Theory of Mind: Understanding Mental Life

1. Theory of Mind: Understanding Mental Life

2. Theory of Mind Research The point of the research: to understand what infants and young children understand about the minds of others What do they know about (and how do they reason about) other people’s… Feelings Desires Intentions Knowledge Thoughts/Beliefs, etc.

3. Why do we need a theory of mind? To make sense of (or predict) behavior

4. Why do we need a theory of mind? Reason 1: Understanding what a person is thinking, feeling, believes etc helps us predict how they will act and/or interpret their behavior For example: Sarah’s dog is missing. Sarah hears a scratching noise in the shed. She goes to the shed and opens the door and finds a squirrel. She begins to cry. How do we make sense of this? See Heider clip

5. Why do we need a theory of mind? Reason 2: Successful communication with another person requires appreciating what the other person knows, doesn’t know, and how knowledge can be acquired. e.g. teaching Reason 3: Social Learning (knowing who knows more, who to learn from)

6. Infants Differentiate People (or Mental Agents) from other Objects they aren’t surprised if people move without making contact but are for inanimate objects when an object moves out of sight, the infants try to reach towards its place of disappearance; when a person moves out of sight, the infants vocalize What does this mean? Infants seem to construe people as somehow “special”, different from objects BUT that doesn’t mean that the infants understand anything about the other person’s mind

7. Early Theory of Mind • 18 month-old infants will imitate intentions of actors, even when they don’t see the completed action. They do not imitate machines. • Understand others can have different desires (Brocolli vs. Cracker Study)

8. Knowledge What do young children understand about knowledge? • Being present leads to knowing (high shelf study, O’Neill) • Looking leads to knowing (Pillow, 1990) • Familiarity leads to knowing (Birch & Bloom, 2002)

9. The Relationship Between Knowledge and Familiarity Familiarity Principle: Unobservable properties that are specific to individuals or objects can only be known through experience with those individuals or entities. e.g. # of siblings, contents of a container, proper names

10. Method Do children appreciate that if a speaker uses a proper name she must be referring to an individual she is familiar with? Unfamiliar Familiar “I brought these from home. I’ve played with all of these animals before.” This bag of animals is ‘discovered’. “Wow! I’ve never seen that dog before.”

11. Common Noun Condition: “Where’s the dog? Can you find the dog?” Proper Name Condition: “Where’s Jessie? Can you find Jessie?”

12. Results Proper Name Condition Common Noun Condition Birch & Bloom (2002) Child Development

13. Method

14. History Phase “I think that’s a spoon. Yeah, that’s a spoon. I think that’s a comb. Yeah, that’s a comb.” etc.

15. History Phase “I think that’s a fork. Yeah, that’s a fork. I think that’s a shoe. Yeah, that’s a shoe.” etc.

16. Naming Phase Jenny: “I think that’s a ferber. Yeah, That’s a ferber. Do you see the ferber?” Ben: “I think that’s a ferber. Yeah, That’s a ferber. Do you see the ferber?”

17. Testing Phase “Can you give me the ferber? Where’s the ferber?”

18. Testing Phase ? Different Word Test Condition: “Can you give me the koba? Where’s the koba?”

19. History of Knowledge: Results

20. Knowledge But, 3-year-olds don’t seemed to understand that we acquire different information through our different senses e.g. Red Ball vs. Blue ball: Who will know? Someone who looks or feels? (O’Neill, Flavell, and Astington).

21. False Belief Results Results from the classic false belief tasks: 4 year olds succeed at the task, 3 year olds fail!! What do the results mean? Children younger than four do not understand that people can hold beliefs that are false? Or is there an alternative explanation?

22. Three Broad Theories 1) Theory-Theory (Radical Shift Theory) (e.g. Gopnik, 1993, Wimmer & Weichbold, 1994; Wellman et. al, 2001) • children prior to the age of four are unable to attribute belief states to themselves and others. • Lack concept of representation, lack concept of belief • Come to have a theory of mind through hypothesis testing (only through external info) 2) Innate Module (Processing Demands) Theory (e.g. Fodor, 1992; Scholl & Leslie, 2000) • Theory of mind develops through brain maturation (internal, innate forces) • Continuous view of development • young children fail these tasks because they lack the attentional, mneumonic, or linguistic resources, rather than the ability to attribute false beliefs. 3) Simulation Account (e.g. Goldman, Gordon, & Harris) • No “theory” necessary • Simply imagine oneself in other person’s “shoes”

23. Processing Demands View A ‘Curse of Knowledge’ Account Definition: A difficulty appreciating a more naïve perspective as the result of being biased by one’s own knowledge. (Camerer, Lowenstein, and Weber, 1989) Examples Anagram Study ‘Sarcastic’ passages study

24. Parallels Between Adults’ and Children’sKnowledge Reasoning Predicting What Others will Think • Subjects read descriptions of events that could have various outcomes. In one condition, subjects were told the outcome, in another condition they were not. • They were asked to judge what others who did not know the outcome would predict. • Subjects who knew the outcome thought others would be much more likely to predict that outcome. . Fischhoff (1975)

25. Like the children who claimed Sally would know that her chocolate had been moved, adults claimed that others would share their outcome knowledge.

