Theory of mind

Theory of mind

1. Action understanding develops: 9 months

   • Believe action means an emotion - will understand if someone else is doing that action - such representations of others' actions may constitute a rudimentary ToM (understanding of why others do certain things)
   • Observe another's action
     • Motor commands for producing oneself
       • Intentions that drie that action in us
         • Same intention drives action in another
   • Protodeclaritive pointing: 9-14m
     • Use point to explain and help others understand what they're talking or thinking about (Bates et al, 1979)
     • Shared gaze: 12m
       • Infants sensitive to where another person is looking and understand significance of the eyes (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2002) - know that where people look is to do with the meaning of the conversation - gaze --> see if they have ToM even when can't articulate
       • Joint attention: 14m
         • Infants keen to establish joint attention
         • Concern for others: 18m
           • Show concern at distress of others (see distress in selves when someone else is distressed)

2. understanding mental states

   • - what another may be thinking/feeling - enables us to explain and predict the behaviours of others (how differs from own knowledge and may affect their behaviour)
   • Empathising
     • ToM important component of empathising - cannot empathise if don't understand that people have different beliefs to one's own
   • appropriate affective reaction
     • to others mental states - other main component)

3. Unique to humans

   • Premack & Woodruff, 1978
   • Seen in some primates
     • Call & Tomasello, 2008) - review

4. Brain regions

   • Medial PFC
     • Gallagher & Frith, 2003
   • Posterior superior sulcus
     • Gallagher & Frith, 2003
   • right temporal parietal junction
     • Saxe & Powell, 2006

5. False belief

   • Understanding that others may have representations of the world that are false and/or different from one's own - understanding that others act on basis of their beliefs rather than reality - not expecting them to do what you would do
   • False belief tasks
     • First order ToM
       • Maxi task
         • Wimmer & Perner (1983) Maxi and the chocolate - puts choc in box and goes out to play, mum moves choc ToM Q's Q: where will Maxi look for it? Q: where does Maxi think it is? Memory control Q's Q: where is it now? Q: where was it before? - story comprehension a problem
         • 4-6 y/o
           • 50% 4-5 y/o 92% 5-6 y/o - all got memory Q correct - false belief representation may develop between 4-6
       • Sally-Anne task
         • Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith (1985) - Anne moves Sally's marble while she's out the room Q: where will Sally look for her marble - story comprehension a problem
         • 4-5 y/o
           • typically developing passed this task
       • Smarties task
         • Perner et al, 1987 - Smarties task solves problems of story comprehension - ask child what's inside, show it's actually crayons (not smarties) ToM Q: what would friend think is inside? Memory Q: what did you think was inside before you knew?
         • 4-5 y/o
       • Criticisms
         • Bloom & German, 2000 - review of false belief tasks
         • Too easy
           • May not require full theory of mind - participants with ASD can sometimes pass these tasks (Baron-Cohen, 1989) - something else allowing them to perform otimally
     • Second/higher-order ToM
       • Ice cream story
         • Perner & Wimmer, 1985 Both John and Mary know ice cream truck has moved, but neither know the other knows. Where will John think Mary will go to buy ice cream? - must understand John's ignorance of Mary's knowledge 
         • 6-7 y/o
           • Delay in development in first-order ToM understanding --> second-order ToM understanding
         • Simplified
           • 4-5 y/o
             • Sullivan et al (1994) - over 90% of 4-5 y/o could succeed at second order ToM tasks if the stories were simplified
       • Beliefs about beliefs
       • language and comprehension
         • Children's performance on second-order ToM tasks will still be inherently linked to their language and story comprehension abilities - therefore tasks are not good for assessing ToM in young children - too difficult

