1
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Schmidt MFH, Vaish A, Rakoczy H. Don't Neglect the Middle Ground, Inspector Gadget! There Is Ample Space Between Big Special and Small Ordinary Norm Psychology. Perspect Psychol Sci 2024; 19:69-71. [PMID: 37669017 PMCID: PMC10790503 DOI: 10.1177/17456916231187408] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/06/2023]
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2
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Steffan A, Zimmer L, Arias-Trejo N, Bohn M, Dal Ben R, Flores-Coronado MA, Franchin L, Garbisch I, Wiesmann CG, Hamlin JK, Havron N, Hay JF, Hermansen TK, Jakobsen KV, Kalinke S, Ko ES, Kulke L, Mayor J, Meristo M, Moreau D, Mun S, Prein J, Rakoczy H, Rothmaler K, Oliveira DS, Simpson EA, Sirois S, Smith ES, Strid K, Tebbe AL, Thiele M, Yuen F, Schuwerk T. Validation of an open source, remote web-based eye-tracking method (WebGazer) for research in early childhood. Infancy 2024; 29:31-55. [PMID: 37850726 PMCID: PMC10841511 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12564] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2023] [Revised: 09/25/2023] [Accepted: 09/30/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023]
Abstract
Measuring eye movements remotely via the participant's webcam promises to be an attractive methodological addition to in-person eye-tracking in the lab. However, there is a lack of systematic research comparing remote web-based eye-tracking with in-lab eye-tracking in young children. We report a multi-lab study that compared these two measures in an anticipatory looking task with toddlers using WebGazer.js and jsPsych. Results of our remotely tested sample of 18-27-month-old toddlers (N = 125) revealed that web-based eye-tracking successfully captured goal-based action predictions, although the proportion of the goal-directed anticipatory looking was lower compared to the in-lab sample (N = 70). As expected, attrition rate was substantially higher in the web-based (42%) than the in-lab sample (10%). Excluding trials based on visual inspection of the match of time-locked gaze coordinates and the participant's webcam video overlayed on the stimuli was an important preprocessing step to reduce noise in the data. We discuss the use of this remote web-based method in comparison with other current methodological innovations. Our study demonstrates that remote web-based eye-tracking can be a useful tool for testing toddlers, facilitating recruitment of larger and more diverse samples; a caveat to consider is the larger drop-out rate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adrian Steffan
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
| | - Lucie Zimmer
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
| | | | - Manuel Bohn
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
- Institute of Psychology, Leuphana University Lüneburg
| | | | | | - Laura Franchin
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento
| | - Isa Garbisch
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen
| | - Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann
- Research Group Milestones of Early Cognitive Development, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
| | - J. Kiley Hamlin
- Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia
| | - Naomi Havron
- School of Psychological Sciences & Center for the Study of Child Development, University of Haifa
| | | | | | | | - Steven Kalinke
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
| | - Eon-Suk Ko
- Department of English Language and Literature, Chosun University
| | - Louisa Kulke
- Developmental Psychology with Educational Psychology, University of Bremen
| | | | | | - David Moreau
- School of Psychology and Centre for Brain Research, University of Auckland
| | - Seongmin Mun
- Department of English Language and Literature, Chosun University
| | - Julia Prein
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen
| | - Katrin Rothmaler
- Research Group Milestones of Early Cognitive Development, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
| | | | | | - Sylvain Sirois
- Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
| | | | - Karin Strid
- Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg
| | - Anna-Lena Tebbe
- Research Group Milestones of Early Cognitive Development, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
| | - Maleen Thiele
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
| | - Francis Yuen
- Department of Psychology, The University of British Columbia
| | - Tobias Schuwerk
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
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3
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Fogiel AZ, Hermes J, Rakoczy H, Diesendruck G. Infants' biased individuation of in-group members. Cognition 2023; 239:105561. [PMID: 37454528 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105561] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2022] [Revised: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 07/10/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023]
Abstract
Adults tend to construe members of their group as "unique individuals" more than members of other groups. This study investigated whether infants exhibit this tendency, even in regard to unfamiliar arbitrary groups. Ninety-six White 1-year-olds were assigned to an Ingroup, Outgroup, or No-Group condition, based on whether or not they shared two preferences (food and shirt color) with women appearing on video sequences. In the critical trial, infants saw two women (Ingroup, Outgroup, or No-Group) - one at a time - appearing from behind a curtain. The curtain opened to reveal only one woman. Infants in the Ingroup condition looked longer at this display than infants in the other two conditions. This suggests that infants in the Ingroup condition had a stronger expectation than those in the other two conditions that there would be two women behind the curtain. In other words, infants individuated in-group members more than out-group members.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adi Zehavi Fogiel
- Department of Psychology, Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel
| | - Jonas Hermes
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Goettingen, 37073 Goettingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Goettingen, 37073 Goettingen, Germany
| | - Gil Diesendruck
- Department of Psychology, Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel.
