Lecture 10 Developmental Psychology PDF

Theory of Mind Topics in Developmental Psychology PSYC 21021 Dr. Bahar Koymen Week 10 1  Overview × Definition of Theory of Mind (ToM). × Methodologies used in studies investigating ToM × Theories of ToM...

Theory of Mind Topics in Developmental Psychology PSYC 21021 Dr. Bahar Koymen Week 10 1  Overview × Definition of Theory of Mind (ToM). × Methodologies used in studies investigating ToM × Theories of ToM × Is ToM a universal skill? × Is ToM a uniquely-human skill? 2 What is “Theory of Mind”? × Our everyday understanding of people is mentalistic, we think of people in terms of their goals, beliefs, desires, hopes, and feelings. × People act in accordance with their goals & beliefsà coherence! ↳ If the personbag believes that their key is in their then they should be looking for the Kel in the bag - × However, mental states are “invisible”, opaque, and private. – how do children ever learn about mental states of others? × Theory of mind: proposed to explain this acquisition process and development. vinitial stage of learning 3 What is “Theory of Mind”? × Understanding the mental states or psychological states of others. × Perspective-taking, putting oneself in the shoes of others × Mind-reading 4  Mental states × Goals/intentions and desires × People act in accordance with their goals. × People with different goals would act differently. × Understanding perception and knowledge “access” × Visual perspective-taking: Can others see what I can see? × “Seeing” is not necessarily the same thing as “knowing” × Beliefs or representations of the world or the reality × True-belief – correctly represent the reality that in × Ignorance – unaware of the reality -believes, bottewhen it False-belief – incorrectly represent the reality bad not - × × Second-order beliefs – beliefs about beliefs false belief about another persons belief. 5  Goals and intentions × Unsuccessful actions allow us to explore “goals” of agents. × Behne, Carpenter, Call, & Tomasello (2005): 6-, 9-, 12-, and 18-month olds × An adult fails to hand infants a toy for different reasons: × Unwilling adult teases the infant or play with the toy herself × Unable adult (tries but) drops the toy so can’t give it to the infant. ~ not 6-month olds × Only 9-, 12-, and 18-month olds were more “impatient” or “frustrated” (e.g., banging, looking away) in the unwilling [because condition than unable condition the adult is togive able thet a - × Infants adapted their responses to different intentional acts of the experimenter. 6 Understanding others’ intentions Clumsy: Unable Behne, Carpenter, Call & Tomasello, 2005 7 Understanding others’ intentions Tease: Unwilling Behne, Carpenter, Call & Tomasello, 2005 8  Desires × Children often assume everybody likes what they like (e.g., goldfish crackers) and everybody dislikes what they dislike (e.g., broccoli). × When the adult expresses that she likes “broccoli”; and she hates “goldfish crackers”… believ ne × Strey Then the adult said, “Can you give me some?” likesInel every that what prefer. × Children younger than 2: handed in “gold-fish crackers” (could not perceive how one can like broccoli!) × Children around age 2: handed in “broccoli” (so they could [they appreciate people might have different likes and dislikes.) their start to understand that everyone has own preference (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997) 9 Desires https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiT7HFj2gv4 10  Perception & knowledge “access” × 12-month-olds (Moll & Tomasello, 2004) × When an experimenter looks behind a barrier and shows excitement “Oh!”, 12-month olds walk around to look at what is behind the barrier. × 24-month olds (Moll & Tomasello, 2006) × An adult entered the room searching for an object. × Object 1 was out in the open × Object 2 was visible for the child but not to the adult (behind an occluder). × When asked to help the adult find the sought-for object, 24-month- old children handed him Object 2. to the ↳ because it was not available adult but only to them. 11  Beliefs: True vs. False × People act on their beliefs. × BUT what they believe may not always correspond to reality: A false belief × I know you are looking for your keys, I know your keys are on the floor, but you don’t. And you are looking for your keys in the drawer: “Ah! She must think her keys are in the drawer!” × False-belief tasks assess whether children can recognize that people would have multiple representations of one are believe the keys situation. ↳ One in might falsely other might falsely the drawerd the believe that it is in the × Someone thinks something that is not true and children are. ag asked to contrast this “false belief” with “reality”. 12  Beliefs: True vs. False × “A child’s understanding that a person has a false-belief – one that contradicts reality – provides compelling evidence for appreciating this distinction between mind and world” (Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001, p.655). 13  False Belief Tasks × A variety of tasks have been used, mainly variations on one of two: × Unexpected location task. × Unexpected contents/identity task. 14  Unexpected location task × Wimmer and Perner (1983) × Maxi puts chocolate in the kitchen cupboard and leaves the room. × His mother then moves the chocolate from the cupboard to a drawer. × Where will Maxi look for the chocolate? × 3-year-olds typically answered “the drawer” and acted on how the world is as opposed to understanding that we act on our beliefs and knowledge about the world. do not Ley × 4- to 5-year-olds answered “the cupboard”. understandene J a in cor they understan between mindt night reality the difference reality -. 