Theory of mind

• Theory of mind (TOM)

  = Our personal understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling.

  • As we mature, theory of mind will develop and become more sophisticated
  • Possibility to infer new ideas from knowledge and to manipulate and deceive.
• Intentional reasoning in toddlers.

  • Meltzoff provided evidence to show that toddlers have an understanding of adult intentions when carrying out simple actions.
  • Experimental condition= adults struggled to place beads in jar.
  • Control condition= adults placed beads successfully in jar.
  • In both conditions, toddlers successfully placed beads in jar. They dropped no more beads in experimental condition.
  • Suggests they were imitating what the adult intended to do rather than what adults actually did. So very young children have a simple theory of mind
• False belief tasks

  = Developed in order to test whether children can understand that people can believe something that isn't true.

  • 3-4 year olds told a story, maxi put his chocolate in a blue cupboard and left, his mum moved the chocolate in a green one. Children were asked where maxi would look for his chocolate first.
  • Most 3 year olds incorrectly said that he'd look in the green one because they are assuming that maxi knows what they know.
  • Most 4 year olds correctly identified the blue cupboard.
  • Suggests that theory of mind becomes more advanced age 4.
• Sally- Anne study

  • Baron Cohen have explored links between theory of mind and autism using sally- Anne taks.
  • 85% of children in control groups correctly identified where Sally should look, only 20% of autistic children could answer this
  • Baron-cohen argued that this difference showed that autism involves a theory of mind deficit and that this may be a complete explanation for autism.
• Testing older children and adults

  • Many autistic people have challenges with empathy, social communication and imagination but their language development may be unaffected.
  • Studies of older autistic children and adults without a learning disability showed that this group could succeed on false belief tasks.
  • Baron-cohen eye task involves reading complex emotions in pictures of eyes. Found that many autistic adults without a learning disability struggled so supports idea that theory of mind might be a cause of autism
• Evaluation- false belief tasks

  • False belief tasks have validity issues- one reason for this is that false belief tasks require other cognitive ability such as visual memory, failure on false belief tasks may be due to a deficit in memory rather than theory of mind.
  • Some children who can engage successfully in pretend play, which requires some theory of mind ability, still find false belief tasks difficult.
  • So false belief tasks may not really measure theory of mind so lacks evidence.
• Evaluation- theory of mind Vs perspective taking

  • Research fails to distinguish theory of mind from perspective taking.
  • Perspective taking and theory of mind are related but are different cognitive abilities. It can be difficult to be sure we are measuring one and not the other. Eg: in intentional reasoning tasks a child might be visualising the bead task from the adult perspective rather than expressing a conscious understanding of their intention. In sally Anne task a child might be switching perspective between Sally and Anne. So might actually measure perspective taking.
• Evaluation- real world application

  • Application to understanding autism
  • Tests to assess theory of mind are challenging for some autistic people, because they may not fully understand what other people are thinking. This then offers an explanation for why some autistic people may find social interaction difficult.
  • It's assumed that most neuro-typical people can pick up another persons thoughts and feelings with little effort.
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  • Theory of mind doesn't provide a complete explanation for autism.
  • Not very autistic person experiences, theory of mind issues nor are theory of mind problems limited to autistic people.
  • A lack of theory of mind cant explain the cognitive strengths of autistic people.
  • So there must be other factors that are involved in autism