psy235 rn: theory of mind

Explain what theory of mind is

It is the ability to understand and attribute mental states (thoughts, beliefs, intentions, emotions) to oneself and others, recognizing that others have perspectives different from one's own.

Enumerate the many domains of social life in which theory of mind is critical.

Social interactions (understanding emotions, intentions), Communication (interpreting words, tone), Empathy and emotional resonance, Understanding and predicting behavior (e.g., goals, desires), Conflict resolution (perspective-taking)

Describe some characteristics of how autistic individuals differ in their processing of others’ minds.

Autistic individuals may process others' minds analytically and more slowly, lacking automatic processing like typical individuals. They may struggle with quick emotional recognition, joint attention, and social projection.

Describe and explain some of the many concepts and processes that comprise the human understanding of minds.

Agent categorization (identifying self-propelled beings), Goal recognition (understanding objectives behind actions), Intentionality (distinguishing intentional from unintentional actions), Imitation and empathy (understanding others through mimicry), Perspective-taking (seeing situations from another's viewpoint

Have a basic understanding of how ordinary people explain unintentional and intentional behavior.

Unintentional Behavior: Identified through simple causes (e.g., accident), Intentional Behavior: Explained by inferring desires, beliefs, and intentions that lead to the action.

Automatic empathy:

A social perceiver unwittingly taking on the internal state of another person, usually because of mimicking the person’s expressive behavior and thereby feeling the expressed emotion

False-belief test:

An experimental procedure that assesses whether a perceiver recognizes that another person has a false belief—a belief that contradicts reality.

Folk explanations of behavior:

People’s natural explanations for why somebody did something, felt something, etc. (differing substantially for unintentional and intentional behaviors)

Intention:

An agent’s mental state of committing to perform an action that the agent believes will bring about a desired outcome

Intentionality: 

The quality of an agent’s performing a behavior intentionally. That is, with skill and awareness and executing an intention (which is in turn based on a desire and relevant beliefs).

Joint attention:

Two people attending to the same object and being aware that they both are attending to it

Mimicry:

Copying others’ behavior, usually without awareness.

Mirror neurons: 

Neurons identified in monkey brains that fire both when the monkey performs a certain action and when it perceives another agent performing that action.

Projection:

A social perceiver’s assumption that the other person wants, knows, or feels the same as the perceiver wants, know, or feels

Simulation: 

The process of representing the other person’s mental state.

synchrony:

Two people displaying the same behaviors or having the same internal states (typically because of mutual mimicry).

Theory of mind:

The human capacity to understand minds, a capacity that is made up of a collection of concepts (e.g., agent, intentionality) and processes (e.g., goal detection, imitation, empathy, perspective taking).

Visual perspective taking: 

Can refer to visual perspective taking (perceiving something from another person’s spatial vantage point) or more generally to effortful mental state inference (trying to infer the other person’s thoughts, desires, emotions)