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4
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Engelmann JM, Haux LM, Völter C, Schleihauf H, Call J, Rakoczy H, Herrmann E. Do chimpanzees reason logically? Child Dev 2023; 94:1102-1116. [PMID: 36259153 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13861] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Psychologists disagree about the development of logical concepts such as or and not. While some theorists argue that infants reason logically, others maintain that logical inference is contingent on linguistic abilities and emerges around age 4. In this Registered Report, we conducted five experiments on logical reasoning in chimpanzees. Subjects (N = 16; 10 females; M = 24 years) participated in the same setup that has been administered to children: the two-, three-, and four-cup-task. Chimpanzees performed above chance in the two-cup-, but not in the three-cup-task. Furthermore, chimpanzees selected the logically correct option more often in the test than the control condition of the four-cup-task. We discuss possible interpretations of these findings and conclude that our results are most consistent with non-deductive accounts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan M Engelmann
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Lou M Haux
- Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
| | - Christoph Völter
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Hanna Schleihauf
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
- Department for Primate Cognition, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Josep Call
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, UK
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Georg-Elias Müller Institute of Psychology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
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5
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Haskaraca FN, Proft M, Liszkowski U, Rakoczy H. How robust are egocentric and altercentric interference effects in social cognition? a test with explicit and implicit versions of a continuous false belief task. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1142302. [PMID: 37492453 PMCID: PMC10363613 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1142302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2023] [Accepted: 06/23/2023] [Indexed: 07/27/2023] Open
Abstract
It has been long assumed that meta-representational theory of mind (ToM) -our ability to ascribe mental states to ourselves and other people- emerges around age four as indicated in performance on explicit verbal false belief tasks. In contrast, newer studies assessing false belief understanding with implicit, non-verbal measures suggest that some form of ToM may be present even in infancy. But these studies now face replication issues, and it remains unclear whether they can provide robust evidence for implicit ToM. One line of research on implicit ToM, however, may remain promising: Studies that tap so-called altercentric biases. Such biases occur when agents in their judgments about the world are influenced (perform slower, more error-prone) in light of another agent's deviating perspective even if that perspective is completely irrelevant to the task; they thus can be seen as indicators of spontaneous and implicit ToM. Altercentric biases are the mirror images of egocentric biases (agents are influenced by their own perspective when evaluating another agent's deviating perspective). In three studies with adults, we aimed to tap both egocentric and altercentric interference effects within the same task format. We used the so-called Sandbox task, a false belief task with continuous locations. In Study 1, we tested an online adaptation of the Sandbox task, which we also used to explore potential cross-cultural differences in these biases. Studies 2 and 3 combined the Sandbox task with mouse-tracking measures. These studies revealed neither egocentric nor altercentric biases. These null results are discussed with regard to the question whether absence of evidence here may present evidence of absence of such spontaneous perspective-taking biases or merely false negatives.
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Affiliation(s)
- Feride Nur Haskaraca
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Ulf Liszkowski
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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Engelmann JM, Völter CJ, Goddu MK, Call J, Rakoczy H, Herrmann E. Chimpanzees prepare for alternative possible outcomes. Biol Lett 2023; 19:20230179. [PMID: 37340809 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2023.0179] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/22/2023] Open
Abstract
When facing uncertainty, humans often build mental models of alternative outcomes. Considering diverging scenarios allows agents to respond adaptively to different actual worlds by developing contingency plans (covering one's bases). In a pre-registered experiment, we tested whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) prepare for two mutually exclusive possibilities. Chimpanzees could access two pieces of food, but only if they successfully protected them from a human competitor. In one condition, chimpanzees could be certain about which piece of food the human experimenter would attempt to steal. In a second condition, either one of the food rewards was a potential target of the competitor. We found that chimpanzees were significantly more likely to protect both pieces of food in the second relative to the first condition, raising the possibility that chimpanzees represent and prepare effectively for different possible worlds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan M Engelmann
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650, USA
| | - Christoph J Völter
- Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, Austria
| | - Mariel K Goddu
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Josep Call
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9AJ, UK
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Georg-Elias Müller Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 2UP, UK
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7
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Rakoczy H, Proft M. Corrigendum: Knowledge before belief ascription? Yes and no (depending on the type of “knowledge” under consideration). Front Psychol 2022; 13:1055960. [PMID: 36304885 PMCID: PMC9594544 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1055960] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2022] [Accepted: 09/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
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8
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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. R Soc Open Sci 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] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [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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9
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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] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [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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10
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Schidelko LP, Proft M, Rakoczy H. How do children overcome their pragmatic performance problems in the true belief task? The role of advanced pragmatics and higher-order theory of mind. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0266959. [PMID: 35476636 PMCID: PMC9045612 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266959] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2021] [Accepted: 03/31/2022] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
The true belief (TB) control condition of the classical location-change task asks children to ascribe a veridical belief to an agent to predict her action (analog to the false belief (FB) condition to test Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities). Studies that administered TB tasks to a broad age range of children yielded surprising findings of a U-shaped performance curve in this seemingly trivial task. Children before age four perform competently in the TB condition. Children who begin to solve the FB condition at age four, however, fail the TB condition and only from around age 10, children succeed again. New evidence suggests that the decline in performance around age four reflects pragmatic confusions caused by the triviality of the task rather than real competence deficits in ToM. Based on these results, it can be hypothesized that the recovery of performance at the end of the U-shaped curve reflects underlying developments in children's growing pragmatic awareness. The aim of the current set of studies, therefore, was to test whether the developmental change at the end of the U-shaped performance curve can be explained by changes in children's pragmatic understanding and by more general underlying developmental changes in recursive ToM or recursive thinking in general. Results from Study 1 (N = 81, 6-10 years) suggest that children's recursive ToM, but not their advanced pragmatic understanding or general recursive thinking abilities predict their TB performance. However, this relationship could not be replicated in Study 2 (N = 87, 6-10 years) and Study 3 (N = 64, 6-10 years) in which neither recursive ToM nor advanced pragmatic understanding or recursive thinking explained children's performance in the TB task. The studies therefore remain inconclusive regarding explanations for the end of the U-shaped performance curve. Future research needs to investigate potential pragmatic and general cognitive foundations of this developmental change more thoroughly.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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11
