Mindreading

Theory of mind

Historical, evolutionary, and developmental perspectives.

Outline

• What is a Theory of Mind (ToM)?

• History of ToM research

• False-belief

• ToM Mechanisms.

• Role of ToM in Autism

From Whiten (1994, in Lewis & Mitchell)

Conceptual issues.

• What is a theory of mind?

• How does it influence social perception?

A theory of physics

• Predicting the behaviour of objects.

• Use certain concepts like force, mass, friction, etc.

• Theory organizes these concepts.

• F=MA (Newton’s 1st law).

• Useful in making predictions.

Is physics useful for predicting behaviour?

• Not really.

• Physical theory poorly suited for the task.

• Autonomous entities under self-directed movement.

• External causes not always apparent.

• Solution?

Dennet

• Take the intentional stance.

• Adopt a theory of mind.

• Concepts include:

• Knowledge, beliefs, desires, intentions.

A definition.

• To have a theory of mind is to use mentalistic constructs in order to predict and explain the behaviour of other individuals.

• Allows us to “read the minds of others”

Prediction and Explanation

• Prediction: Knowing someone’s desires makes it easy to anticipate her emotions.

• Explanation: Knowing someone’s intentions is central to properly interpreting his behaviour.

• Example: Legal distinctions– Premeditated– Unpremeditated

TOMM• Function: allows the representation of representations

– {Agent – Attitude – Proposition} = M-Representations– Propositions:

• The marble is in the basket• It is raining• I saw the car accident• You want an A in this class

– M-representation:• Mary – thinks – the marble is in the basket. • John – believes – it is raining.• Amy – remembers – I saw the car accident. • I – believe – you want to do well in this class.

Properties of M-representations

• Referential opacity:– proposition can be false but the M-Representation can still be true.

• Example:– John – believes – it is raining.– It may not be raining, so proposition is false– But John can still believe that it is – so M-

representation can be true.– People can have FALSE BELIEFS!!!!

Examples• This can be true:

– Snow White thought the woman selling apples was a kind person.

• While this may be false:– Snow White thought her wicked stepmother

was a kind person.

• Second statement is false if snow white did not know her step mother was the one selling apples

Theory of Mind Mechanism (TOMM)

• Need TOMM for the full range of mental states.• Pretending, thinking, knowing, believing,

imagining, dreaming, guessing, deceiving, etc.• Having a “theory of mind” depends on being

aware that there are mental states (thoughts, beliefs, desires) which people have about something, and that other people have minds with different contents to our own.

Evidence for TOMM

• Pretend play in young children around 18-24 mths.

• Children from 3-4 yrs of age start showing evidence of “knowing”.

• Mommy believes that the banana is a telephone

• Knowledge about objects in the world– Bananas and Telephones– Know how to treat them (eating and

dialing)

• Removed from reality – doesn’t have to be true of the world.

• Pretend play– An empty cup is filled– A banana is a telephone

History of TOM research

• Interest in TOM grew out of comparative psychology.

• Researchers interested in the development and evolution of social intelligence.

What does Charlie want?

Premack and Woodruff

• Can chimpanzees understand the desires of a human being?

• Problem-solving task with Sarah, a 14-year-old Chimpanzee

Video: Problem situation

• Sarah shown 2 pictures

• (1) Shows effective solution to the problem.

• Sarah shown 2 pictures

• (1) Shows effective solution to the problem.

• (2) Shows ineffective solution to the problem.

Results and conclusions

• Sarah picked the picture that featured the effective solution.

• Chimps attribute mental states (in this case, desires) to humans.

Criticism

• Dennett: No.

• Perhaps chimps attributing their own desires to human.

• Need to show that one can understand someone else’s mental states, not just attribute one’s own mental states to others.

Wimmer and Perner

• False-Belief task

• Can a child understand that someone else can have a different belief (a false belief) despite the child possessing the correct belief?

• Allows researchers to separate the beliefs of the research participant from the beliefs of the model.

False belief task: Sally & Anne

The False-Belief Task

Where will bunny look for her toy?

•To succeed, child must separate their own beliefs (the true belief) and attribute a false-belief to Bunny.

