Theory of Mind

What is theory of mind

The ability to make inferences about mental states (emotions, intentions, or beliefs)

How is they of mind helpful as a subcomponent of social cognition

It helps developing the skills to manage social communications and relationships. It allows us to make sense of the social world and to predict/explain people's actions/behaviour by thinking about internal states.

When has ToM been proposed to start developing and how does it develop

15/18 months and it develops gradually

Evidence of ToM developing at 18 months. - Repacholi & Gopnik (1997) Broccoli/Crackers study

Researchers pretend to dislike crackers and like broccoli and then ask for some. At 18-months but not 14-months they give the researchers broccoli. this shows there seems to be understanding that desires are subjective and can be different form person to person.

What does adult ToM require awareness of

I (but also other people) can represent the surrounding world- The content of this representation might differ from reality

Charcteristics of adult ToM

understanding that others can have different mental states and there is a shift from a situation-based to a representation-based understanding of behaviour.

How is ToM measured in children

False-belief and true-belief tasks.

What is a false-belief task

Whether children understand that others can hold beliefs that differ from reality.

Examples of false belief-tasks

Unexpected transfer task, Sally-Anne Task and Deceptive box task

What is the unexpected transfer task and typical results

Child is given the scenario. maxi puts a chocolate in the cupboard and leaves while there gone the mother moves it to a new location. They are asked where either was put. Children below 5 say they will look where the mother put it children above 5 will say they will look in the cupboard (correctly).

What is the Sally-Anne Task and typical results.

Sally puts a marble in a basket and leaves. Anne moves it to a box while Sally is gone.Question: Where will Sally look for her marble? Neurotypical children under 4 & many autistic children: Say "in the box". Neurotypical 4+ years: Correctly say "in the basket" (showing belief-based reasoning).

What is the deceptive box task and typical results

A child sees a Smarties tube and expects candy inside—but it actually contains pencils. When asked what will your find think is inside Under 4 years old will say "Pencils!" (failing false belief understanding).

4+ years old: "Smarties!" (recognizing their past belief differs from reality).

At what age do children succeed in false-belief tasks?

Around 4 years old. Younger children struggle to understand representational mental states.

Do 3-year-olds lack ToM?

No, they may fail due to performance issues (language, memory, task complexity).

How can researchers assess implicit ToM understanding? (Clements & Perner, 1994)

By measuring eye gaze, facial expressions, and spontaneous reactions in false-belief tasks

How do children's facilities expressions show implicit knowledge of false-beleif tasks.

indices of understanding of beliefs (conflict between someone's belief and reality → signs of suspense such as lip biting or brows furrowing)

How does recording eye-gaze help understanding implicit knwolage of false-belif tasks

Recording eye-gaze behaviourmay give us hints about thechild's flow of thinking withoutrequiring a verbal response

Unexpected transfer task [Clements & Perner, 1994]

Gap between implicit and explicit understanding of the task. Children develop an implicit/unconscious understanding of FB at an earlier age than explicit/conscious understanding of FB• Use non-verbal task with infants < 3years to test implicit understanding of false-belief tasks (e.g., violation of expectancy)

What is violation of expectancy

Infant familiarise with an event• Test behaviour is presented: consistent or inconsistent with the event• Infant looks longer at inconsistent event taken as evidence that they are surprised. Indicates some level of knowledge about what should happen.

Does ToM emerge in distinct stages or gradually?

It develops gradually as cognitive and social skills improve (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001).

Factors that improve ToM performance

Deceptive motives in tasks, Active participation and Clearer belief representations

What factors contribute to ToM development

Cognitive abilities (Executive functioning, memory, attention)

Language skills (helps articulate mental states)

Social interactions (joint attention, conversations, sibling influence)

Neurodevelopment (brain maturation, prefrontal cortex growth)

Cognitive functioning influence ToM development Charman et al. (2000)

Joint attention skills in 20-months-old predicted theirtheory-of-mind performance at 3 years 8 months

How does cognitive functioning influence ToM development

Development of brain systems involved in executive functions (mainly frontallobes) is still ongoing during childhood and adolescence (pre-frontal cortex is oneof the last to brain regions to mature)

Examples of executive functions in false belief tasks.

Inhibitory control, task switching and working memory.

What is inhibitory control and when does it improve. Carlson & Moses, 2001; Sabbagh et al., 2007

(improvements between age 3 and 6) → Stopping a prepotent response (pointing towards an object before thinking if that is the correct object to point) [IC correlates positively with FB task performance, hence IC and ToM development may be related

What is Task switching

Moving from a real-world situation to think about an abstract representation

What is Working memory

holding different and conflicting representations in mind andmanipulating this information to come to the correct answer

How do social factors influence ToM development

Social referencing (12 months),

Conversations about mental states, Older siblings, Socioeconomic status (SES)

How does social referencing influence ToM development. (Sorce et al., 1985 - visual cliff experiment).

Infants monitor caregivers' reactions to regulate their own behavior

How do Conversations about mental states influence ToM development (Harris, 1999).

Parents who discuss emotions and beliefs with their children enhance ToM development

How do Older siblings influence ToM development (Perner et al., 1994).

Engage in role-play and provide more opportunities for perspective-taking

How does Socioeconomic status (SES) influence ToM

Higher SES often provides more conversational opportunities about emotions, boosting ToM.

What is maternal mind-mindedness, and how does it affect ToM?

The tendency of mothers to appropriately comment on infants' mental states

Example of maternal ,ind-mazedness and & ToM study (Meins et al., 2002).

6-month-old infants and their mothers were observed in free play.

At 4 years old, children with more mind-minded mothers performed better on ToM tasks. Suggesting Talking about thoughts and emotions early in life helps children develop ToM later.

how do those with high TOM behave in social relationships

Children with strong ToM skills are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors (helping, sharing).

They are more popular among peers and less likely to be rejected. They also better understand and regulate emotions in social situations.

Longitudinal study on how ToM related to social behaviours (Caputi et al., 2011)

Italian children followed from 5 to 7 years old showed that early ToM skills predicted better peer relationships.

How does autism affect ToM development

Most autistic children fail false-belief tasks even when they have sufficient mental age. Autistic children struggle with belief reasoning and perspective-taking in real-life situations.

How do we know that the reason autistic children have different ToM development is not due to cognitive delay

Children with Down syndrome performed better than autistic children on ToM tasks.

What is the double empathy problem (Milton, 2012)

Rather than autistic people lacking ToM, it's that neurotypical and autistic individuals struggle to understand each other

How do ToM deficits differentiate autism from other conditions? and why

ToM deficits are specific to autism and distinguish autistic individuals from neurotypicals (NTs). While children with communication disadvantages may experience delayed ToM development, they eventually catch up—unlike many autistic individuals.

Why aren't ToM deficits present in intellectual disabilities?

Children with Down Syndrome often pass false-belief tasks at an age-matched level.

Autistic children struggle even when they have a high non-verbal IQ.

Suggests ToM difficulties in autism are not due to general cognitive delay, but rather a unique characteristic of autism.

Do all autistic individuals struggle with ToM tasks? (Happé, 1995; Sparrevohn & Howie, 1995)

No, there are individual differences.

Autistic children with higher verbal mental age are more likely to pass ToM tasks.

Some autistic individuals develop alternative strategies to understand social interactions.