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Engelmann JM, Herrmann E, Proft M, Keupp S, Dunham Y, Rakoczy H. Chimpanzees consider freedom of choice in their evaluation of social action. Biol Lett 2022; 18:20210502. [PMID: 35193368 PMCID: PMC8864344 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Judgements of wrongdoing in humans often hinge upon an assessment of whether a perpetrator acted out of free choice: whether they had more than one option. The classic inhibitors of free choice are constraint (e.g. having your hands tied together) and ignorance (e.g. being unaware that an alternative exists). Here, across two studies, we investigate whether chimpanzees consider these factors in their evaluation of social action. Chimpanzees interacted with a human experimenter who handed them a non-preferred item of food, either because they were physically constrained from accessing the preferred item (Experiment 1) or because they were ignorant of the availability of the preferred item (Experiment 2). We found that chimpanzees were more likely to accept the non-preferred food and showed fewer negative emotional responses when the experimenter was physically constrained compared with when they had free choice. We did not, however, find an effect of ignorance on chimpanzee's evaluation. Freedom of choice factors into chimpanzees' evaluation of how they are treated, but it is unclear whether mental state reasoning is involved in this assessment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan M. Engelmann
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94705, USA
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 2DY, UK
| | - Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Georg-Elias Müller Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Stefanie Keupp
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, Deutsches Primatenzentrum GmbH, Kellnerweg 4, 37073 Göttingen, Germany,Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany,Department for Primate Cognition, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Yarrow Dunham
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Georg-Elias Müller Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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12
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Schidelko LP, Huemer M, Schröder LM, Lueb AS, Perner J, Rakoczy H. Why Do Children Who Solve False Belief Tasks Begin to Find True Belief Control Tasks Difficult? A Test of Pragmatic Performance Factors in Theory of Mind Tasks. Front Psychol 2022; 12:797246. [PMID: 35095682 PMCID: PMC8796962 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.797246] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2021] [Accepted: 12/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The litmus test for the development of a metarepresentational Theory of Mind is the false belief (FB) task in which children have to represent how another agent misrepresents the world. Children typically start mastering this task around age four. Recently, however, a puzzling finding has emerged: Once children master the FB task, they begin to fail true belief (TB) control tasks. Pragmatic accounts assume that the TB task is pragmatically confusing because it poses a trivial academic test question about a rational agent's perspective; and we do not normally engage in such discourse about subjective mental perspectives unless there is at least the possibility of error or deviance. The lack of such an obvious possibility in the TB task implicates that there might be some hidden perspective difference and thus makes the task confusing. In the present study, we test the pragmatic account by administering to 3- to 6-year-olds (N = 88) TB and FB tasks and structurally analogous true and false sign (TS/FS) tasks. The belief and sign tasks are matched in terms of representational and metarepresentational complexity; the crucial difference is that TS tasks do not implicate an alternative non-mental perspective and should thus be less pragmatically confusing than TB tasks. The results show parallel and correlated development in FB and FS tasks, replicate the puzzling performance pattern in TB tasks, but show no trace of this in TS tasks. Taken together, these results speak in favor of the pragmatic performance account.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lydia P. Schidelko
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Michael Huemer
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
- Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
| | - Lara M. Schröder
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
- Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
| | - Anna S. Lueb
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Josef Perner
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
- Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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13
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14
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Schünemann B, Proft M, Rakoczy H. Children’s Developing Understanding of the Subjectivity of Intentions – A Case of “Advanced Theory of Mind”. Journal of Cognition and Development 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2021.2003366] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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15
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Schidelko LP, Schünemann B, Rakoczy H, Proft M. Online Testing Yields the Same Results as Lab Testing: A Validation Study With the False Belief Task. Front Psychol 2021; 12:703238. [PMID: 34721151 PMCID: PMC8548716 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.703238] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2021] [Accepted: 09/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Recently, online testing has become an increasingly important instrument in developmental research, in particular since the COVID-19 pandemic made in-lab testing impossible. However, online testing comes with two substantial challenges. First, it is unclear how valid results of online studies really are. Second, implementing online studies can be costly and/or require profound coding skills. This article addresses the validity of an online testing approach that is low-cost and easy to implement: The experimenter shares test materials such as videos or presentations via video chat and interactively moderates the test session. To validate this approach, we compared children’s performance on a well-established task, the change-of-location false belief task, in an in-lab and online test setting. In two studies, 3- and 4-year-old received online implementations of the false belief version (Study 1) and the false and true belief version of the task (Study 2). Children’s performance in these online studies was compared to data of matching tasks collected in the context of in-lab studies. Results revealed that the typical developmental pattern of performance in these tasks found in in-lab studies could be replicated with the novel online test procedure. These results suggest that the proposed method, which is both low-cost and easy to implement, provides a valid alternative to classical in-person test settings.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Britta Schünemann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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16
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Abstract
Humans reason not only about actual events (what is), but also about possible events (what could be). Many key operations of human cognition involve the representation of possibilities, including moral judgment, future planning, and causal understanding1. But little is known about the evolutionary roots of this kind of thought. Humans' closest relatives, chimpanzees, possess several cognitive abilities that are closely related to reasoning about alternatives: they plan for the future2, evaluate other's actions3, and reason causally4. However, in the first direct test of the ability to consider alternatives, Redshaw and Suddendorf5 claim that chimpanzees are not able to represent alternative possibilities. Here, using a novel method, we challenge this conclusion: our results suggest that, like human cognition, chimpanzee thought is not limited to what is, but also involves reasoning about what could be the case.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan M Engelmann
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650, USA.
| | - Christoph J Völter
- Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University Vienna, University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, Austria
| | - Cathal O'Madagain
- School of Collective Intelligence, Université Mohammad VI Polytechnique, Ben Guérir, Morocco
| | - Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Georg-Elias Müller Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Daniel B M Haun
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Leipzig Research Centre for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Georg-Elias Müller Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 2UP, UK
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Schünemann B, Keller J, Rakoczy H, Behne T, Bräuer J. Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action. Sci Rep 2021; 11:14967. [PMID: 34471153 PMCID: PMC8410798 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-94374-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2020] [Accepted: 07/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
When dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions. Are dogs able to distinguish intentional human actions from unintentional ones, even when the action outcomes are the same? We tested dogs' ability to discriminate these action categories by adapting the so-called "Unwilling vs. Unable" paradigm. This paradigm compares subjects' reactions to intentional and unintentional human behaviour. All dogs received three conditions: In the unwilling-condition, an experimenter intentionally withheld a reward from them. In the two unable-conditions, she unintentionally withheld the reward, either because she was clumsy or because she was physically prevented from giving the reward to the dog. Dogs clearly distinguished in their spontaneous behaviour between unwilling- and unable-conditions. This indicates that dogs indeed distinguish intentional actions from unintentional behaviour. We critically discuss our findings with regard to dogs' understanding of human intentional action.