4-year-olds

3-year-olds

False-belief task

• Why do 3-year-olds fail the task?

• (1) Age-related conceptual difficulties

False-belief task

• (1) Age-related conceptual difficulties– 3-year-olds have difficulty coordinating

two different representations of a single situation

False-belief task

Smarties task

False-belief task

Smarties task

False-belief task

Smarties task

E: What’s do you think is in the box?C: Smarties

False-belief task

Smarties task

False-belief task

Smarties task

E: What’s really in the box?C: Ribbons.E: What did you think was in the box before?

False-belief task

Smarties taskE: What’s really in the box?C: Ribbons.E: What did you think was in the box before?-- 3-year-olds say ribbons

False-belief task

Appearance-Reality Task

False-belief task

E: What does it look like?C: A rock

False-belief task

Child discovers the rockis actually a sponge

False-belief task

E: What is it really?C: A spongeE: What does it look like?

False-belief task

E: What is it really?C: A spongeE: What does it look like?

3-year-olds say it looks like a sponge

False-belief task

• (1) Age-related conceptual difficulties– Performance in a variety of tasks suggest that

3-year-olds have difficulty coordinating two different representations of a single situation

False-belief task

Other possibilities?

False-belief task

• (2) Problems of response control

False-belief task

• (2) Problems of response control– 3-year-olds possess the requisite knowledge

but fail to act appropriately

False-belief task

Looking-time version of false-belief task: Where will Bunny look for her toy?

False-belief task

Looking-time version of false-belief task: Where will Bunny look for her toy?

3-year-olds look longer to the correct location even though theygive the wrong answer.

False-belief task

Pointing versus spoken responses: Perhaps children find it difficult to inhibit pointing to where the toy actually is.

False-belief task

Pointing versus spoken responses: Perhaps children find it difficult to inhibit pointing to where the toy actually is.

Carlson, Moses, & Hix: Children perform better when givingspoken rather than pointing responses

False-belief task

– Some evidence that children know the right answer but have difficulty inhibiting incorrect responses

What leads to the development of a theory of mind?

• 3 contrasting perspectives

(1) Nativist

(2) Cognitive-developmental

(3) Social interactionist

(1) Nativist– ToM a specific cognitive domain– Baron-Cohen: Supported by 4 basic

modules– Intentionality detector, eye-direction

detector, shared-attention mechanism, and a theory of mind module

– Evidence?

(1) Nativist– ToM a specific cognitive domain– Baron-Cohen: Supported by 4 basic

modules– Intentionality detector, eye-direction

detector, shared-attention mechanism, and a theory of mind module

– Evidence? Autism & Cross-cultural

IDDesires and goals

“Mary wants the apple”

EDDEyes can see things

“Mary sees the apple”

SAMInfers desires and goals based on eye direction

“I see that Mary wants the apple”

Theory of Mind

TOMMAllows the full range of mental states

“I think you believe this topic is interesting”

Adaptive Problem

Cognitive Programs

Neurophysiology

Predicting and explaining behavior

ID, EDD, SAM, TOMM

STS-Amygdala-OFC

(2) Cognitive-developmental– ToM dependent on the development of general

cognitive mechanisms– Flexibility: performance in false-belief tasks

correlates with performance on the DCCS– Inhibition: gains in false-belief related to

improvements in behavioural control– Working memory: allows one to hold two

representations in mind simultaneously

(3) Social interactionist– Interactions with caregivers, siblings, and

peers facilitates development of ToM– Evidence?

Children from larger families do better on false-belief tasks.This is especially true for children with poor languageskills (Jenkins & Astington, 1996).

However, it is only having older siblings that helps (Ruffman, 1998).Having older sibs stimulates pretend play and facilitates the development of counter-factual reasoning.

Adults also effective tutors.Lewis administered ToM tests to a group of 3 & 4 yo’s.Best predictor of success # of adults the child interacted with every day. How does adult interaction help?

peers facilitates development of ToM– Evidence?– Mother-child feeling-state talk during

discipline and story-reading associated with later ToM

What would your world be like without a Theory of Mind?

