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Woo BM, Chisholm GH, Spelke ES. Do toddlers reason about other people's experiences of objects? A limit to early mental state reasoning. Cognition 2024; 246:105760. [PMID: 38447359 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105760] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2022] [Revised: 01/09/2024] [Accepted: 02/24/2024] [Indexed: 03/08/2024]
Abstract
Human social life requires an understanding of the mental states of one's social partners. Two people who look at the same objects often experience them differently, as a twinkling light or a planet, a 6 or a 9, and a random cat or Cleo, their pet. Indeed, a primary purpose of communication is to share distinctive experiences of objects or events. Here, we test whether toddlers (14-15 months) are sensitive to another agent's distinctive experiences of pictures when determining the goal underlying the agent's actions in a minimally social context. We conducted nine experiments. Across seven of these experiments (n = 206), toddlers viewed either videotaped or live events in which an actor, whose perspective differed from their own, reached (i) for pictures of human faces that were upright or inverted or (ii) for pictures that depicted a rabbit or a duck at different orientations. Then either the actor or the toddler moved to a new location that aligned their perspectives, and the actor alternately reached to each of the two pictures. By comparing toddlers' looking to the latter reaches, we tested whether their goal attributions accorded with the actor's experience of the pictured objects, with their own experience of the pictured objects, or with no consistency. In no experiment did toddlers encode the actor's goal in accord with his experiences of the pictures. In contrast, in a similar experiment that manipulated the visibility of a picture rather than the experience that it elicited, toddlers (n = 32) correctly expected the actor's action to depend on what was visible and occluded to him, rather than to themselves. In a verbal version of the tasks, older children (n = 35) correctly inferred the actor's goal in both cases. These findings provide further evidence for a dissociation between two kinds of mental state reasoning: When toddlers view an actor's object-directed action under minimally social conditions, they take account of the actor's visual access to the object but not the actor's distinctive experience of the object.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brandon M Woo
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States; The Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States.
| | - Gabriel H Chisholm
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States; The Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Elizabeth S Spelke
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States; The Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
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2
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Low J, Butterfill SA, Michael J. A view from mindreading on fast-and-slow thinking. Behav Brain Sci 2023; 46:e130. [PMID: 37462173 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x22002898] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/20/2023]
Abstract
De Neys's incisive critique of empirical and theoretical research on the exclusivity feature underscores the depth of the challenge of explaining the interplay of fast and slow processes. We argue that a closer look at research on mindreading reveals abundant evidence for the exclusivity feature - as well as methodological and theoretical perspectives that could inform research on fast and slow thinking.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jason Low
- School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand ://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason-Low-4
| | - Stephen A Butterfill
- Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK ://www.butterfill.com/
| | - John Michael
- Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Milano, Italy ://www.unimi.it/en/ugov/person/john-michael
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3
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Zani G, Butterfill SA, Low J. Mindreading by body: incorporating mediolateral balance and mouse-tracking measures to examine the motor basis of adults' false-belief tracking. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2023; 10:221212. [PMID: 37234504 PMCID: PMC10206456 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.221212] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2022] [Accepted: 05/03/2023] [Indexed: 05/28/2023]
Abstract
The role played by motor representations in tracking others' belief-based actions remains unclear. In experiment 1, the dynamics of adults' anticipatory mediolateral motor activity (leftwards-rightwards leaning on a balance board) as well as hand trajectories were measured as they attempted to help an agent who had a true or false belief about an object's location. Participants' leaning was influenced by the agent's belief about the target's location when the agent was free to act but not when she was motorically constrained. However, the hand trajectories participants produced to provide a response were not modulated by the other person's beliefs. Therefore, we designed a simplified second experiment in which participants were instructed to click as fast as possible on the location of a target object. In experiment 2, mouse-movements deviated from an ideal direct path to the object location, with trajectories that were influenced by the location in which the agent falsely believed the object to be located. These experiments highlight that information about an agent's false-belief can be mapped onto the motor system of a passive observer, and that there are situations in which the motor system plays an important role in accurate belief-tracking.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Zani