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Affiliation(s)
- Britta Schünemann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073, Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Judith Keller
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073, Göttingen, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, 20146, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Tanya Behne
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Juliane Bräuer
- Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745, Jena, Germany.,Department for General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Am Steiger 3, 07743, Jena, Germany
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18
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Schünemann B, Schidelko LP, Proft M, Rakoczy H. Children understand subjective (undesirable) desires before they understand subjective (false) beliefs. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 213:105268. [PMID: 34411877 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2021] [Revised: 07/12/2021] [Accepted: 07/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Our folk psychology is built around the ascription of beliefs (and related cognitive states) and desires (and related conative states). How and when children develop a concept of these different kinds of propositional attitudes has been the subject of a long-standing debate. Asymmetry accounts assume that children develop a conception of desires earlier than they develop a concept of beliefs. In contrast, the symmetry account assumes that conceptions of both kinds of attitudes are based on the same underlying capacity to ascribe subjective perspectives. Accordingly, a genuine subjective understanding of desires develops in tandem with subjective belief understanding. So far, existing evidence that tested these two accounts remains inconclusive, with inconsistent findings resulting from diverging methods. Therefore, the current study tested between the two accounts in a more systematic way. First, we used a particularly clear test case-value-incompatible (wicked) desires. Such desires are strongly subjective because they are desirable only from the agent's perspective but not from an objective perspective. Second, we probed children's ascription of such desires in the most direct and simplified ways. Third, we directly compared children's desire understanding with their ascription of subjective beliefs. Results revealed that young children were better in reasoning about subjective desires than about subjective beliefs. Desire reasoning was not correlated with subjective belief reasoning, and children did not have more difficulties in reasoning about strongly subjective wicked desires than about neutral desires. All in all, these findings are not in line with the predictions of the symmetry account but speak in favor of the asymmetry account.
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Affiliation(s)
- Britta Schünemann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Lydia Paulin Schidelko
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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19
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Eckert J, Rakoczy H, Duguid S, Herrmann E, Call J. The Ape Lottery: Chimpanzees Fail To Consider Spatial Information When Drawing Statistical Inferences. AB&C 2021. [DOI: 10.26451/abc.08.03.01.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans and nonhuman great apes share a sense for intuitive statistics, making intuitive probability judgments based on proportional information. This ability is of tremendous importance, in particular for predicting the outcome of events using prior information and for inferring general regularities from limited numbers of observations. Already in infancy, humans functionally integrate intuitive statistics with other cognitive domains, rendering this type of reasoning a powerful tool to make rational decisions in a variety of contexts. Recent research suggests that chimpanzees are capable of one type of such cross-domain integration: The integration of statistical and social information. Here, we investigated whether apes can also integrate physical information into their statistical inferences. We tested 14 sanctuary-living chimpanzees in a new task setup consisting of two “gumball machine”-apparatuses that were filled with different combinations of preferred and non-preferred food items. In four test conditions, subjects decided which of two apparatuses they wanted to operate to receive a random sample, while we varied both the proportional composition of the food items as well as their spatial configuration above and below a barrier. To receive the more favorable sample, apes needed to integrate proportional and spatial information. Chimpanzees succeeded in conditions in which we provided them either with proportional information or spatial information, but they failed to correctly integrate both types of information when they were in conflict. Whether these limitations in chimpanzees' performance reflect true limits of cognitive competence or merely performance limitations due to accessory task demands is still an open question.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
| | - Nadja Miosga
- Department of Developmental Psychology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
| | - Thomas Schultze
- Department of Developmental Psychology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
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21
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Essa F, Weinsdörfer A, Shilo R, Diesendruck G, Rakoczy H. Children explain in‐ and out‐group behavior differently. Soc Dev 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12499] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Francine Essa
- Department of Psychology & Gonda Brain Research Center Bar‐Ilan University Ramat‐Gan Israel
| | - Anika Weinsdörfer
- Department of Developmental Psychology University of Goettingen Goettingen Germany
| | - Reut Shilo
- Department of Psychology & Gonda Brain Research Center Bar‐Ilan University Ramat‐Gan Israel
| | - Gil Diesendruck
- Department of Psychology & Gonda Brain Research Center Bar‐Ilan University Ramat‐Gan Israel
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology University of Goettingen Goettingen Germany
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22
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Shilo R, Weinsdörfer A, Rakoczy H, Diesendruck G. Children’s prediction of others’ behavior based on group vs. individual properties. Cognitive Development 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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23
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Proft M, Hoss C, Manfredini Paredes K, Rakoczy H. Do children understand desires before they understand beliefs? A comparison of 3-year-olds’ grasp of incompatible desires, competitive games and false beliefs. Cognitive Development 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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24
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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. R Soc Open Sci 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] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [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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25
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Placì S, Fischer J, Rakoczy H. Do infants and preschoolers quantify probabilities based on proportions? R Soc Open Sci 2020; 7:191751. [PMID: 33047006 PMCID: PMC7540750 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191751] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2019] [Accepted: 08/11/2020] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
