L6 Theory of Mind

Developmental Psychology

Theory of Mind

ability to explain, predict, and interpret actions and speech by attributing mental states (beliefs, desires, intentions) to oneself and other people (Astington & Hughes, 2013) 

• Predicting how others will act is central to successful social interaction

• To understand others’ actions we must understand their mental states 

Premack & Woodruff, 1978

chimp study on whether chimps can take a human actor’s desires and predict behaviour? 

Belief-desire reasoning

People act to fulfill their desires in light of their beliefs 

Wrong belief → misguided action

If we know a person’s belief and desire, we can predict how they will act 

Wimmer & Perner, 1983; Baron-Cohen et al, 1985

False Belief Tasks

Considered to provide best test of understanding others’ mental states

Need to predict how someone who has a different belief will act

Dissociation from own belief → correct answer cannot be based on own mental state

Baron-Cohen et al, 1985; 1995

Theory of Mind hypothesis for autism – proposal that ability to understand others’ mental states is impaired in autism, predicting autistic people will more likely fail false belief tasks ( Mindblindness: an essay on autism and theory of mind )

Wimmer & Perner, 1983

 representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception 

Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985

the Sally-Anne task

Neurotypical development (Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001)

Typical children do not answer the “false belief” question correctly until 4-5 years. Before that, the answer is incorrectly based on where the object is now (egocentric attribution)

On average, 20% correct at 30 months, 50% correct at 44 months

Several factors to do with how the task is presented make a difference in passing age – as does country of origin 

Perner et al, 1987 – Unexpected Contents Task

Well known variant of false belief task – task can be made easier by having children experience the false belief themselves → however, most 3-year-olds still fail 

Developmental differences Baron-Cohen et al, 1985

compared children with autism and Down’s Syndrome with typically developing children 

• 85% of typical group pass

• 86% of Down’s Syndrome group pass

• Only 20% of autistic group pass (despite higher mental age) 

Yirmiya et al, 1998

typically developing children perform better than those with developmental delay, who perform better than those with autism on theory of mind tasks. 

Classic Interpretation of False Belief Test (Perner, 1991)

Children come to attribute to the character a belief that is different to their own (and false from their point of view)

Children come to recognise that the belief is what guides the character’s actions 

→ Come to recognise that people’s relationship to the world is mediated by their mental representations – they act not on how things are, but on how they think they are

Acquisition of Theory of Mind

Theory-Theory

Simulation Theory

Modularity Theory

Gopnik & Wellman, 1994 – Theory-Theory – acquiring TOM is analogous to a theory development in science – children collect evidence and refine their hypothesis based on it.

Harris, 1992 – Simulation Theory – TOM depends on being able to imagine the other’s point of view – simulation of other people’s mental states

Baron-Cohen, 1995 – Modularity Theory – TOM is an innate human cognitive capacity which needs to mature – can be impaired in atypical development

Individual differences in false belief task performance

Hughes & Ensor, 2007 – Language skills and executive function

Better executive function predicts passing TOM tests 

→ in line with requirements to select correct / inhibit incorrect response

Task is NOT just about understanding another's mental state

Ruffman et al, 1999 – Home environments and parenting styles 

• Parents who explain and discuss vs immediate punishment

• Securely attached infants (Fongay et al, 1999)

• Maternal “mind-mindedness” (Meins et al, 2002)

All facilitate better development of TOM

Classic False Belief Task → Other Tests of Theory of Mind 

• Ability to reason explicitly about false beliefs not until 4-5 years 

• Explicit reasoning is NOT the whole story

• Evidence for a distinction and dissociation between “intuitive” and “reflective” components of TOM

• Evidence for “intuitive” understanding at much younger ages than the classic tasks

Implicit/Intuitive Theory of Mind

1. Awareness of other’s perceptions, desires, and intentions, at <18 months

2. Implicit understanding of false belief at 9 months to 3 years

Work on early understanding of mental states

Call & Tomasello, 2008 – in chimps

Woodward, 2003 – in human infants 

Lizkowski et al, 2006 – imperative vs declarative pointing → suggests early conceptualisation of intentional agents and motivation to communicate desires 

Tomasello & Haberl, 2003 – 1-year-old infants possess a genuine understanding of other people as intentional/attentional agents

Bloom & German, 2000

precise meaning of question must be understood, STM capacity for age nearly full

Looking Time Methods – Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005

• Infant watches actor putting an object in box → predicts actor’s behaviour based on their beliefs about the object’s location 

Surian et al, 2007

13 month olds look longer when an informed caterpillar does not find food, but seem to expect an uninformed caterpillar not to find food → understand caterpillar’s perspective? 

Southgate et al, 2007

 criticisms of looking time methods – perceptual differences always remain between conditions → could explain looking time differences

Infants may not represent false beliefs, but rather be aware the actor is ignorant of true location – expect ignorant person to be wrong rather than at chance 

Anticipation Methods – Southgate et al, 2007

• Use eye tracking during false belief scenarios 

→ Evidence that understanding of false beliefs exists at least by 2 years 

Senju et al, 2009

How do people with Asperger Syndrome compare with controls on implicit TOM tasks? 

Adults with AS did not anticipate where actors would search

Classic ToM tests passed, however, implicit ToM test failed in adults on the autism spectrum

→ Evidence for a dissociation between implicit and explicit understanding of ToM 

Explicit can be learned/strategized around – Implicit exists innately, and can be disrupted by developmental abnormalities 

Krupenye et al, 2016

Great apes can attribute false beliefs 

Evidence for implicit understanding of false beliefs at 2 year & below

• Good evidence for understanding others’ mental states

• Evidence of knowing about what others know

• Evidence about predicting how others will act based on a false belief

• Suggestion that intuitive understanding of false beliefs is absent in autistic adult → dissociation between implict/explicit false beliefs

Interpreting dissociation between early-developing (implicit) and later-developing (explicit) ToM skills

1. Explicit tasks are wrong – failing to measure true abilities because of extraneous cognitive demands – Csibra & Southgate, 2006

2. Implicit tasks are wrong – can be explained more simply without assuming knowledge of mental states – Perner & Ruffman, 2005

3. The tasks measure different aspects of Theory of Mind – early-developing intuitive understanding as a basis for later explicit understanding – San Juan & Astington, 2012

San Juan & Astington, 2012

Language Development

Second order mental states 

Perner & Wimmer, 1985

Perner & Wimmer, 1985 – 7-8 year old children able to represent and reason from 2nd order beliefs 

Increasingly sophisticated reasoning about mental states is a basis for understanding

• Speech in which listener is not intended to take meaning literally (irony and metaphor) – Filippova & Astington, 2008

• White lies told to protect feelings – Talwar et al, 2007

• Social “faux pas,” or unintentional creation of hurt feelings – Baron-Cohen et al, 1999

All these develop during school years – Baron-Cohen et al, 1999 show difficulties with these even in autistic children who otherwise pass the basic false belief tasks 

Theory of Mind in Adults

Speed of false belief task execution

Surtees & Apperly, 2012 – children and adults asked how many dots a character can see 

6-10 year olds and adults 

• Faster to judge what character can see when consistent with own perspective

• Also faster to judge what they can see when consistent with character’s perspective

• Responses get faster overall with age, but size of effect remains the same

Shows continuity between childhood ToM abilities and adult ToM

Advantage of reaction time – ToM tasks analysing correct vs incorrect usually suggests adults are at “ceiling” (no errors) – and so different to children (Apperly et al, 2009)