theory of mind (social cognition)

• theory of mind (ToM)

  • ToM is not a theory (like Paiget's) but a personal theory/belief about what other people know, are feeling or thinking
  • the ability to understand/identify what other people are thinking and feeling, through a ‘mind-reading’-like process
  • refers to our ability to imagine and model the mental states of other people’s minds
  • tested via different methods depending on age
• testing ToM in toddlers (beads in a jar)

  • Meltzoff = allowed children to observe adults placing beads into a jar
  • experimental condition = adults appeared to struggle with this and dropped some of the beads outside of the jar
  • control condition = adults successfully placed the beads in the jar
  • in both conditions = toddlers successfully placed the beads in the jar - suggests that they were imitating what the adult intended to do rather than what they actually did (demonstrates ToM)
• false belief

  • a false belief is a belief in something that is incorrect
  • ToM enables you to understand that what is in your mind is not the same as what is in someone else's mind
  • ie you or someone else may have a false belief
  • eg = maxi holds a false belief that the chocolate is in the blue cupboard
• Testing ToM using a false belief task

  • Wimmer and Perner = told 3-4 year olds a story in which:
  • Maxi left his chocolate in a blue cupboard in the kitchen
  • After Maxi's mother had used some of the chocolate in the cooking she placed the remainder in the green cupboard
  • the children had to say where Maxi would look for his chocolate
  • most 3 year olds incorrectly said that Maxi would look in the green cupboard whilst most 4 years olds correctly identified the blue cupboard (demonstrating ToM)
• Testing ToM using the Sally-Anne task (false-belief task)

  • children were told story involving 2 dolls, Sally and Anne
  • sally places a marble in her basket
  • sally leaves the room
  • anne moves the marble to her box
  • sally returns
  • where does sally look for her marble?
  • in order to understand that sally does not know that Anne has moved the marble, a child needs an understanding of Sally's false belief about where it is
• lack of ToM demonstrated in children with ASD

  • Baron-Cohen et al = used the Sally-Anne task to test 20 high-functioning children diagnosed with ASD and control group of 27 children without a diagnosis and 14 with down syndrome
  • 85% of children in the control group correctly identified where Sally would look for her marble but only 20% of the children with ASD did (suggests ASD involves a ToM deficit)
• testing ToM using the Eyes Task

  • older ASD children can succeed on false belief tasks - despite problems with empathy, social communications etc
  • questions whether ASD can be explained by ToM deficits
  • Baron-Cohen et al = developed the Eyes Task as a more challenging test of ToM and found that adults with high functioning ASD struggled
  • supports the idea that ToM deficits might be the cause of ASD
• limitation = reliance on false belief tasks to test the theory

  • Bloom and German = suggest that false belief tasks require other cognitive abilities (eg visual memory) as well as ToM - so failure may be due to a memory deficit and not ToM
  • also = children who cannot perform well on false belief tasks still enjoy pretend-play, which requires a ToM
  • means that false belief tasks may not really measure ToM, meaning ToM lacks evidence
• limitation = difficult to distinguish ToM from perspective-taking

  • perspective-taking and ToM are different cognitive abilities - it can be very difficult to be sure we are measuring one and not the other
  • eg = in intentional reasoning tasks a child might be visualising the beads task from the adult perspective rather than expressing a conscious understanding of their intention
  • means that tasks are designed to measure ToM may actually measure perspective-taking
• strength = application to understanding ASD

  • people with ASD find ToM tests difficult which shows they do have problems understanding what others think
  • this is turn explains why people with ASD find social interaction difficult - because they don't pick up cues for what others are thinking and feeling
  • => ToM research has real-world relevance
  • AND can be applied to bullies - teach bullies ToM so they can understand what other people are thinking
• counterpoint to ToM RWA to ASD

  • ToM does not provide a complete explanation for ASD
  • not everyone with ASD experiences ToM problems and ToM problems are not limited to people with ASD
  • means that there must be other factors that are involved in ASD and the association between ASD and ToM is not as strong as first believed
• Extra evaluation = nature and nurture

  • Perner = suggests ToM develops alongside other cognitive abilities (largely as result of maturity) AND same development of ToM cross-culturally
  • Astington = suggests ToM develops from interactions with others AND found ToM appeared at different ages in different cultures
  • Links with Vygotsky‘s theory = people in collectivist cultures are less likely to develop ToM are they are concerned more with values of the group rather than individual minds
  • Means rate of development is modified by social environment