6. Early ToM development

   • Understanding of false belief develops earlier than 4, but traditional false belief tasks are too hard for younger children to pass and understand due to language, comprehension and memory abilities - require complex responses - requires child to remember details of the story- unable to pass
   • Non-verbal measures
     • Eye-tracking
       • Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005 - actor plays with toy and puts in yellow box, - infant (but not actor) sees toy moved to different box - actor reaches into a box
       • 15 m/o
         • Looked longer at box that adult couldn't have known it was moved to - shows they understood it wasn't normal and was surprising - suggests they understand that to some extent, people should act in accordance with their beliefs
   • Language learning
     • Early evidence of ToM in infants' word-learning abilities - following gaze - parent names things while looking at them - infant follows gaze to associate word with object
     • Better glaze following skills: 10 - 11m
       • Brooks & Meltzoff, 2005 - infants who had better gaze-following skills at 10-11 months had higher language scores at 18m
       • Higher language scores: 18m
     • Baldwin (1991, 1993)
       • Response to subsequent comprehension questions revealed infants: - successfully learned the labels introduced during follow-in labelling - displayed no tendency to make mapping errors after discrepant labelling
       • LDG
         • Listeners direction of gaze strategy to learn words - relies on some understanding of the intention of the speaker
         • Follow in labelling
           • Experimenter looked at and labelled toy that infants were already looking at
           • 16-17m
             • - successfully learned the labels introduced during follow-in labelling - understand that a speaker's nonverbal cues are relevant to the reference of object labels - they already can contribute to the social coordination involved in achieving joint reference
       • SDG
         • Speaker's direction of gaze strategy to learn words - relies on some understanding of the intention of the speaker
         • Discrepant labelling
           • Experimenter looked at and labelled different toy that one child was looking at
           • 18-19m
             • - displayed no tendency to make mapping errors after discrepant labelling

7. Atypical ToM developement

   • ASD
     • Impaired ToM = One of the hallmarks of ASD - some theories propose ASD = ToM deficit
     • Baron-Cohen
       • Two theories proposed - but has since moved on from this theory too (these models do not account for all traits)
       • Initial ToM model
       • Empathising/systemising theory
     • Often fail false-belief tasks
       • But not always - read B-C's papers on false belief tasks
     • Language imapirments
       • Frequently have language impairments - thought to have links with ToM deficit (Baron-Cohen, Baldwin & Crowson, 1997)

8. Individual differences

   • Questionnaire measures
     • Variety of measures to assess ToM, mainly questionnaire based
     • Interpersonal reactivity scale
       • Davis, 1980 - empathy: reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of another (Davis, 1983 - 28-items, 5-point likert scale of how well it describes them - 4 sub-scales (7 items each) 1) Perspective taking (ability to spontaneously adopt others' POV) 2) Fantasy (transpose selves imaginitvely into feels/actions of ficticious characters) 3) Empathic concern (Assesses 'other-orientated' feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others) 4) Personal distress ('self orientated' feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tense interpersonal settings)
     • Empathy quotient
       • Good validity (Lawrence et al, 2004) - 60 item questionnaire - developed by B-C 4 point Likert - strongly agree --> strongly disagree
   • 'Eyes' task
     • Baron-Cohen et al, 1997, 2001 - rate emotion from eye expressions
   • Social attribution task
     • Heider & Simmel, 1944 - attribution of mental states to the interaction of inanimate objects/shapes - thought to reflect higher-order ToM abilities - making sense if and explaining their behaviour - social attribution tasks to examine ToM in individuals with Asperger's and HF autism
     • physical elements
       • Abell, Happe & Frith (2000) - HF ASD , 8 y/o - used terms that attributed animacy to the shapes less often than TD children and used incorrect terms/emotions more often - less emotion/people based terms - describe physical elements - Abell, F., Happe, F., & Frith, U. (2000). Do triangles play tricks? Attribution of mental states to animated shapes in normal and abnormal development.Cognitive Development, 15(1), 1-16
       • Klin & Jones (2006) - adults - those with HF ASD - impaired on social attribution task, but not on very similar physical attribution task - deficit is domain-specific (not simply general deficit in reasoning/attribution - specific to social stimuli)
     • PET/neuroimaging studies
       • brain activation when watching shapes move in social way vs. randomly - greater activation in superior temporal sulcus, TPJ and mPFC when watching social movements - TD show more activation in these areas than ASD - fMRI - FFA activation from social attribution