Lecture 9 - Theory of Mind

Dr. Julia Marshall
September 24th, 2025

Perspective-taking: Understanding that others have beliefs and thoughts which may contradict one's own view of reality.
Empathy: Simply feeling others’ emotions does not directly imply understanding their mental states.
Theory of Mind (ToM): Framework for understanding others' mental states.

Perceptions: Direct and current experiences of the world.
- Example: "I see a bear in the forest."
Beliefs: Ideas or representations about the state of the world, which may be true or false.
- Examples:
- "I believe my phone is charging." (but it’s actually 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)
- These statements can be either correct or incorrect representations of reality.

Birth to 9 months:
- Emergence of the most basic form of ToM, termed perception-goal psychology.
- This allows recognition that others may have different perceptions and goals.
Ages 1-3 years:
- Refinement of basic ToM skills.
4 Year Revolution (Age 4 years):
- Development of fully fledged meta-representation theory of mind characterized by belief-desire psychology.
- Acknowledgment that others can have subjective and potentially false representations of the world.
Into adulthood: Further refinement of meta-representation leading to recursive, higher-order theory of mind.
Citations: Rakoczy, 2022; Nature Reviews Psychology

Setup:
- Two characters: Sally and Anne.
- Sally puts her ball in the basket and leaves.
- Anne moves the ball to her box.
Question: "Where will Sally look for her ball?"
Results:
- 4- and 5-year-olds successfully answer this correctly.
- 3-year-olds fail to understand that Sally will look in the basket.

Task involves representing that an object can be seen differently from two perspectives.

Flavell, Flavell, & Green (1986):
- Children are shown a sponge that appears as a rock.
- Young children (3-year-olds) express conflicting viewpoints, while older children (4-year-olds) differentiate:
- What it looks like versus what it really is.

As cited from Rakoczy (2022):
- Children recognize that individuals have rational viewpoints about the world which can differ and may not align with reality.
- Indicates a conceptual change in early development regarding ToM.

Wellman et al. (2001) highlights task variations:

Patterns of results can be identified as follows:
- A: No effect,
- B: Main effect,
- C: Interaction evident across age groups.

Higher-Order False-Belief Understanding:
- Understanding beliefs about others’ beliefs (second-order) and further recursive levels.
Post First-Order Reasoning:
- Interpretative Theory of Mind: Recognizing multiple valid interpretations of ambiguous information.
- Nonliteral Speech: Understanding irony, jokes, and sarcasm.
- Faux Pas Recognition: Identifying socially awkward/unintentional actions.
- Affective Inference: Inferring emotional or mental states from subtle cues.
Broader Social Understanding Skills:
- Emotion Recognition: Labeling emotions based on expressions, voice, and behavior.
- Perspective-Taking: Empathetically adopting others’ viewpoints.

Studies:

Examined ATOM development in elementary school children (ages 8-10) involving 82, 466, and 402 participants.
Utilized Rasch and factor analyses to determine whether these tasks revealed distinct ToM factors such as social reasoning, ambiguity reasoning, etc.
Findings refuted unidimensionality, showing three separate ATOM factors distinctly influenced by cognitive factors.
Notable correlations found between social reasoning and cognitive inhibition, whereas language development specifically predicted social reasoning performance.

Scenario: Ben is thinking about a birthday gift for his mom.
- Ben finds flowers in Anna's room and forms a belief about the gift for their mom.
- Anna deliberately misrepresents her gift idea to prevent Ben from copying her.
- Understanding this scenario requires multi-layered belief comprehension from both characters.

Participants listen to short stories involving non-literal statements.
Task: Explain the reasons behind the character's statements, necessitating a grasp of beliefs and intentions.
- Example: John misleading Mary about her cooking, requiring understanding of his intention not to hurt feelings.

Assesses difficult social reasoning and understanding of social norms.
Task involves identifying when inappropriate social comments have been made and understanding the context.
Example scenario: Sarah gives Tom a book he already owns, leading to disappointment.

Participants must interpret emotional states based on facial cues around the eyes, identifying various emotions including:
- Friendly, surprised, sad, angry, etc.

Participants assess ambiguous images or situations, exploring possible interpretations, underscoring the complexity of social perception.