Most statistical problems encountered throughout life require the ability to quantify probabilities based on proportions. Recent findings on the early ontogeny of this ability have been mixed: For example, when presented with jars containing preferred and less preferred items, 12-month-olds, but not 3- and 4-years-olds, seem to rely on the proportions of objects in the jars to predict the content of samples randomly drawn out of them. Given these contrasting findings, it remains unclear what the probabilistic reasoning abilities of young children are and how they develop. In our study, we addressed this question and tested, with identical methods across age groups and similar methods to previous studies, whether 12-month-olds and 3- and 4-years-olds rely on proportions of objects to estimate probabilities of random sampling events. Results revealed that neither infants nor preschoolers do. While preschoolers' performance is in line with previous findings, infants' performance is difficult to interpret given their failure in a control condition in which the outcomes happened with certainty rather than a graded probability. More systematic studies are needed to explain why infants succeeded in a previous study but failed in our study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Placì
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Author for correspondence: Sarah Placì e-mail:
| | - Julia Fischer
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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26
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Cacchione T, Abbaspour S, Rakoczy H. Object Individuation in the Absence of Kind-specific Surface Features: Evidence for a Primordial Essentialist Stance? Journal of Cognition and Development 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2020.1797746] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Trix Cacchione
- University of Berne, Switzerland
- University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Switzerland
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Rakoczy H, Oktay-Gür N. Why Do Young Children Look so Smart and Older Children Look so Dumb on True Belief Control Tasks? An Investigation of Pragmatic Performance Factors. Journal of Cognition and Development 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2019.1709467] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
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29
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Wentura D, Bermeitinger C, Eder A, Giesen CG, Michalkiewicz M, Hartwigsen G, Röder B, Lischke A, Kübler A, Pauli P, Renner KH, Ziegler M, Spengler M, Christiansen H, Richter T, Souvignier E, Heyder A, Kunina-Habenicht O, Hertel S, Sparfeldt J, Bischof N, Glück J, Haun D, Liebal K, Amici F, Bender A, Bohn M, Bräuer J, Buttelmann D, Burkart J, Cacchione T, DeTroy S, Faßbender I, Fichtel C, Fischer J, Gampe A, Gray R, Horn L, Oña L, Kärtner J, Kaminski J, Kanngießer P, Keller H, Köster M, Kopp KS, Kornadt HJ, Rakoczy H, Schuppli C, Stengelin R, Trommsdorff G, Leeuwen EV, Schaik CV, Jüttemann G, Loh W, Paulus M. Kommentare zu Daum, M. M., Greve, W., Pauen, S., Schuhrke, B. und Schwarzer, G. (2020). Positionspapier der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie: Ein Versuch einer Standortbestimmung. Psychologische Rundschau 2020. [DOI: 10.1026/0033-3042/a000466] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Dirk Wentura
- Fachrichtung Psychologie, Universität des Saarlandes
| | | | | | | | | | - Gesa Hartwigsen
- Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, Leipzig
| | | | | | | | - Paul Pauli
- Lehrstuhl für Psychologie I, Universität Würzburg
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Judith Glück
- Institut für Psychologie der Universität Klagenfurt
| | - Daniel Haun
- Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Russel Gray
- Max-Planck-Institut für Menschheitsgeschichte
| | | | - Linda Oña
- Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung
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30
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Placì S, Padberg M, Rakoczy H, Fischer J. Long-tailed macaques extract statistical information from repeated types of events to make rational decisions under uncertainty. Sci Rep 2019; 9:12107. [PMID: 31431638 PMCID: PMC6702217 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-48543-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2019] [Accepted: 07/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Human children and apes seem to be intuitive statisticians when making predictions from populations of objects to randomly drawn samples, whereas monkeys seem not to be. Statistical reasoning can also be investigated in tasks in which the probabilities of different possibilities must be inferred from relative frequencies of events, but little is known about the performance of nonhuman primates in such tasks. In the current study, we investigated whether long-tailed macaques extract statistical information from repeated types of events to make predictions under uncertainty. In each experiment, monkeys first experienced the probability of rewards associated with different factors separately. In a subsequent test trial, monkeys could then choose between the different factors presented simultaneously. In Experiment 1, we tested whether long-tailed macaques relied on probabilities and not on a comparison of absolute quantities to make predictions. In Experiment 2 and 3 we varied the nature of the predictive factors and the complexity of the covariation structure between rewards and factors. Results indicate that long-tailed macaques extract statistical information from repeated types of events to make predictions and rational decisions under uncertainty, in more or less complex scenarios. These findings suggest that the presentation format affects the monkeys’ statistical reasoning abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Placì
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany. .,Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073, Göttingen, Germany. .,Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Marie Padberg
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.,Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073, Göttingen, Germany.,Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Julia Fischer
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.,Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
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31
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Kulke L, Wübker M, Rakoczy H. Is implicit Theory of Mind real but hard to detect? Testing adults with different stimulus materials. R Soc Open Sci 2019; 6:190068. [PMID: 31417713 PMCID: PMC6689622 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.190068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2019] [Accepted: 06/04/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Recently, Theory of Mind (ToM) research has been revolutionized by new methods. Eye-tracking studies measuring subjects' looking times or anticipatory looking have suggested that implicit and automatic forms of ToM develop much earlier in ontogeny than traditionally assumed and continue to operate outside of subjects' awareness throughout the lifespan. However, the reliability of these implicit methods has recently been put into question by an increasing number of non-replications. What remains unclear from these accumulating non-replication findings, though, is whether they present true negatives (there is no robust phenomenon of automatic ToM) or false ones (automatic ToM is real but difficult to tap). In order to address these questions, the current study implemented conceptual replications of influential anticipatory looking ToM tasks with a new variation in the stimuli. In two separate preregistered studies, we used increasingly realistic stimuli and controlled for potential confounds. Even with these more realistic stimuli, previous results could not be replicated. Rather, the anticipatory looking pattern found here remained largely compatible with more parsimonious explanations. In conclusion, the reality and robustness of automatic ToM remains controversial.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Institute of Psychology, Goßlerstraße 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology, University of Göttingen, Institute of Psychology, Goßlerstraße 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Marieke Wübker