- School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
| | | | - Jason Low
- School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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4
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Is false belief understanding stable from infancy to childhood? We don’t know yet. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101309] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
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5
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Poulin-Dubois D, Goldman EJ, Meltzer A, Psaradellis E. Discontinuity from implicit to explicit theory of mind from infancy to preschool age. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101273] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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6
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Barone P, Wenzel L, Proft M, Rakoczy H. Do young children track other's beliefs, or merely their perceptual access? An interactive, anticipatory measure of early theory of mind. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2022; 9:211278. [PMID: 36226128 PMCID: PMC9533367 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.211278] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2021] [Accepted: 09/13/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
This paper aimed to contribute to answering three questions. First, how robust and reliable are early implicit measures of false belief (FB) understanding? Second, do these measures tap FB understanding rather than simpler processes such as tracking the protagonist's perceptual access? Third, do implicit FB tasks tap an earlier, more basic form of theory of mind (ToM) than standard verbal tasks? We conducted a conceptual replication of Garnham & Perner's task (Garnham and Perner 2001 Br. J. Dev. Psychol. 19, 413-432) simultaneously measuring children's anticipatory looking and interactive behaviours toward an agent with a true or FB (N = 81, M = 40 months). Additionally, we implemented an ignorance condition and a standard FB task. We successfully replicated the original findings: children's looking and interactive behaviour differed according to the agent's true or FB. However, children mostly did not differentiate between FB and ignorance conditions in various measures of anticipation and uncertainty, suggesting the use of simpler conceptual strategies than full-blown ToM. Moreover, implicit measures were all related to each other but largely not related to performance in the standard FB task, except for first look in the FB condition. Overall, our findings suggest that these implicit measures are robust but may not tap the same underlying cognitive capacity as explicit FB tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pamela Barone
- Department of Psychology, Universidad Católica de Murcia (UCAM), Campus de los Jerónimos, 30107 Murcia, Spain
- Human Evolution and Cognition Group (EvoCog), University of the Balearic Islands, Carretera de Valldemossa km 7.5, 07122 Palma, Illes Balears, Spain
| | - Lisa Wenzel
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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7
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Rakoczy H, Proft M. Knowledge before belief ascription? Yes and no (depending on the type of “knowledge” under consideration). Front Psychol 2022; 13:988754. [PMID: 36172234 PMCID: PMC9510832 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.988754] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2022] [Accepted: 08/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
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8
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Taylor AH, Bastos APM, Brown RL, Allen C. The signature-testing approach to mapping biological and artificial intelligences. Trends Cogn Sci 2022; 26:738-750. [PMID: 35773138 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.06.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2021] [Revised: 05/24/2022] [Accepted: 06/06/2022] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
Making inferences from behaviour to cognition is problematic due to a many-to-one mapping problem, in which any one behaviour can be generated by multiple possible cognitive processes. Attempts to cross this inferential gap when comparing human intelligence to that of animals or machines can generate great debate. Here, we discuss the challenges of making comparisons using 'success-testing' approaches and call attention to an alternate experimental framework, the 'signature-testing' approach. Signature testing places the search for information-processing errors, biases, and other patterns centre stage, rather than focussing predominantly on problem-solving success. We highlight current research on both biological and artificial intelligence that fits within this framework and is creating proactive research programs that make strong inferences about the similarities and differences between the content of human, animal, and machine minds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex H Taylor
- School of Psychology, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand.
