen et al. (1985)

What was the procedure of the Sally-Anne false beliefs study?

• Children were told a story involving 2 dolls, Sally and Anne

• Sally places a marble in her basket , but when Sally isn’t looking, Anne moves the marble to her box- this task is to work out where Sally will look for her marble

• Understanding that Sally doesn’t know that Anne has moved the marble requires an understanding of Sally’s false belief about where it is

Baren-Cohen et al. explored the links between what using false belief talks?

Explored the links between ToM defcits and ASD

what children were used for this experiment?

• 20 high-functioning diagnosed as being ASD

• control groups of 14 children with Down’s syndrome

• 27 without a diagnosis

• were all individually administered the Sally-Anne test

What were the findings of this experiment?

• 85% of children in the control groups correctly identified where Sally would look for her marble

• But, only 4 of the children in the ASD group (20%) were able to answer this

• This dramatic difference demonstrated that ASD involves a ToM deficit

• Baron-Cohen and his colleagues suggested that deficits in ToM might in fact be a complete explanation for ASD

What is Asperger syndrome (AS)?

A type of ASD characterised by problems with empathy, social communication and imagination but normal language development

Studies of older children and adults with AS show what about how they perform on false belief tasks?

they succeed easily on false belief tasks- this disproves the idea that ASD can be explained by ToM deficits

what more challenging task did Baren-Cohen et al. develop to asses ToM in adolescents and adults?

the eye task- this involves reading complex emotions in pictures of faces just showing a small area around the eyes

what did Baron-Cohen find about adults from this task?

Found that adults with AS and those with a diagnosis of high-functioning ASD struggled with the eye tasks- supports the idea that ToM deficits might be the cause of ASD

Evaluation- low validity of false belief tasks

• the main ToM research has been the false belief task- hundreds of studies have used the Sally-Anne task and variations on it, but some psychologists have been critical of false belief approach

• Bloom and German (2000) suggest 2 reasons why false belief lacks validity- 1. Success on a false belief task requires other cognitive abilities apart from ToM, eg- memory

• Sally-Anne story is a bit shorter and simpler than the original Maxi story, but still quite bit for a 3 y/o to remember- some studies have given ASD children visual aids to help them remember the false belief stories and have found that younger ASD children quite often succeed

• Bloom and German’s 2nd criticism is that a child can have a well-developed ToM and still struggle with false-belief tasks- so children who can’t perform well on false belief tasks still enjoy pretend-play, which requires ToM

• both these criticisms challenge the validity of false-belief tasks and this is a big problem for ToM research as it’s been dominated by false belief research

evaluation- hard to distinguish ToM from perspective-taking

• Selman’s work on perspective-taking is the cognitive ability to view social situations from another person’s pov- ToM (the ability to understand mental states in others) and perspective-taking appear to be closely related cognitive abilities

• problem- many methods use to study ToM could just be measures of perspective-taking, eg- responses to the Sally-Anne task could be explained in terms of children’s ability to take Sally’s perspective

• similarly, although performance on ToM tasks distinguishes between children on the autistic spectrum and others, the same is true of perspective-taking tasks

• the possibility that much of the research into ToM may just be measuring perspective-taking is a further challenge to the validity of ToM research

evaluation- partial explanation for ASD

• one major application ToM research is in understanding ASD- it’s widely agreed that people in the autistic spectrum find it harder than others on age-appropriate ToM tests

• ToM research has been extremely useful in helping us understand the differing experiences of those on the autistic spectrum and those who are ‘neurotypical’

• Controversial- the idea that ASD is the direct result of ToM deficits, as suggested by Baron-Cohen- Tager-Flusberg (2007) suggests that more recent research has questioned the assumption that ToM problems are specific to ASD and that all those ok the autistic spectrum suffer ToM problems- so ASD and ToM may not be as closely linked as was once believed

• Also, ASD has many other characteristics including cognitive strengths like superior visual attention and highly systematic reasoning- ToM can’t easily explain these characteristics

Evaluation- no clear understanding of how ToM develops

• there’s many theories around to account for how we develop our ToM- Perner et. al (2002) adopt a Piagetian approach and see ToM as simply developing in line with all cognitive abilities, ie- it’s based on an innate ability which matures with age and experience

• Astington (1998) takes a more Vygotskian line and suggests that we internalise our ToM during early interactions with adults- there’s no clear evidence to suggest which explanation in correct

Evaluation- critique of the eyes task

• much of the criticism of ToM research has been levelled against false belief tasks

• but the eyes task may also lack validity as the experience of looking at a static pair of eyes in isolation is so different from real life where we usually have access to much additional info