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Institute of Psychology, Goßlerstraße 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Lüneburg, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Institute of Psychology, Goßlerstraße 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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32
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Schmidt MFH, Rakoczy H, Tomasello M. Eighteen‐Month‐Old Infants Correct Non‐Conforming Actions by Others. Infancy 2019; 24:613-635. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12292] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2017] [Revised: 03/08/2019] [Accepted: 03/18/2019] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Marco F. H. Schmidt
- Department of Psychology University of Bremen
- International Junior Research Group Developmental Origins of Human Normativity Department of Psychology LMU Munich
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
| | | | - Michael Tomasello
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Duke University
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33
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Kulke L, Johannsen J, Rakoczy H. Why can some implicit Theory of Mind tasks be replicated and others cannot? A test of mentalizing versus submentalizing accounts. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0213772. [PMID: 30909288 PMCID: PMC6433471 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213772] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2018] [Accepted: 03/01/2019] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In the last 15 years, Theory of Mind research has been revolutionized by the development of new implicit tasks. Such tasks aim at tapping children’s and adults’ uninstructed, largely automatic mental state ascription, indicated in spontaneous looking behavior when observing agents who act on the basis of false beliefs. Studies with anticipatory looking, in particular, have suggested that basic ToM capacities operate from very early in life and remain in unconscious operation throughout the lifespan. Recently, however, systematic replication attempts of anticipatory looking measures have yielded a complex and puzzling mixture of successful, partial and non-replications. The present study aimed at shedding light on the question whether there is a system to this pattern. More specifically, in a set of three preregistered experiments, it was tested whether those conditions that could previously be replicated and those that could not differ in crucial conceptual respects such that the former do not strictly require ToM whereas the latter do. This was tested by the implementation of novel control conditions. The results were complex. There was generally no unambiguous evidence for reliable spontaneous ToM and no effect of the number of passed familiarization trials. Neither was there any unambiguous evidence that the previous mixed patterns of (non-)replications could be explained (away) by the sub-mentalizing account tested in the new control conditions. The empirical situation remains puzzling, and the question whether there is some such thing as implicit and spontaneous ToM remains to be clarified.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- University of Göttingen, Institute of Psychology, Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Josefin Johannsen
- University of Göttingen, Institute of Psychology, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- University of Göttingen, Institute of Psychology, Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
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34
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Rakoczy H, Cacchione T. Comparative metaphysics: Evolutionary and ontogenetic roots of essentialist thought about objects. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci 2019; 10:e1497. [PMID: 30821110 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1497] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2018] [Revised: 01/18/2019] [Accepted: 01/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
How do animals and young children see the world around them in its most basic structure, and how do such world-views develop over time? These are questions of what could be called comparative and developmental metaphysics. The present paper gives an introduction to this newly emerging field of research. Special emphasis is put on thinking about the world as made up of discrete and enduring objects as the most fundamental form of objective thought. The paper discusses whether language is necessary for such basic forms of objective thought, and whether thinking about objects, in turn, may lay a foundation for psychological essentialism. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Psychology > Comparative Psychology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannes Rakoczy
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Trix Cacchione
- Department of Developmental Psychology, School of Education, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Windisch, Switzerland
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Proft M, Schünemann B, Rakoczy H. Children's understanding of the aspectuality of intentions. J Exp Child Psychol 2019; 181:17-33. [PMID: 30665153 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.12.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2017] [Revised: 11/30/2018] [Accepted: 12/02/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
When children come to grasp the concept of intention is a central question in theory of mind research. Existing studies, however, present a puzzling picture. On the one hand, infants distinguish between intentional and accidental actions. On the other hand, previous work suggests that until 8 years of age children do not yet understand an essential property of intentions-their aspectuality. Intentions are aspectual in the sense that they refer to objects and actions only under specific aspects. For example, Oedipus married Jocasta without knowing that she was his mother. Thus, he intentionally married Jocasta but did not intentionally marry his mother. However, the negative findings from these studies may indicate performance limitations rather than competence limitations. The rationale of the current set of studies, therefore, was to test children's understanding of the aspectuality of intentions in a simplified, cognitively less demanding design. The participants, 5- and 6-year-olds (Study 1) and 4-year-olds (Study 2), were involved in simple games where they (or another agent) intentionally acted on objects that had an obvious first identity and a hidden second identity. Children either did or did not know about the toy's second identity at the moment of acting. After their actions, children were asked about their intentions regarding the toys' different identities. Results revealed that the 5- and 6-year-olds, but not the 4-year-olds, systematically considered how they (or another agent) represented the objects when making intentionality judgments. Thus, an understanding of aspectual intentions seems to develop at around the late preschool years-much earlier than previously assumed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Britta Schünemann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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Hermes J, Rakoczy H, Behne T. Making sense of conflicting information: A touchscreen paradigm to measure young children's selective trust. Inf Child Dev 2018. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.2119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jonas Hermes