15  Unexpected contents task Experimenters ask children what they believe to be the contents of a box that looks as though it holds a candy called "Smarties". After the child guesses (usually) "Smarties", it is shown that the box in fact contained pencils. The experimenter then re-closes the box and asks the child what she thinks another person, who has not been shown the true contents of the box, will think is inside. · 3 year old says pencils (they will say whatever hea · 4-5 year old says smarties. (Perner et al. 1987) , 16  Unexpected contents task False belief questions: × If I showed this to your friend, what would he/she think was in here? × 3-year-olds: “pencils” × 4-year-olds: “smarties” × What did you think was in here at first? × 3-year-olds: “pencils” × 4-year-olds: “smarties” × At age 3, children do not seem to understand that another person could have a false-belief about the world. ↳ they believe there is only one reality. (Perner et al. 1987) 17 False Belief Tasks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41jSdOQQpv0 18 Implicit ToM vs. Exlicit ToM × Explicit theory of mind: more conscious tracking of other’s mental states measured by standard false belief tasks. × Interviews with 3- to 5-year-olds × Implicit theory of mind: being able to track others’ mental states unconsciously. 3). × With infants (younger than age × Similar stories in False Belief tasks are used. Instead of interviews, infants’ looking times were measured. 19  Is it “competence” or “performance”? Different models explaining ToM: 1) Conceptual Change Model (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001; Wimmer & Perner, 1983) 2) Competence Model (a critique of their conceptual change model) because orated- (e.g., Hala & Chandler, 1996) relianceplibelief. false tasks 3) Maturation Model: nativist, a ToM module has 1) (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Leslie, 1995 ) of mind ability. · everyone a full-blown theory there is no development somehow. 20 Conceptual Change Models × Children’s early ToM equates to a desire psychology – a theory of persons based on an initial, simplified understanding of the following internal states: × Goals & intentions × Perception & knowledge access place -takes after age × Development represents a shift from a situation/reality-based to a representation-based understanding of mind. ↳ moves from reality to representing reality. × Must explain how children go from believing that belief equates to reality, to believing that belief equates to an internal reality (or representation of reality). 21  model criticise the conceptual Change * Competence Models Traditional false belief tasks underestimate young children’s abilities because of task demands. - × Task complexity: Requires verbal ability, memory, attention, counterfactual thinking à wording of the questions example would inyou ~ for , why × Reason for displacement: deception put pencils a smarries box × Salience of the mental states of the - protagonist. Chat is the reasons, × What if children involved in the story the leading person × Perhaps, it is about executive function: inability to inhibit the knowledge of reality 22  Wording of the question × Wording of the question: × Perhaps children thought that the experimenter meant: Where should Maxi look for his chocolate? × Where will Maxi look for his chocolate? × Where will Maxi look for his chocolate first? × Where does Maxi think his chocolate is? × Where does Maxi say his chocolate is? Playing with different wording improved performance or not ofs olds a bit but not consistently year they false belief - 23 to say that enough  Deception (Chandler, Fritz, & Hala, 1989) × Provide a reason for the displacement × A hide-and-seek game: The child hides the toy in one of the 4 boxes. If the experimenter cannot find the toy, the child wins × Children younger than age 5 came up with deceptive strategies: false trails! × The adult is going to falsely believe that the toy is in the right box, but actually the toy is another box. however , the child - decieves the expe- 0 vimenter it in one of the that by putting experimenten other boxes doesn't have wouldexpersee in the footsteps. the 3 year locationWhere a This improves a bit 24. ads performance  Inhibitory Control (Executive Function) × Inhibitory control: ability to suppress actions or thoughts that are relevant to the task at hand. × False belief tasks requires children to inhibit their knowledge about reality. × This ability develops in preschool years. × When children do not know about the new location of the chocolate but know that it is moved, they can judge who would or would not know about the new location (see Birch & Bloom, 2003). × When Maxi’s chocolate is eaten or destroyed rather than “moved to a new location”, their performance improves. around Children tend to get better at executive control. age 5 25  Consistent results but … Buttelmann, Carpenter, & Tomasello (2009) × In an active behavioral helping paradigm : × The task was for infants to help an adult achieve his goal – but to determine that goal, infants had to take into account what the adult believed (i.e., whether or not he falsely believed there