PSYC415
Early Cognitive Development: Theory of Mind
Dr Jason Low
School of Psychology
Victoria University of Wellington
What is theory of mind (ToM)?

The most liveliest area of research
 Wellman et al. (2001): in 1998,
around 178 studies on ToM
(more and more every year)

How did it get started?
 Piaget: children begin
development by being
egocentric (e.g., visual
perspective) (why was Piaget’s
theoretical perspective
abandoned?)
How did ToM research start?



Premack and
Woodruff (1978) in
Behavioural and
Brain Sciences – do
chimps have a
theory of mind?
How do we test for
ToM?
Unexpected Transfer
Task first suggested
by Bennett (1978),
Dennett (1978) &
Harman (1978)
FB Tasks


Wimmer & Perner (1983): used
unexpected transfer situation to
test false belief understanding in
young children
Other tests of false beliefs were
soon followed: unexpected
contents (which also tests for
representational change);
appearance-reality
Theories and antecedents

Theory theory account (Gopnik & Wellman, 1994;
Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997)

(an informal everyday framework that changes in steps from
desire based to desire-belief based to adult-belief)

Harris (1992) – simulation theory (children compute
mental states through role taking) (think of simulation like
empathy) (what develops is accuracy of simulations)

Modularity account (Leslie, 1994) – development in
terms of neurological maturation of successive domain
specific and modular mechanisms
Modular
perspective
Represents
behaviour in terms of
goals & wants on the
basis of certain cues
(e.g., selfpropulsion);
Outputs dyadic
information (e.g.,
Jason wants the
broccoli)
ID
EDD
Detect the presence of eyelike stimuli (visual modality);
Represents eye direction as
= ‘Agent sees X’;
Outputs dyadic information
(e.g., Jason sees the
broccoli / David sees the
broccoli)
SAM
Represents if self and other
are attending to same thing;
Interprets behaviour in
mentalistic ways
Outputs M-representations
(Agent-Attitude-Proposition)
(David believes that Jason
sees/wants the broccoli)
ToMM
Outputs triadic information
(e.g., David sees Jason sees
the broccoli);
Note that ID is linked to EDD;
allows eye direction to be read
as rationalistic
More on other theories and antecedents

Executive function perspective(s) – domain general processing factors such
as attention regulation, building and consolidation of statistical regularities;
inhibition, rule formulation allow children to acquire ToM

Language


Adult-child conversations make salient ToM;
Language as a vehicle for thought


Syntax - aacquisition of the underlying syntactic structure of complement clauses with
verbs of communication and mental state (“say”, “tell”, “believe”) enable the
representation of false beliefs
[e.g., Jason said there was an insect in David’s hair. vs.
Jason saw an insect in David’s hair and then went to his
PSYC415 class. ]
Can thought be fugitive from language?
Steps to a meta-representational understanding of mind
Explicit understanding of the
representation nature of beliefs (e.g.,
false-belief) and pretence (approx. 4
to 5 years;
Understanding link between seeing & knowing,
implicit understanding of false belief (approx.
3½ to 4 years
Understanding desires, simple emotions, pretence
as acting as if (approx. 2½ to 3½ years)
Precursors to ToM: shared attention, directed eye gaze,
monitoring intent of others (approx. 9mths to 2½ years)
Where are differences and similarities in
ToM development located?



Intra-species (neurotypical development and autism)
Inter-species (primates and birds)
What do these differences and similarities teach us
about:




(1) whether ToM is modular or domain general;
(2) extent of ToM development being continuous and/or
discontinuous
(3) the evolutionary roots of ToM and in what ways might
interspecies context (e.g., cooperation vs competition; food vs.
abstract reward) support ToM-like display?;
(4) whether language is necessary and sufficient (or necessary
but insufficient) for higher-order rational thought?