Lifespan development and ToM Dr Penny Tok 27 September 2012 By PresenterMedia.com • Recap of theories • Debate the importance of ToM • Let’s consider the evidence • Parallels in development in other areas • Influence of executive functioning & Language • Cross cultural development of ToM •Today Theory of mind: “…Area of cognitive development research that investigates the nature and development of our understanding of the mental world- the inner world inhabited by beliefs, desires, emotions, thoughts, perceptions, intentions and other mental states.” Flavell, 2004. p. 274 What makes the study of Theory of Mind so interesting and valuable that it has almost dominated child development research in the last 20 years? Mentalising •Need to distinguish between: Attribution of desires, perceptions & emotions Behavioural sensitivity to the associated physical cues (body motion, eye gaze etc.) Agent----- informational relation --- object --- proposition Representation of propositional attitude must mark: - Who has the mental state - What sort of attitute Mental states that are propositional attitudes (Leslie, 1987) • Increases range of social behaviours • Possibly allows building of cultural knowledge that is transmitted by teaching • Representations that can be decoupled from the world: cannot be validated by reference to the real world: It is raining versus Peter believes it is raining Benefits of ToM… • Theory- Theory (Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997; Gopnik & Wellman, 1994, Perner, 1991) • Modularity Theory (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Leslie, 1994; Scholl & Leslie, 1999) • Simulation Theory (Harris, 1992)- primary process= emphathy • Concept of ‘egocentrism’ • ToM development develops with stage-like qualitative changes Jean Piaget, 1896 –1980 •Traditional view of ToM META COGNITION Cognition about cognition Knowledge or cognitive activity that takes as its object, or regulates, any aspect of any cognitive activity (Flavell, Miller & Miller, 2002) Such mental states cannot be OBSERVED, and a mental system can instead be used to make predictions about the behaviours of others •Why is it called a theory? • Comprehension of false belief indicates the clearest sign of understanding a critical aspect of the mind: • Its subjectivity and susceptibility to manipulation by information Understanding that mental states (as are beliefs) are not direct reflections of reality which must always be accurate but instead are representations which may or may not be accurate. False belief task Tests of ToM •First order versus second order FB tasks •Premack & Woodruff (1978) • Wanted to find out if chimpanzees understood human goals. Wimmer & Perner (1983) •Unexpected transfer task/ location change • Maxi task Sally-Ann task (Baron-Cohen) e.g. Perner et al., 1987, Gopnik & Astington, 1988 First order False belief task- Smarties task Appearance-reality task •Second order test of FB •What are some criticisms to these tests? • Too heavily dependent on language • Requires other skills apart from pure ToM understanding- false belief tasks are not PURE tests of ToM So, where do we go from here? • What are some behaviours present from birth that indicate the even infants have some rudimentary form of ToM understanding? Fledgling ToM skills: • Imitation • Shared attention Do infants have ToM? Let’s go back in time… • Babies seem impelled to interact with others and impel others to interact with it. • Attention • Beliefs • Protodeclarative pointing (before 12 months) • By 12 months: expect agents to act in the most economical wayrecognising intentionality • Social referencing: between 9 -10 months •Development after infancy • Pretense: after 2 years of age • Mental state term use: by 3 years • Desires • Emotions Toddlerhood Affects HOW they interact with others but also WHO they interact with Consequences of ToM Better emotional Understanding leads to: - - Empathy - - Positive social relationships - Use of socially prescribed rules for showing emotion Can attribute false beliefs to self, use lies, jokes and deception They learn • about the role of pre-existing biases and expectations • Moral dilemmas • Subtle forms of social deception (bluff, white lies) So, when does ToM start to develop? Can the rudimentary skills observed from infancy count as ToM possession? • Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005 • “Violation of Expectation” method Southgate, Senju, Csibra, 2007 •Action Anticipation- anticipatory looking • 3-way actor-object- location association • behavioural rules- people look for an object where they last saw it • Changes in latent activation in nonfrontal regions Knowing about BEHAVIOUR versus knowing about mental states MEDIATING BEHAVIOUR (read: Perner, J., & Ruffman, T. (2005). Infants ’ Insight into the Mind : Science, 308(5719), 214-216) •BUT… • Range of belief tasks • Testing predictions and explanations • Longitudinal studies What can do to overcome these challenges? Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997) •14 versus 18 month olds 1. Hide and seek 2. Understanding fairy tales and stories 3. Pretend play: tea party 4. Protodeclarative pointing 5. Social referencing 6. Eye gaze: will follow eye gaze of adult IF joint attention was established prior to the adult looking away •Real life scenarios… What other skills are necessary? Executive function- mental capacity Language Acquisition of false belief understanding coincides with significant changes in EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING WHY? LANGUAGE Executive functioning Theory of Mind Language What are the social implications of ToM change across development? Consequences of ToM • Social relationships: prosocial and anti-social Emotional Regulation: links with problems in peer relationships Ring leader bullies have been found to have exceptionalToM! Anxiety •Low self esteem Preschool development in ToM may increase sensitivity to criticism and lead to later: SEMINAR Important note: Test 1 in week 5: will cover Lectures 1 – 4 Formed your groups yet? EXPERIMENTS: Available NOW: 1. Only GUYS: Social Influence on Music Memory psychologicky.experiment@gmail.com 2. Only RIGHT handed: It is like looking in a mirror (30- 45 mins) daniel.shaw@ceitec.muni.cz Available mid-Oct – Early Nov: 3. Attentional guidance on scene perception (max 1 hour) misel99@gmail.com Theory of Mind course assignment: Name of student: _________________________________ ID number: ________________________ Name of experimenter: ______________________________ Date completed: __________________ Signature of experimenter: ______________________________ 500 word summary of Research Participation Experience You have to include: • Name of the experiment you participated in. • Describe your thoughts AND emotions about the experiment BEFORE you took part in it. • Also include how the experimental room contributed to how you felt. • Distinguish between behavioural sensitivity toward physical cues and deeper attribution of mental states. • For example, the examiner had his arms crossed which made me think that he felt…. • Self-reflection is also acceptable. For example, my hands were sweaty and cold which made me realise that I was feeling… •Intra-cultural • •Inter-cultural •Inter-species Differences in development Substantial evidence showing that the development of a social understanding of‘other minds’ follows a clear developmental pathway. Early appearance of a system of reasoning about other people’s goals, perceptions and emotions and later development of a system for representing the contents of other people’s beliefs. Saxe et al, 2004 (i.e. judgement versus explanations of FB) Let’s discuss: ToM’s claim of universality What’s different between cultures? Folk psychology Language Parental practices Societal expectations How can we check? BRAIN STUDIES!!!! CHILDREN 8 – 12 year olds English Japanese Cartoons Kobayashi, Glover & Temple, 2007 Cultural influences Found both culture/language dependent and independent factors in ToM development. Differences between groups: Americans used more RTPJ Activation of vmPFC recruited by bilingual children indicate a language/culture specific manner to understand presumably affective aspects of ToM Cultural Influences of ToM development • Areas such as the vmPFC (emotions processing) are more important for ToM in childhood than in later years. Hughes, Jaffee, Happe,Taylor, Caspi & Moffit, 2005 Kobayashi,, Glover &Temple, 2007 Liu,Wellman,Tardif & Sabbagh, 2008 •Americans recruited more RTPJ than Japanese. This may be culture specificRTPJ might be involved in general ability in distinguishing self from others. Liu, Wellman & Tardif & Sabbagh, 2008 想 think 以为 BILLINGUALISM • Bilingual children need to develop an early sociolinguistic sensitivity to the language knowledge of their interlocutors because they must use their language accordingly. ADULTS New Bilinguals vs old-time Bilinguals Rubio-Fernandez & Glucksberg (2012) Egocenric bias in adults- “the curse of knowledge” (tendency to be biased by their own knowledge)- however this DOES NOT affect performance. Majority of monolingual participants showed an egocentric bias in gaze direction. Differences INTER-CULTURALLY may be due to: Language: 1. use of mental state verbs 2. Syntax: centre-embedded sentences (relative clause is placed between subject and the verb of the sentence) Other cultural factors: 3. Culture: individualistic (American/European) versus collectivist (Asian) Referential communication: collectivist cultures suffer less from their own visual perspective than do people from individualistic cultures (perspective taking) Which theory do these findings support?