- Institute of Psychology, Department of Developmental PsychologyUniversity of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition Göttingen Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Institute of Psychology, Department of Developmental PsychologyUniversity of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition Göttingen Germany
| | - Tanya Behne
- Institute of Psychology, Department of Developmental PsychologyUniversity of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition Göttingen Germany
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Abstract
Imitation is a powerful and ubiquitous social learning strategy, fundamental for the development of individual skills and cultural traditions. Recent research on the cognitive foundations and development of imitation, though, presents a surprising picture: Although even infants imitate in selective, efficient, and rational ways, children and adults engage in overimitation. Rather than imitating selectively and efficiently, they sometimes faithfully reproduce causally irrelevant actions as much as relevant ones. In this article, we suggest a new perspective on this phenomenon by integrating established findings on children’s more general capacities for rational action parsing with newer findings on overimitation. We suggest that overimitation is a consequence of children’s growing capacities to understand causal and social constraints in relation to goals and that it rests on the human capacity to represent observed actions simultaneously on different levels of goal hierarchies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefanie Keupp
- Cognitive Ethology Lab, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz-ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, University of Göttingen
| | - Tanya Behne
- Leibniz-ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, University of Göttingen
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Leibniz-ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, University of Göttingen
- Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen
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Abstract
When evaluating norm transgressions, children begin to show some sensitivity to the agent's intentionality around preschool age. However, the specific developmental trajectories of different forms of such intent-based judgments and their cognitive underpinnings are still largely unclear. The current studies, therefore, systematically investigated the development of intent-based normative judgments as a function of two crucial factors: (a) the type of the agent's mental state underlying a normative transgression, and (b) the type of norm transgressed (moral versus conventional). In Study 1, 5- and 7-year-old children as well as adults were presented with vignettes in which an agent transgressed either a moral or a conventional norm. Crucially, she did so either intentionally, accidentally (not intentionally at all) or unknowingly (intentionally, yet based on a false belief regarding the outcome). The results revealed two asymmetries in children's intent-based judgments. First, all age groups showed greater sensitivity to mental state information for moral compared to conventional transgressions. Second, children's (but not adults') normative judgments were more sensitive to the agent's intention than to her belief. Two subsequent studies investigated this asymmetry in children more closely and found evidence that it is based on performance factors: children are able in principle to take into account an agent's false belief in much the same way as her intentions, yet do not make belief-based judgments in many existing tasks (like that of Study 1) due to their inferential complexity. Taken together, these findings contribute to a more systematic understanding of the development of intent-based normative judgment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marina Proft
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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Placì S, Eckert J, Rakoczy H, Fischer J. Long-tailed macaques ( Macaca fascicularis) can use simple heuristics but fail at drawing statistical inferences from populations to samples. R Soc Open Sci 2018; 5:181025. [PMID: 30839652 PMCID: PMC6170548 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.181025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2018] [Accepted: 08/15/2018] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
Human infants, apes and capuchin monkeys engage in intuitive statistics: they generate predictions from populations of objects to samples based on proportional information. This suggests that statistical reasoning might depend on some core knowledge that humans share with other primate species. To aid the reconstruction of the evolution of this capacity, we investigated whether intuitive statistical reasoning is also present in a species of Old World monkey. In a series of four experiments, 11 long-tailed macaques were offered different pairs of populations containing varying proportions of preferred versus neutral food items. One population always contained a higher proportion of preferred items than the other. An experimenter simultaneously drew one item out of each population, hid them in her fists and presented them to the monkeys to choose. Although some individuals performed well across most experiments, our results imply that long-tailed macaques as a group did not make statistical inferences from populations of food items to samples but rather relied on heuristics. These findings suggest that there may have been convergent evolution of this ability in New World monkeys and apes (including humans).
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Placì
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Johanna Eckert
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Julia Fischer
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
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Eckert J, Call J, Hermes J, Herrmann E, Rakoczy H. Intuitive statistical inferences in chimpanzees and humans follow Weber's law. Cognition 2018; 180:99-107. [PMID: 30015211 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2017] [Revised: 06/12/2018] [Accepted: 07/04/2018] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Humans and nonhuman great apes share a sense for intuitive statistical reasoning, making intuitive probability judgments based on proportional information. This ability is of fundamental importance, in particular for inferring general regularities from finite numbers of observations and, vice versa, for predicting the outcome of single events using prior information. To date it remains unclear which cognitive mechanism underlies and enables this capacity. The aim of the present study was to gain deeper insights into the cognitive structure of intuitive statistics by probing its signatures in chimpanzees and humans. We tested 24 sanctuary-living chimpanzees in a previously established paradigm which required them to reason from populations of food items with different ratios of preferred (peanuts) and non-preferred items (carrot pieces) to randomly drawn samples. In a series of eight test conditions, the ratio between the two ratios to be discriminated (ROR) was systematically varied ranging from 1 (same proportions in both populations) to 16 (high magnitude of difference between populations). One hundred and forty-four human adults were tested in a computerized version of the same task. The main result was that both chimpanzee and human performance varied as a function of the log(ROR) and thus followed Weber's law. This suggests that intuitive statistical reasoning relies on the same cognitive mechanism that is used for comparing absolute quantities, namely the analogue magnitude system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johanna Eckert
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Goettingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Goettingen, Germany; Leibniz ScienceCampus "Primate Cognition", German Primate Center/Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Goettingen, Germany.