• How would you explain behavior?

• Imagine not understanding sarcasm, humor, irony, beliefs, deceptions…

• Imagine living in a world in which you could only understand behavior in terms of temporal and physical contingencies.

• What would this be like?

Autism• Autism:

– Affects 4-15 children per 10,000. – Abnormal social and communication skills

• Diagnostic features of Autism:– Lack of normal social awareness and

socially appropriate behavior– Lack of communication skills, verbal and

non-verbal– Lack of pretend play

• Kanner (1943) first identified syndrome:• “He seems almost to draw into his shell and live within

himself…”• “When taken into a room, he completely disregarded the

people and instantly when for objects…”• “When a hand was held out to him so that he could no

possibly ignore it, he played with it briefly as if it were a detached object…”

• “He did not respond to being called, and did not look at his mother when she spoke to him…”

• “He never looked up at people’s faces. When he had any dealings with persons at all, he treated them, or rather parts of them, as if they were objects.”

What systems are impaired?

• ID?

• EDD?

• SAM?

• TOMM?

Autism = MindblindnessImpairments of Theory of Mind

• Intentionality Detector (ID) impairments?– Can individuals with autism understand behavior in

terms of desires and goals?• “She wants ice cream”• “He is going to go swimming”

– Can they distinguish animate from inanimate?– Can they understand that desires cause emotions?

• Getting attaining a goal or desire makes you happy• Not getting a goal or desire makes you sad

– Verdict: ID IS NOT IMPAIRED

MindblindnessImpairments of Theory of Mind

• Eye Direction Detector (EDD) impairments?– Do they know what it means to see?

• Use the word “see” spontaneously in speech

– Can they tell whether someone is looking at them or away from them?

– Can they work out where someone else is looking?

Verdict: EDD IS NOT IMPAIRED

• Shared Attention Mechanism (SAM) impairments?

• Allows for individual to verify that self and another are attending to the same object or event.

– Do they engage in joint attention behavior? NO– Do they monitor gaze? NO– Do they show pointing or showing gestures? NO

• “Look what I have!” (36 months)

– Do they infer that seeing indicates desires? (Charlie Task)

• SAM impairments?– Blind children understand

what it means “to see”– Individuals with autism

often speak to loudly or too softly or with little inflection.

– Lack concept of other as an interested listener

Verdict: SAM IS IMPAIRED

• TOMM impairments?– SAM is impaired, so TOMM must be too!

IDDesires an goals

EDDEyes can see things

SAMInfers desires and goals based on eye direction

TOMMAllows the full range of mental states

Is autism an extremeof the male brain?

Triad of difficultiesTriad of difficulties

Social Communication Imagining others minds

Empathizing

Triad of strengthsTriad of strengths

Islets of obsessions repetitive

ability with systems behaviour

Systemizing

The autistic spectrum: two subgroups

• Classic autism– Any point on the IQ scale– Involves language delay

• Asperger Syndrome– Individuals of normal IQ or above– No language delay

Genetics of autism

• Twin studies

• Sibling risk rates

• The ‘broader phenotype’

Autism: the sex ratio

• Autism spectrum: 4:1 (male:female)

• Asperger Syndrome: 9:1

Hans Asperger (1944)

“The autistic personality is an extreme variant of male intelligence…

In the autistic individual the male pattern is exaggerated to the extreme”

Sex differences in the mind: the classical view

–Spatial ability (right hemisphere)• males > females

–Language (left hemisphere)• females > males

–Mathematical ability• males > females

Boys > girls:Toy vehicles, constructional toys, and mechanical toys

Girls > boys:Dolls, enacting social and emotional themes

Males > females:

maths, computing, physics, engineering, tool-making

Females > males:

Primary school teaching, nursing, social work, counselling

Two psychological processes

• Empathizing (E)

– identify a person’s thoughts and feelings– respond to these with an appropriate emotion

• Systemizing (S)

– analyse or build a system – mechanical, natural, abstract, collectible

Different profiles

• S > E : more common in males?

• E > S : more common in females?

• S >> E : more common in autism?

Mindreading

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