| | - Amalia P M Bastos
- School of Psychology, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand; Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - Rachael L Brown
- School of Philosophy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
| | - Colin Allen
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1101 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
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Kampis D, Kovács ÁM. Seeing the World From Others' Perspective: 14-Month-Olds Show Altercentric Modulation Effects by Others' Beliefs. Open Mind (Camb) 2022; 5:189-207. [PMID: 36438424 PMCID: PMC9692050 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2020] [Accepted: 11/17/2021] [Indexed: 07/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Humans have a propensity to readily adopt others' perspective, which often influences their behavior even when it seemingly should not. This altercentric influence has been widely studied in adults, yet we lack an understanding of its ontogenetic origins. The current studies investigated whether 14-month-olds' search in a box for potential objects is modulated by another person's belief about the box's content. We varied the person's potential belief such that in her presence/absence an object was removed, added, or exchanged for another, leading to her true/false belief about the object's presence (Experiment 1, n = 96); or transformed into another object, leading to her true/false belief about the object's identity (i.e., the objects represented under a specific aspect, Experiment 2, n = 32). Infants searched longer if the other person believed that an object remained in the box, showing an altercentric influence early in development. These results suggest that infants spontaneously represent others' beliefs involving multiple objects and raise the possibility that infants can appreciate that others encode the world under a unique aspect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dora Kampis
- Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary/Vienna, Austria
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10
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What Is Unique in Infant Thinking About Others? Infant Social Cognition from an Evolutionary Perspective. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-76000-7_13] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
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11
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Kong Q, Cheung H. Investigating 18-month-olds’ association-based inferences in an interactive unexpected-identity paradigm. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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12
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Barone P, Gomila A. Infants' performance in the indirect false belief tasks: A second-person interpretation. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2020; 12:e1551. [PMID: 33319503 PMCID: PMC9285846 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1551] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2020] [Revised: 11/13/2020] [Accepted: 11/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Research in the last 15 years has challenged the idea that false belief attribution develops at 4 years of age. Studies with indirect false belief tasks contend to provide evidence of false belief attribution in the second year of life. We review the literature on indirect false belief tasks carried out in infants using looking and active helping paradigms. Although the results are heterogeneous and not conclusive, such tasks appear to capture a real effect. However, it is misleading to call them “false belief” tasks, as it is possible to pass them without making any false belief attribution. Infants need to keep track of the object's and agent's positions, trajectories, and focus of attention, given an intentional understanding of the agent, to pass these new tasks. We, therefore, argue that the evidence can be better explained in terms of second‐person attributions, which are transparent, extensional, nonpropositional, reciprocally contingent, and implicit. Second‐person attributions can also account for primates' mentalizing abilities, as revealed by similar indirect tasks. This article is categorized under:Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition
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Affiliation(s)
- Pamela Barone
- Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain.,Human Evolution and Cognition Group (EvoCog), University of the Balearic Islands, Illes Balears, Spain
| | - Antoni Gomila
- Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain.,Human Evolution and Cognition Group (EvoCog), University of the Balearic Islands, Illes Balears, Spain
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13
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Wenzel L, Dörrenberg S, Proft M, Liszkowski U, Rakoczy H. Actions do not speak louder than words in an interactive false belief task. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2020; 7:191998. [PMID: 33204438 PMCID: PMC7657934 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191998] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2019] [Accepted: 09/16/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Traditionally, it had been assumed that meta-representational Theory of Mind (ToM) emerges around the age of 4 when children come to master standard false belief (FB) tasks. More recent research with various implicit measures, though, has documented much earlier competence and thus challenged the traditional picture. In interactive FB tasks, for instance, infants have been shown to track an interlocutor's false or true belief when interpreting her ambiguous communicative acts (Southgate et al. 2010 Dev. Sci. 13, 907-912. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00946.x)). However, several replication attempts so far have produced mixed findings (e.g. Dörrenberg et al. 2018 Cogn. Dev. 46, 12-30. (doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.01.001); Grosse Wiesmann et al. 2017 Dev. Sci. 20, e12445. (doi:10.1111/desc.12445); Király et al. 2018 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 11 477-11 482. (doi:10.1073/pnas.1803505115)). Therefore, we conducted a systematic replication study, across two laboratories, of an influential interactive FB task (the so-called 'Sefo' tasks by Southgate et al. 2010 Dev. Sci. 13, 907-912. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00946.x)). First, we implemented close direct replications with the original age group (17-month-olds) and compared their performance to those of 3-year-olds. Second, we designed conceptual replications with modifications and improvements regarding pragmatic ambiguities for 2-year-olds. Third, we validated the task with explicit verbal test versions in older children and adults. Results revealed the following: the original results could not be replicated, and there was no evidence for FB understanding measured by the Sefo task in any age group except for adults. Comparisons to explicit FB tasks suggest that the Sefo task may not be a sensitive measure of FB understanding in children and even underestimate their ToM abilities. The findings add to the growing replication crisis in implicit ToM research and highlight the challenge of developing sensitive, reliable and valid measures of early implicit social cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Wenzel
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Sebastian Dörrenberg
- Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Bremen, Hochschulring 18, 28359 Bremen, Germany
- Developmental Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Marina Proft
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Ulf Liszkowski
- Developmental Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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14
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Sodian B, Kristen‐Antonow S, Kloo D. How Does Children’s Theory of Mind Become Explicit? A Review of Longitudinal Findings. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12381] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Beate Sodian
- Department of Psychology Ludwig‐Maximilian‐University
| | | | - Daniela Kloo
- Department of Psychology Ludwig‐Maximilian‐University
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15
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Buttelmann F, Kovács ÁM. 14-Month-olds anticipate others' actions based on their belief about an object's identity. INFANCY 2020; 24:738-751. [PMID: 32677281 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12303] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2018] [Revised: 02/11/2019] [Accepted: 05/18/2019] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Past research has accumulated evidence regarding infants' false-belief understanding, measuring their gaze patterns or active helping behaviors. However, the underlying mechanisms are still debated, specifically, whether young infants can compute that others represent the world under a certain aspect. Such performance requires holding in mind two representations about the same object simultaneously and attributing only one to another person. While 14-month-olds can encode an object under different aspects when forming first-person representations, it is unclear whether infants at this very age could also predict others' behavior based on their beliefs about an object's identity. Here, we investigate this question in a novel eye-tracking-based unexpected-identity task. We measured 14-month-olds' anticipatory looks combined with their looking time, using a violation-of-expectation paradigm. Results show that 14-month-olds look longer to an actor's reach that is incongruent with her false belief about the identity of an object compared to a congruent reach. Furthermore, infants correctly anticipated the actor's reach based on her false belief. Thus, as soon as infants represent dual identities they can integrate them in belief attributions and use them for consequent behavioral predictions. Such data provide evidence for the flexibility of false-belief attributions and support proposals arguing for infants' rich theory-of-mind abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Frances Buttelmann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
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16
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2.5-year-olds succeed in identity and location elicited-response false-belief tasks with adequate response practice. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 198:104890. [PMID: 32653728 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104890] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2020] [Revised: 05/01/2020] [Accepted: 05/03/2020] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Researchers have argued that traditional elicited-response false-belief tasks involve considerable processing demands and hence underestimate children's false-belief understanding. Consistent with this claim, Setoh et al. (2016) recently found that when processing demands were sufficiently reduced, children could succeed in an elicited-response task as early as 2.5 years of age. Here we examined whether 2.5-year-olds could also succeed in a low-demand elicited-response task involving false beliefs about identity, which have been argued to provide a critical test of whether children truly represent beliefs, while also clarifying how the practice trials in Setoh et al.'s task facilitated children's elicited-response performance. 2.5-year-olds were tested in a version of Setoh et al.'s elicited-response task in which they heard a location or identity false-belief story. We varied whether the practice trials had the same type of wh-question as the test trial. Children who heard the same type of wh-question on all trials succeeded regardless of which story they heard (location or identity) and performance did not differ across belief type. This replicates Setoh et al.'s positive results and demonstrates that when processing demands are sufficiently reduced, children can succeed in elicited-response tasks involving false beliefs about object location or identity. This suggests that children are capable of attributing genuine false beliefs prior to 4 years of age. However, children performed at chance if the practice trials involved a different type of wh-question than the test trials, suggesting that at this age practice with the wh-question used in the test trial is essential to children's success.
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17
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Horschler DJ, MacLean EL, Santos LR. Do Non-Human Primates Really Represent Others' Beliefs? Trends Cogn Sci 2020; 24:594-605. [PMID: 32593501 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.05.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2020] [Revised: 04/28/2020] [Accepted: 05/21/2020] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Over two decades of research have produced compelling evidence that non-human primates understand some psychological states in other individuals but are unable to represent others' beliefs. Recently, three studies employing anticipatory looking (AL) paradigms reported that non-human primates do show hints of implicitly understanding the beliefs of others. However, measures of AL have been increasingly scrutinized in the human literature owing to extensive replication problems. We argue that new reports of belief representation in non-human primates using AL should be interpreted cautiously because of methodological and theoretical challenges paralleling trends in the human literature. We explore how future work can address these challenges, and conclude by identifying new evolutionary questions raised by the prospect that non-human primates implicitly represent others' beliefs without an explicit belief representation system that guides fitness-relevant behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel J Horschler
- School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; Cognitive Science Program, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA.
| | - Evan L MacLean
- School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; Cognitive Science Program, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA; College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
| | - Laurie R Santos
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
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18
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The Lens Shapes the View: on Task Dependency in ToM Research. Curr Behav Neurosci Rep 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s40473-020-00205-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Purpose of Review
This article provides an overview of current findings on Theory of Mind (ToM) in human children and adults and highlights the relationship between task specifications and their outcome in socio-cognitive research.