| | - Josep Call
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK
| | - Jonas Hermes
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Goettingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Goettingen, Germany; Leibniz ScienceCampus "Primate Cognition", German Primate Center/Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Goettingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Goettingen, Germany; Leibniz ScienceCampus "Primate Cognition", German Primate Center/Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Goettingen, Germany
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Eckert J, Rakoczy H, Call J, Herrmann E, Hanus D. Chimpanzees Consider Humans' Psychological States when Drawing Statistical Inferences. Curr Biol 2018; 28:1959-1963.e3. [PMID: 29861138 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.077] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2017] [Revised: 03/22/2018] [Accepted: 04/24/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Great apes have been shown to be intuitive statisticians: they can use proportional information within a population to make intuitive probability judgments about randomly drawn samples [1, J.E., J.C., J.H., E.H., and H.R., unpublished data]. Humans, from early infancy onward, functionally integrate intuitive statistics with other cognitive domains to judge the randomness of an event [2-6]. To date, nothing is known about such cross-domain integration in any nonhuman animal, leaving uncertainty about the origins of human statistical abilities. We investigated whether chimpanzees take into account information about psychological states of experimenters (their biases and visual access) when drawing statistical inferences. We tested 21 sanctuary-living chimpanzees in a previously established paradigm that required subjects to infer which of two mixed populations of preferred and non-preferred food items was more likely to lead to a desired outcome for the subject. In a series of three experiments, we found that chimpanzees chose based on proportional information alone when they had no information about experimenters' preferences and (to a lesser extent) when experimenters had biases for certain food types but drew blindly. By contrast, when biased experimenters had visual access, subjects ignored statistical information and instead chose based on experimenters' biases. Lastly, chimpanzees intuitively used a violation of statistical likelihoods as indication for biased sampling. Our results suggest that chimpanzees have a random sampling assumption that can be overridden under the appropriate circumstances and that they are able to use mental state information to judge whether this is necessary. This provides further evidence for a shared statistical inference mechanism in apes and humans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johanna Eckert
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany; Leibniz Science Campus "Primate Cognition", German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, 37073 Göttingen, Germany; Leibniz Science Campus "Primate Cognition", German Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Josep Call
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Daniel Hanus
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
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Shilo R, Weinsdörfer A, Rakoczy H, Diesendruck G. The Out-Group Homogeneity Effect Across Development: A Cross-Cultural Investigation. Child Dev 2018; 90:2104-2117. [PMID: 29732552 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13082] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
The present studies investigated the out-group homogeneity effect in 5- and 8-year-old Israeli and German children (n = 150) and adults (n = 96). Participants were asked to infer whether a given property (either biological or psychological) was true of an entire group-either the participants' in-group ("Jews" or "Germans") or their out-group ("Arabs" or "Turks"). To that end, participants had to select either a homogenous or a heterogeneous sample of group members. It was found that across ages and countries, participants selected heterogeneous samples less often when inferring the biological properties of out-compared to in-group members. No effect was found regarding psychological properties. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the origins of intergroup bias.
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Kulke L, von Duhn B, Schneider D, Rakoczy H. Is Implicit Theory of Mind a Real and Robust Phenomenon? Results From a Systematic Replication Study. Psychol Sci 2018; 29:888-900. [PMID: 29659340 DOI: 10.1177/0956797617747090] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Recently, theory-of-mind research has been revolutionized by findings from novel implicit tasks suggesting that at least some aspects of false-belief reasoning develop earlier in ontogeny than previously assumed and operate automatically throughout adulthood. Although these findings are the empirical basis for far-reaching theories, systematic replications are still missing. This article reports a preregistered large-scale attempt to replicate four influential anticipatory-looking implicit theory-of-mind tasks using original stimuli and procedures. Results showed that only one of the four paradigms was reliably replicated. A second set of studies revealed, further, that this one paradigm was no longer replicated once confounds were removed, which calls its validity into question. There were also no correlations between paradigms, and thus, no evidence for their convergent validity. In conclusion, findings from anticipatory-looking false-belief paradigms seem less reliable and valid than previously assumed, thus limiting the conclusions that can be drawn from them.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- 1 Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen.,2 Department of Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen.,3 Leibniz-ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Britta von Duhn
- 1 Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen
| | - Dana Schneider
- 4 Institute of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- 1 Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen.,3 Leibniz-ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
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Dörrenberg S, Rakoczy H, Liszkowski U. How (not) to measure infant Theory of Mind: Testing the replicability and validity of four non-verbal measures. Cognitive Development 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 67] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Kulke L, Reiß M, Krist H, Rakoczy H. How robust are anticipatory looking measures of Theory of Mind? Replication attempts across the life span. Cognitive Development 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.09.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
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Kulke L, Rakoczy H. Implicit Theory of Mind - An overview of current replications and non-replications. Data Brief 2018; 16:101-104. [PMID: 29188228 PMCID: PMC5694957 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2017.11.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2017] [Revised: 10/16/2017] [Accepted: 11/02/2017] [Indexed: 11/05/2022] Open
Abstract
The current dataset contains a qualitative summary of (non-)replication studies of implicit Theory of Mind paradigms. It summarizes for each paradigm, how many replications, partial replications and non-replications were identified and how many of them were published or unpublished. Furthermore, descriptive data and sample sizes are reported. The dataset provides a qualitative overview of the published and unpublished findings in implicit Theory of Mind research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- Göttingen University, Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Göttingen University, Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonas Hermes
- University of Göttingen and Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition
| | - Tanya Behne
- University of Göttingen and Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- University of Göttingen and Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition
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Kulke L, Reiß M, Krist H, Rakoczy H. Implicit Theory of Mind across the life span - Anticipatory looking data. Data Brief 2017; 15:712-719. [PMID: 29124096 PMCID: PMC5671519 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2017.10.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2017] [Revised: 10/06/2017] [Accepted: 10/10/2017] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
In this work, we present a collection of data from three replication studies of anticipatory looking false belief tasks measuring implicit Theory of Mind. Two paradigms, by Southgate & Senju and Surian & Geraci were replicated in two independent labs. Eye-tracking data was collected and processed in line with the original procedures to allow for an investigation of effects of false belief processing on looking times and first saccades.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Germany
| | - Mirjam Reiß
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Germany
| | - Horst Krist
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Germany
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Germany
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