26. Parallels Between Adults’ and Children’s Knowledge Reasoning Recalling Your Own Earlier Thoughts • Subjects were asked prior to Nixon’s trip to China and the USSR to estimate the probability of the various outcomes. • 2 weeks - 6 months later they were asked to recall their predictions • Subjects remembered giving much higher probabilities than they actually had to the outcomes that took place. Fischhoff & Beyth (1975)

27. Like children who claimed they knew all along that there were pencils in the box, adults showed a more subtle effect by giving biased recollections of what they had previously predicted.

28. Questions of Interest • Do young children find it easier to assess what someone else will know when they are not “cursed” with knowledge? • Are younger children more susceptible to the curse of knowledge than older children? • Is this why young children do poorly on false belief tasks?

29. Method Familiar Unfamiliar “Percy’s played with all of these toys before! He brought all of these from home.” “Percy’s never ever seen these toys before! These are brand new.”

30. No Curse (Ignorant) Cursed(Knowledgeable) Children were told there was a special little thing in each one. Children were shown what was inside each one before it was closed again.

31. Experimenter: “Does Percy know what’s inside this one?”

32. Predictions Children would judge that Percy knows what is inside the toys he is familiar with, and will not know what is inside the toys he is unfamiliar with. But, the curse of knowledge would work against this appreciation, leading children to overestimate Percy’s knowledge when they knew what was inside. The magnitude of the curse of knowledge would decline with age.

33. Yes Responses to “Does Percy Know What is Inside?” Significant main effect of familiarity Significant effect of familiarity at each age

34. “Does Percy know what is inside?” (for Unfamiliar toys) • 3- and 4-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, overestimated Percy’s knowledge when they were knowledgeable. • The magnitude of the curse significantly decreased from age 3 to age 5. Birch & Bloom (2003) Psychological Science

35. Percy’s Knowledge Study: Conclusions • Children are sensitive to the knowledge states of others, but the curse of knowledge can work against this sensitivity • The magnitude of the curse of knowledge decreases significantly from age 3 to age 5 • Children’s knowledge assessments are biased asymmetrically and cannot be reduced to ‘egocentrism’. • They are biased by their knowledge when assessing what someone else knows, but are not biased by theirignorance (see Birch & Bloom, 2003, Psychological Science)

36. Knowledge Attribution in Adults: Question of Interest Does the curse of knowledge pose problems even late in development on tasks like those used with children?

37. Reaction Time Experiment Would adults be slower (and perhaps less accurate) at predicting someone else’s knowledge when they were knowledgeable? Participants • 20 Introductory Psychology Students (Right-handed) Design • The ‘Percy’ experiment on a computer to display pictures of the toys and measure reaction times. • “Yes” or “No” to “Does Percy know what is inside?”

38. Percy has never seen this toy before.

39. There is a small object inside.

40. Percy has never seen this toy before.

41. There is a leopard inside.

42. Does Percy know what is inside? Yes or No?

43. Does Percy know what is inside? Yes or No?

44. p < .05 Subject’s error rates showed a similar trend (p = .08). Birch & Bloom (in prep); see also Birch (in prep) Current Directions in Psychological Science

45. False Belief Experiment Would adults experience difficulty attributing false beliefs if they were knowledgeable of the outcome, compared to adults who did not know the outcome?

46. False Belief Experiment Participants • 210 Introductory Psychology Students Design • ‘Sally-Ann’ Questionnaire using 4 locations instead 2. • Probability judgments were measured.

47. False Belief Attribution • Vicki places her violin in the blue box and goes outside.

48. False Belief Attribution • While Vicki is outside, her sister, Denise, comes in and rearranges all the boxes.

49. False Belief Attribution Cursed (standard) Condition = object is moved to “the red” container (the participant knows where it is) a ? ? ? No Curse Condition = object is moved to “another” container (the participant does not know where it is) When Vicki comes back she wants to find her violin, what’s the probability she will first look in each of the containers?

50. Red Green Purple Blue No Curse23%3%2%71% Curse34%4%6%59% Birch & Bloom (under review), Cognition; see also Birch & Bloom (in prep) Trends in Cognitive Science