Cognition And Development: Theory Of The Mind

Question 1

What is ‘theory of the mind’

Answer 1

• our personal understanding (‘a theory’) of what other people are thinking or feeling, sometimes called ‘mind reading’

Question 2

What did Andrew Meltzoff (1988) find about toddlers and intentional reasoning?

Answer 2

18-month-olds imitated what adults intended to do, placing beads into a jar even when adults in the experimental group appeared to struggle and dropped them.

Question 3

What does Meltzoff’s (1988) study suggest about toddlers’ understanding?

Answer 3

It suggests that toddlers have a simple Theory of Mind (ToM) and understand adult intentions.

Question 4

What are false belief tasks designed to test?

Answer 4

Whether children understand that others can believe something that is not true.

Question 5

What did Wimmer and Perner (1983) find with the Maxi chocolate task?

Answer 5

Most 3-year-olds failed the task, while most 4-year-olds correctly identified where Maxi would look, suggesting a ToM shift around age four.

Question 6

What is the Sally-Anne task?

Answer 6

A false belief task where children determine where Sally will look for her marble, testing their understanding of false beliefs.

Question 7

What did Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) find in the Sally-Anne study?

Answer 7

Only 20% of children with ASD passed the test, while 85% of control children did, indicating a Theory of Mind deficit in ASD.

Question 8

What did Baron-Cohen suggest about ToM and ASD?

Answer 8

That deficits in Theory of Mind might be a complete explanation for ASD.

Question 9

How did older children and adults with Asperger syndrome perform on false belief tasks?

Answer 9

They generally passed these tasks, suggesting limitations in the ToM explanation for ASD.

Question 10

What is the Eyes Task developed by Baron-Cohen et al.?

Answer 10

A task that requires identifying complex emotions from pictures of eyes, designed to test ToM in older children and adults.

Question 11

What did the Eyes Task reveal about people with high-functioning ASD or AS?

Answer 11

They struggled with the Eyes Task, supporting the idea that ToM deficits contribute to ASD.

Question 12

What are the three evaluation points for theory of the mind

Answer 12

• low validity of false belief tasks
• hard to distinguish TOM from perspective taking
• a partial explanation for ASD

Question 13

Outline ‘low validity of false belief tasks ‘ as an evaluation point for theory of the mind

Answer 13

• the mainstay of TOM research has been the false belief tasks however some psychologists are critical of it
• bloom and German suggested it lacks validity because: success on a false belief tasks requires other cognitive abilities apart from ToM (e.g. memory)
• the sally anne story is quote a bit for a three year old to remember

Question 14

Outline ‘hard to distinguish TOM from perspective taking‘ as an evaluation point for theory of the mind

Answer 14

• perspective taking is the ability to view social stations from another’s POV
• TOM is the ability to understand mental states in another
• many methods used to study TOM could simply be measures of perspective taking
• e.g. sally anne task could be explained in terms of children’s ability to take sallys perspective

Question 15

Outline ‘a partial explanation for ASD‘ as an evaluation point for theory of the mind

Answer 15

• TOM research has been extremely useful in helping us understand the differing experiences of those on the autism spectrum
• the idea that ASD is a direct result of TOM deficit is more controversial as there are many ASD characteristics like superior visual attention that TOM cannot explain