theory of mind

    Cards (10)

    • theory of mind
      -personal understanding of what others think/feel/know
      -understanding someone else's social cognition
      -understanding intention
      -likened to mind-reading
      -putting yourself in someone else's shoes
      -develops at age 4 and continues to sophisticate
      -lying demonstrates theory of mind as people see what others know etc. Tested through false-belief tasks
    • Wimmer & Perner (1983) - not on spec
      -scenario: Maxi's mum has chocolate to make cake and puts this in the blue cupboard. Maxi goes outside to play, the mum uses the chocolate then puts it in the green cupboard. Ppts are asked which cupboard Maxi will go in to get the chocolate.
      -3y/o = green cupboard (ToM defecit)
      -4y/o = blue cupboard, most of the time (have ToM)
      -6y/o = blue cupboard (all children have ToM)
      -shows children develop ToM
    • explanation of autism
      -one typical characteristic of autism is struggling with social cognition
      -they struggle to see from others POVs & their feelings
      -a ToM deficit explains this characteristic
      -not all people with autism struggle with ToM
    • Baron-Cohen: Sally-Anne task
      -to see if a ToM deficit explains autism
      -used standardised procedures
      -3 groups: neurotypical; autistic & down-syndrome
      -one doll (Sally) put a block in a box, the other doll (Anne) went to play then Sally moved the block to a basket. Ppts were then asked which item Anne would say the block was in
      -20% of autistic children passed, compared to 85% of neurotypical & 86% of down-syndrome
      -ToM deficit explains autism
      -HOWEVER, autistic adults succeeded on the ToM task. Challenges it as an explanation of autism
      -used down syndrome ppts to eliminate intellectual disability as an extraneous variable
    • Baron-Cohen: eye task
      -a more sophisticated way of measuring ToM
      -ppts would have to look at eyes and determine the emotions these eyes showed
      -autistic people scored lower than neurotypical people (mean score of 16.3 for autistic people)
      -supports ToM as an explanation of autism
    • AO3
      Strength(s):
      -real world application - tests that assess ToM are hard for people with autism to succeed in as some autistic people struggle to see what others think/feel. Explains why some autistic people struggle with social interactions. Often assume that neurotypical people can read others. D: ToM is not a complete explanation. Not all autistic people have ToM issues & these issues are not limited to autism. May have other factors involved. ToM & autism isn't strong. Lacks validity.

      Weakness(es):
      -use of false-belief tasks lack validity. Many studies have used the Sally-Anne task. Bloom & German (2000): false-belief tasks need other cognitive abilities e.g., visual memory. Could have a memory deficit if they fail. F-B tasks might not measure ToM. Lack validity.
      -research techniques didn't distinguish ToM from perspective-taking. P-T & ToM are related but are different cognitive abilities. Hard to tell which one is being measured. Example: Sally-Anne task, children may have been switching between the perspective of Sally & Anne. Decreases validity as it might not have been measuring ToM (apart from eye task).
    • social cognition & ToM:
      -links to the perception of social cues
      -understanding others' mental states
      -forming impressions and judgements
      -using social knowledge to guide behaviour
    • stages of theory of mind / developmental stages:
      • toddlerhood (ages 1-3): children start to have understanding of others' intentions when doing simple actions. Meltzoff: ppts 18m/o observed adults putting some beads in a jar and missing the jar for other beads - all ppts successfully put all beads in the jar so ppts were aware of intention. Intentional reasoning.
      • Childhood (ages 3-9): key milestone where children understand others can hold beliefs that are false and act on them. Sally-Anne task and Wimmer & Perner research. Ages 3-4 have a shift of development.
      • older childhood & adulthood (ages 10+): may struggle with understanding subtle emotions and social norms but this develops with age. Baron-Cohen developed the eye-task (more age appropriate) that found adults with ASD struggled to infer the emotions displayed by eyes which supports ToM deficit as an autism explanation.
    • additional research for intention reasoning & ToM (used for AO3 - don't need)
      • Carpenter et al (2001): tested children with autism for their understanding of intention. Done by seeing if they followed someone's gaze and looked where someone was pointing.
      • found that children with autism aged 2 & a half - 5 y/o behaved the same as typically developing children.
      • discussion point: the task may not be assessing ToM, pointing may be a distraction, not a task of intention. People with autism may have ToM but it might be task dependent.
    • More AO3:
      • culture bias: onset of ToM may differ based on culture (Liu et al). ToM develops later in collectivist cultures. Ethnocentric & imposed etic (use DSM & ICD to diagnose & classify)
      • Liu et al: compared 300 Chinese & North American children and if they have ToM. More in North America have ToM as they are based on social cognition. ToM is still based on social interactions and develops through this. Chinese children develop ToM 2 years later than the American children.
      • Baron-Cohen - culture bias: all British sample
      • all research is correlational - ToM deficit might be a symptom of autism, not a cause
      • not a universal explanation or generalisable
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