was a toy inside a box). × By 18 months of age infants successfully took into account the adult’s belief in the process of attempting to determine his goal. 26  Consistent results but … Buttelmann, Carpenter, & Tomasello (2009) × False-belief (FB) condition: Adult is outside when the toy is relocated × True-belief (TB) condition: Adult witnesses the relocation × In both conditions: he is trying to open the empty box 27  Consistent results but … Buttelmann, Carpenter, & Tomasello (2009) unaware ~so adi tos × False-belief (FB) condition: Adult is outside when the toy is relocated × Children inform him about where the toy is and help him open the box (“He doesn’t know where the toy is and he is searching for the child/ box. toy in the wrong place”) to yellow helps him him the key adult is aware by giving - that the toy × True-belief (TB) condition: Adult witnesses the relocation is relocated. ×Children help him open the empty box (“He knows where the toy is so he must want to open the empty box”) child helps him open empty box. × In both conditions: he is trying to open the empty box 28  Consistent results but … Onishi & Baillergeon (2005) × Implicit ToM & Implicit false belief tasks with - 15-month olds × Nonverbal “Violation of expectation” paradigm: looking longer at the surprising scene. × True Belief Condition: × The actor thinks the toy is in the yellow box. × Toy is in the yellow box. × Children were not surprised and did not look at this scene long. × False Belief condition: × The actor thinks the toy is in the green box. × Toy is in the yellow box. × Children were surprised and looked at the scene longer. 29  Conclusion: False-belief tasks × Some paradigms suggested that when children - - receive enough scaffolding, their performance breaking improves in the false belief tasks. down information. of × However, with some exceptions, the performance of 3-year-olds seems quite unstable and the age difference persists (Wellman et al. 2001). Gre × Therefore, there seems to be a significant developmental change, “a conceptual change” between ages 3 to 5. cannot say that this helps children pass false belief tasks. 30  Beyond false belief-tasks × Being able to attribute a false belief constitutes a very small part of what it means to understand that we think mentalistically. × In naturalistic interactions they perform “better”. We see evidence for this in their spontaneous language (e.g., “I thought I saw a cat, but it was a dog”, Bartsch & Wellman, 1995) belief. ↳ acknowledging their own false × There are individual differences. × Correlated with executive function, linguistic skills. × Early family conversation about people’s desires predict success in false belief tasks in later age (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995). S × Pretend play and ToM (Taylor & Carlson, 1997). × The effect of siblings on ToM (Perner et al.1994). false belief tasks children with siblings pass earlier than children without. siblings 31  Is ToM a universal ability? × Are false-belief tasks only suitable for children growing up in WEIRD cultures? × - Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic onla × wope In some cultures, it is against social norms to talk about mental i n states, it is considered witchcraft. × Some languages make more fine-tuned distinctions in mental state verbs than others. is same for all ) ↑ progression children × Although children might master “mental states” reasoning sooner or later depending on the cultural communities (traditional vs. modern cultures) and the language systems in which they are S reared, they all seem to go through the same developmental trajectory in acquiring this ability (Wellman et al., 2001) other people · Children begin with understanding goals of to preferences move to , then they move & belief , then they what is visible to them understanding , comea 32  Is ToM a uniquely-human ability? × Chimps can understand intentions and goals: × Call et al (2004) × Unwilling × Unable the · Chimpanzees just like are -months a ne 33 Clumsy: Unable Call, et al., 2004 34 Tease: Unwilling Call, et al., 2004 35  Do apes have “implicit” theory of mind like infants? (Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s0dO_h7q7Q 36  Conclusion: Is ToM a uniquely-human ability? × Primates can perceive others as goal-oriented beings × They are able to track what is visually available to others (“what others know”). ↑ Ifthereis adominantchi,,, × food! food Mostly in competitive settings that revolve around~ There × In cooperative settings, they are not as skillful! otherwise if u less wil I eat it, I let × They expect others to act on their false beliefs (implicit ToM) beaten. × However, in behavioral experiments, they do not display false belief understanding. & 3 year × No evidence yet for explicit ToM (for chimps like 3 year olds. adod · Chimps are 37  Summary × The most common measure of ToM is the false belief task. × Children generally do not pass the task until after 4 years of age, although modifications in the task can sometimes improve performance. × With scaffolding, children’s performance can be improved. × The most widely accepted explanation for ToM development is the conceptual shift in children’s representational ability. × Multiple factors affect children’s ability to pass the test. × The developmental trajectory of ToM seems to be universal × Explicit ToM focusing on false belief understanding is a uniquely human skill. 38