Cognitive Development & Theory of Mind

Christopher Maymon

Victoria University of Wellington

Concrete Operational Stage: Seriation

  • Children begin to understand that different objects can be ordered along quantitative dimensions (e.g., length, weight, color)
  • Transitive Inference: if A > B and B > C then A > C
  • Limits: Struggle with transitive inference when there is no visual/tangible objects to compare

Formal Operational Stage: Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning

  • During the concrete operational stage, people can imagine operations on concrete objects, when they reach the Formal operational stage, they begin to imagine operations on operations! (abstract reasoning)
  • Shift from Inductive reasoning to Deductive Reasoning
  1. Inductive = using specific observations to form a general conclusion
  2. Deductive = Using a general premise to form a specific conclusion

Theory of Mind (ToM)

Also known as “mindreading” or “mentalizing”

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Theory of Mind (ToM)

  • Social interactions are built upon predictions about other people’s behaviour

  • We learn that other people have normative reasons for their behaviour

  • Chris stopped speaking because he saw something unusual at the back of the room

Mental States

  • dispositions about the world which guide a person’s actions:

  • I got on the bus to the beach because I want to go swimming

  • the Mental state = wanting to go swimming.

Mental States about other people

  • We can have mental states about other people’s actions:

  • I think that she got on the bus to the beach because she wants to go swimming

Mental States about others’ mental states

  • We can have mental states about other people’s mental states:
  • I think that she thinks that she is on the bus to the beach

Mental States can be counterfactual

  • I think that she thinks that she is on the bus to the beach, when actually, she is on the bus to the city.
  • In this situation, we suspect that the woman getting on the bus may have a false belief

Mental States are Complex!

  • At what age do children begin to demonstrate an awareness that other people have mental states?
  • & that they can be different from our own mental states
  • & that they can be false!

False Beliefs - ‘Unexpected Transfer’ Tasks

Findings in ‘Sally Anne’ Task:

  • Children begin to answer correctly (i.e., they choose the basket) around their 4th birthday.
  • Before this time, children choose the location where they know the marble is.

Other False Belief Tasks:

Any problems here??

Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) Familiarization Trials

Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) Belief Induction Trials

Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) - Test Trials

Onishi & Baillargeon (2005) Results

Conclusions

  • 15-month olds looked longer after the agent acts in a way that violates her false belief!
  • Explanation: They look longer because they are surprised and they are surprised because they expected her to act on her false belief
  • Therefore, 15 month-olds have a theory of mind!?

Contradictory findings!

Children cannot correctly answer questions about other peoples’ minds until ~4 years of age

Infants show looking behaviour that suggests they do know about other people’s minds

What are infants/children doing when they are using their theory of mind?

  1. Theory-theory: Children are creating their own theories about minds
  2. Modularity: There is a cognitive system specially set up for processing minds
  3. Simulation: Children are creating mental simulations of other perspectives
  4. Executive Function: Children use executive functions to metarepresent
  5. Behaviour Rules: Children learn through experience that there are these statistical regularities, but they don’t know why these regularities happen.

Methods in Cognitive Development:

  1. Games, puzzles, Questions (Data = children make choices)
  2. Gaze behaviour (e.g., longer looking = ‘violation of expectation’)
  3. Children’s verbal explanations

Investigating Metacognition & Metarepresentation by asking children to explain how it works

Metacognition: Thinking about thinking

  • By 3rd birthday, children realize that thinking happens in the head.
  • & that a person can think about something even if it isn’t physically present.
  • Limits: 3-4 year olds think that thinking stops when people are waiting, looking at pictures, or reading books.
  • Distinctions between words for mental representations (“knowing” vs. “forgetting”) are difficult.
  • Children (6-7 years) don’t see the “mind” and “brain” as different things.
  • & don’t think you need a mind/brain for things like seeing, hearing, and walking.
  • By age 10, children start to appreciate that the mind is something immaterial, and the brain is a material substance

Individual differences in Theory of Mind:

  • Parents talking about mental states
  • Parental Discipline
  • Older Siblings
  • Child Language
  • Symbolic Play
  • Hormones
  • Executive Functions

Thursday’s Lecture: Executive Functions and the Marshmallow Test