Recent Findings
ToM, the capacity to reason about and infer others’ mental states, develops progressively throughout childhood—the exact time course is still a matter of debate. Neuroimaging studies indicate the involvement of a widespread neuronal network during mentalizing, suggesting that ToM is a multifaceted process. Accordingly, the tasks and trainings that currently exist to investigate and enhance ToM are heterogeneous, and the outcomes largely depend on the paradigm that was used.
Summary
We argue for the implementation of multiple-task batteries in the assessment of socio-cognitive abilities. Decisions for a particular paradigm need to be carefully considered and justified. We want to emphasize the importance of targeted research on the relationship between task specifications and outcomes.
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19
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Surian L, Franchin L. On the domain specificity of the mechanisms underpinning spontaneous anticipatory looks in false-belief tasks. Dev Sci 2020; 23:e12955. [PMID: 32107820 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2019] [Revised: 11/21/2019] [Accepted: 02/19/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Many studies proposed that infants' and adults' looking behavior suggest a spontaneous and implicit ability to reason about others' beliefs. It has been argued, however, that these successes are false positives due to domain-general processes, such as retroactive interference. In this study, we investigated the domain specificity of mechanisms underpinning participants' looking behavior by manipulating the dynamic cues in the event stimuli. Infants aged 15 and 20 months and adults saw animation events in which either a self-moving triangle, or a hand holding an identical inert triangle, chased an animated disk. Most 20-month-olds and adults showed belief congruent anticipatory looks in the agent-triangle condition, whereas they showed no bias in the inert triangle control condition. These results are not consistent with submentalizing accounts based on domain-general low-level processes and provide further support for domain-specific explanations positing an early-emerging mentalistic reasoning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luca Surian
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Laura Franchin
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
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20
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Zani G, Butterfill SA, Low J. Mindreading in the balance: adults' mediolateral leaning and anticipatory looking foretell others' action preparation in a false-belief interactive task. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2020; 7:191167. [PMID: 32218946 PMCID: PMC7029919 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191167] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/05/2019] [Accepted: 01/02/2020] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
Anticipatory looking on mindreading tasks can indicate our expectation of an agent's action. The challenge is that social situations are often more complex, involving instances where we need to track an agent's false belief to successfully identify the outcome to which an action is directed. If motor processes can guide how action goals are understood, it is conceivable-where that kind of goal ascription occurs in false-belief tasks-for motor representations to account for someone's belief-like state. Testing adults (N = 42) in a real-time interactive helping scenario, we discovered that participants' early mediolateral motor activity (leftwards-rightwards leaning on balance board) foreshadowed the agent's belief-based action preparation. These results suggest fast belief-tracking can modulate motor representations generated in the course of one's interaction with an agent. While adults' leaning, and anticipatory looking, revealed the contribution of fast false-belief tracking, participants did not correct the agent's mistake in their final helping action. These discoveries suggest that adults may not necessarily use another's belief during overt social interaction or find reflecting on another's belief as being normatively relevant to one's own choice of action. Our interactive task design offers a promising way to investigate how motor and mindreading processes may be variously integrated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Zani
- School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
| | | | - Jason Low
- School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
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Barone P, Corradi G, Gomila A. Infants' performance in spontaneous-response false belief tasks: A review and meta-analysis. Infant Behav Dev 2019; 57:101350. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.101350] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2019] [Revised: 07/26/2019] [Accepted: 08/06/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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Great apes use self-experience to anticipate an agent's action in a false-belief test. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2019; 116:20904-20909. [PMID: 31570582 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1910095116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 63] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Human social life depends on theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others. A signature of theory of mind, false belief understanding, requires representing others' views of the world, even when they conflict with one's own. After decades of research, it remains controversial whether any nonhuman species possess a theory of mind. One challenge to positive evidence of animal theory of mind, the behavior-rule account, holds that animals solve such tasks by responding to others' behavioral cues rather than their mental states. We distinguish these hypotheses by implementing a version of the "goggles" test, which asks whether, in the absence of any additional behavioral cues, animals can use their own self-experience of a novel barrier being translucent or opaque to determine whether another agent can see through the same barrier. We incorporated this paradigm into an established anticipatory-looking false-belief test for great apes. In a between-subjects design, apes experienced a novel barrier as either translucent or opaque, although both looked identical from afar. While being eye tracked, all apes then watched a video in which an actor saw an object hidden under 1 of 2 identical boxes. The actor then scuttled behind the novel barrier, at which point the object was relocated and then removed. Only apes who experienced the barrier as opaque visually anticipated that the actor would mistakenly search for the object in its previous location. Great apes, therefore, appeared to attribute differential visual access based specifically on their own past perceptual experience to anticipate an agent's actions in a false-belief test.
