Theory of Mind: Understanding Mental Life

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• Theory of Mind Understanding Mental Life

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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 peoples
• Feelings
• Desires
• Intentions
• Knowledge
• Thoughts/Beliefs, etc.

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Why do we need a theory of mind?

• To make sense of (or predict) behavior

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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
• Sarahs 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
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Why do we need a theory of mind?
Reason 2 Successful communication with another
person requires appreciating what the other
person knows, doesnt know, and how knowledge can
be acquired.

• e.g. teaching
• Reason 3 Social Learning (knowing who knows
  more, who to learn from)

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Infants Differentiate People (or Mental Agents)
from other Objects

• they arent 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 doesnt mean that the infants understand
  anything about the other persons mind

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Early Theory of Mind

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

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Knowledge

• What do young children understand about
  knowledge?
• Being present leads to knowing (high shelf study,
  ONeill)
• Looking leads to knowing (Pillow, 1990)
• Familiarity leads to knowing (Birch Bloom,
  2002)

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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

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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. Ive played with all
of these animals before.
This bag of animals is discovered. Wow! Ive
never seen that dog before.
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Common Noun Condition Wheres the dog? Can
you find the dog?

• Proper Name Condition
• Wheres Jessie? Can you find Jessie?

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Results
Proper Name Condition
Common Noun Condition
Birch Bloom (2002) Child Development
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Method
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History Phase
I think thats a spoon. Yeah, thats a spoon. I
think thats a comb. Yeah, thats a comb. etc.
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History Phase
I think thats a fork. Yeah, thats a fork. I
think thats a shoe. Yeah, thats a shoe. etc.
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Naming Phase
Jenny I think thats a ferber. Yeah, Thats a
ferber. Do you see the ferber?
Ben I think thats a ferber. Yeah, Thats a
ferber. Do you see the ferber?
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Testing Phase
Can you give me the ferber? Wheres the ferber?
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Testing Phase
?
Different Word Test Condition Can you give me
the koba? Wheres the koba?
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History of Knowledge Results
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Knowledge

• But, 3-year-olds dont 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? (ONeill, Flavell,
  and Astington).

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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?

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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 persons shoes

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Processing Demands View
A Curse of Knowledge Account

• Definition A difficulty appreciating a more
  naïve perspective as the result of being biased
  by ones own knowledge.
• 
  (Camerer, Lowenstein, and Weber, 1989)

Examples Anagram Study Sarcastic passages study
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Parallels Between Adults and ChildrensKnowledge
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)

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

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Parallels Between Adults and Childrens
Knowledge Reasoning

• Recalling Your Own Earlier Thoughts
• Subjects were asked prior to Nixons 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)

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• 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.

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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?

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Method
Familiar
Unfamiliar
Percys played with all of these toys before! He
brought all of these from home.
Percys never ever seen these toys before!
These are brand new.
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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.
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Experimenter Does Percy know whats inside
this one?
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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 Percys knowledge when they knew
  what was inside.
• The magnitude of the curse of knowledge would
  decline with age.

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Yes Responses to Does Percy Know What is
Inside?
Significant main effect of familiarity
Significant effect of familiarity at each age
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Does Percy know what is inside? (for Unfamiliar
toys)

• 3- and 4-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds,
  overestimated Percys knowledge when they were
  knowledgeable.
• The magnitude of the curse significantly
  decreased from age 3 to age 5.

Birch Bloom (2003) Psychological Science
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Percys 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
• Childrens 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
  their ignorance (see Birch Bloom, 2003,
  Psychological Science)

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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?
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Reaction Time Experiment

• Would adults be slower (and perhaps less
  accurate) at predicting someone elses 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?

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Percy has never seen this toy before.
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There is a small object inside.
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Percy has never seen this toy before.
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There is a leopard inside.
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Does Percy know what is inside? Yes or No?
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Does Percy know what is inside? Yes or No?
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p lt .05
Subjects error rates showed a similar trend (p
.08).
Birch Bloom (in prep) see also Birch (in prep)
Current Directions in Psychological Science
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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?

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False Belief Experiment

• Participants
• 210 Introductory Psychology Students
• Design
• Sally-Ann Questionnaire using 4 locations
  instead 2.
• Probability judgments were measured.

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False Belief Attribution

• Vicki places her violin in the blue box and goes
  outside.

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False Belief Attribution

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

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False Belief Attribution
a
?
?
?

• Cursed (standard) Condition object is moved to
  the red container (the participant knows where
  it is)

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, whats the probability she will first
look in each of the containers?
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Red Green Purple Blue No Curse 23 3
2 71 Curse 34 4
6 59
Birch Bloom (under review), Cognition see
also Birch Bloom (in prep) Trends in Cognitive
Science
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Probability that Vicki will First Look in the
Blue Container
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Curse Condition is significantly different from
other two conditions
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• Role of Inhibition (see video)
• Source Memory
• Curse of Knowledge exercise