Theory of Mind in Children

Theory of Mind: Children (Dr. Julia Marshall)

Learning Goals

  • Explain the different methods psychologists use to assess theory of mind

  • Compare and contrast explanations for why theory of mind develops with age

  • Identify and describe tasks that measure advanced theory of mind abilities

The Question of Minds Versus the World

  • Central Inquiry: What is she thinking?

Perspective-Taking vs. Empathy

  • Perspective-taking: Recognizing that other people's minds contain information that is not directly observable and can contradict one's own view of the world.

  • Theory of Mind (ToM): Refers to how individuals understand others' mental states.

Types of Information Maintained by the Mind

  • Perceptions

    • Definition: Direct experiences of the world at the moment.

    • Example: “I see a bear in the forest.”

  • Beliefs

    • Definition: Internal representations about the world that can be true or false, regardless of current perception.

    • Examples:

    • “I believe my phone is charging.” (but it’s unplugged)

    • “I believe the midterm is next week.” (but it’s actually tomorrow)

    • “I believe my friend saw my text.” (but they have read receipts turned off)

Milestones in the Development of Theory of Mind

  • Birth to 9 months: Development of basic ToM, termed perception-goal psychology.

    • Allows agents to recognize that others may have different perceptual perspectives and goals.

  • Age 1-3 years: Refinement of basic ToM.

  • Age 4 years and onward: Acquisition of fully fledged meta-representation called belief-desire psychology.

    • Involves recognizing that others have subjective perspectives that may contradict one's own and can include false representations.

    • Illustrating this, as referred to in Rakoczy, 2022; Nature Reviews Psychology.

Perspective-Taking Tasks

Level 1: Visible Object Representation

  • Defined as tasks where a child must represent whether another object is visible.

Example of a Level 1 Perspective-Taking Task

  • Simple instances of perspective monitoring without deeper complexity.

Level 2: Differing Perspectives

  • Children must represent that an object can be seen differently from different perspectives.

Classic Theory of Mind Tasks

Sally-Anne Task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)

  • Overview of the Task:

    • Characters: Sally and Anne

    • Sally puts her ball in a basket, leaves, and Anne moves the ball to her box.

    • Question asked: “Where will Sally look for her ball?”

  • Key Result:

    • 4- and 5-year-olds generally pass this test, while 3-year-olds fail.

Advanced Perspective-Taking Tasks

Unexpected Contents Task

  • Involves showing children a container (e.g., a crayon box) and asking them what they think is inside, then revealing the unexpected contents (e.g., candles).

Appearance-Reality Tasks

  • Conceptual perspective-taking outlined in Flavell, Flavell, & Green (1986).

    • Children were shown a sponge that looks like a rock and asked two questions:

    • “What does it look like?”

    • “What is it really?”

    • Responses:

    • 3-year-olds may say both items (rock and sponge).

    • 4-year-olds accurately distinguish that it looks like a rock but is actually a sponge.

Summary of Key Insights

  • Children develop an understanding that they and others can have rational, subjective perspectives that diverge and may be incompatible or incorrect.

  • Rakoczy (2022) emphasizes that children’s ToM suggests conceptual change during early development.

Conceptual Change vs. Task Challenges

  • Wellman et al. (2001) discuss various task considerations including:

    • Age of the child

    • Deceptive motives perceived by the child

    • Task salience, where deception is clearly framed

    • Perspective: self versus other

    • Influence of national community or identity

Proportion of Correct Responses

  • Hypothetical data patterns observed (A, B, C variations) were discussed, indicating possible outcomes of ToM assessment.

Discussion Activity: Wellman et al. Paper Take-Aways

  • Prompt for students to consider the significant findings from the paper by Wellman et al.

Factors Influencing False-Belief Judgments

  • Explored elements like:

    • Explicit statement of deceptive motives

    • Child's prior knowledge or visual presence of the object during questioning

  • Conclusion drawn that children’s false-belief judgments show consistency across varied task conditions, indicating robust internalized conceptions of human action rather than task-specific responses.

Cross-Cultural Considerations

The Variability of Proportion Correct (Logit)

  • Graph representation demonstrating the correlation between proportion correct responses and age across different countries (e.g., Australia, U.S., U.K., Japan).

Advanced Theory of Mind (ATOM)

Components of ATOM

  1. Higher-Order False-Belief Understanding

    • Second-order: Understanding what one person thinks about another’s belief.

    • Third-order and beyond: Recursive reasoning about beliefs (beliefs within beliefs).

  2. Post First-Order Reasoning

    • Interpretative Theory of Mind: Acknowledging differing valid interpretations of ambiguous information.

    • Nonliteral Speech: Understanding irony, jokes, sarcasm, and white lies.

    • Faux Pas Recognition: Detecting socially awkward or inappropriate statements made without malintent.

    • Emotion and Mental-State Attribution: Inferring states based on minimal cues, such as eye movement.

  3. Broader Social Understanding Skills

    • Emotion Recognition: Labeling emotions from nonverbal signals.

    • Perspective-Taking: Understanding other's cognitive or emotional viewpoints.

Advanced Theory of Mind Research Studies

Studies Overview

  • Investigated development in a sample of children (8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds) across three separate studies totaling various participant sizes (82, 466, 402).

  • Analytical Methods: Rasch and factor analyses to assess conceptual development related to ATOM components.

  • Findings: Revealed three distinct factors for ATOM rather than a singular scale.

    • Factors identified: social reasoning, reasoning about ambiguity, and recognizing social norm transgressions.

    • Relationships between social reasoning and inhibition observed, while language development was a predictor for social reasoning performance only.

Example of Higher-Order False Beliefs

  • Case study involving Ben and Anna regarding Ben’s misbelief about what gift Anna obtained for their mother involving layers of reasoning and beliefs.

Strange Stories (Happe, 1994)

  • Format: Short narratives where a character expresses something untrue (lie, sarcasm, etc.).

  • Task: Participants must articulate the reasoning behind the character's false statement.

    • Example: John saying Mary’s cooking is delicious while actually disliking it requires insight into John’s intentions not to hurt Mary’s feelings.

Faux Pas Task (Baron-Cohen et al., 1999)

  • Purpose: To identify understanding of social norms.

  • Scenario: Involves stories where inappropriate comments are made unintentionally, testing recognition of faux pas, responsible parties, and implications.

  • Example: Sarah gifting Tom a book he already owns, examining the dynamics of unintended social errors.

Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task

  • Involves interpreting emotions or thoughts conveyed through subtle facial expressions, illustrated with different emotional descriptors.

Interpretative Theory of Mind Example

  • Engaging imagery to prompt consideration of varied interpretations based on individual experiences.

ATOM Components Recap

  • Three components of ATOM: social reasoning (higher order false beliefs, strange stories, eyes task), recognizing social norm transgression (faux pas), reasoning regarding ambiguity (ambiguity and interpretative ToM tasks).