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Edwards K, Low J. Level 2 perspective-taking distinguishes automatic and non-automatic belief-tracking. Cognition 2019; 193:104017. [PMID: 31271926 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2018] [Revised: 05/20/2019] [Accepted: 06/23/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Little is known about whether human beings' automatic mindreading is computationally restricted to processing a limited kind of content, and what exactly the nature of that signature limit might be. We developed a novel object-detection paradigm to test adults' automatic processing in a Level 1 perspective-taking (L1PT) context (where an agent's belief, but not his visuospatial perspective, is relevantly different) and in a Level 2 perspective-taking (L2PT) context (where both the agent's belief and visuospatial perspective are relevantly different). Experiment 1 uncovered that adults' reaction times in the L1PT task were helpfully speeded by a bystander's irrelevant belief when tracking two homogenous objects but not in the L2PT task when tracking a single heterogeneous object. The limitation is especially striking given that the heterogeneous nature of the single object was fully revealed to participants as well as the bystander. The results were replicated in two further experiments, which confirmed that the selective modulation of adults' reaction times was maintained when tracking the location of a single object (Experiment 2) and when attention checks were removed (Experiment 3). Our findings suggest that automatic mindreading draws upon a distinctively minimalist model of the mental that underspecifies representation of differences in perspective relative to an agent's position in space.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jason Low
- Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
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Reliability and generalizability of an acted-out false belief task in 3-year-olds. Infant Behav Dev 2019; 54:13-21. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.11.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2018] [Revised: 09/21/2018] [Accepted: 11/19/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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25
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Kliemann D, Adolphs R. The social neuroscience of mentalizing: challenges and recommendations. Curr Opin Psychol 2018; 24:1-6. [PMID: 29529497 PMCID: PMC6110997 DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.02.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2017] [Revised: 02/12/2018] [Accepted: 02/20/2018] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
Our ability to understand and think about the mental states of other people is referred to as 'mentalizing' or 'theory of mind'. It features prominently in all social behavior, is essential for maintaining relationships, and shows pronounced individual differences. Here we review new approaches to study the underlying psychological mechanisms and discuss how they could best be investigated using modern tools from social neuroscience. We list key desiderata for the field, such as validity, specificity, and reproducibility, and link them to specific recommendations for the future. We also discuss new computational modeling approaches, and the application to psychopathology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dorit Kliemann
- California Institute of Technology, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
| | - Ralph Adolphs
- California Institute of Technology, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
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Krist H, Krüger M, Buttelmann D. Which object is about to fall? Development of young children’s intuitive knowledge about physical support relations as assessed in an active search task. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2018. [DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2018.1536606] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Horst Krist
- Department of Psychology, University Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Markus Krüger
- Department of Psychology, University Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - David Buttelmann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Do infants understand false beliefs? We don’t know yet – A commentary on Baillargeon, Buttelmann and Southgate’s commentary. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.09.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 52] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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Children exhibit different performance patterns in explicit and implicit theory of mind tasks. Cognition 2018; 173:60-74. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2017] [Revised: 12/19/2017] [Accepted: 01/03/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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Powell LJ, Hobbs K, Bardis A, Carey S, Saxe R. Replications of implicit theory of mind tasks with varying representational demands. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.10.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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30
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Invited Commentary: Interpreting failed replications of early false-belief findings: Methodological and theoretical considerations. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.06.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 62] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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31
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Low J, Edwards K. The curious case of adults’ interpretations of violation-of-expectation false belief scenarios. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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