Lecture 6 Flashcards
(18 cards)
1
Q
Theory of mind
A
- Capacity to attribute (attach) mental states to others in order to predict/explain behaviour
- Can also be called mentalising or mind reading
2
Q
Piaget on social development
A
- Looked at how children developed a social understanding
- Examined every day talk between children and looked at language between children at different ages
- Developed an egocentric coefficient = proportion of talk that children had about themselves
- Pre-operational stage = 2-7 years –> conversation egocentric
- Socialised speech = when children attempt to understand the listener increases by 7-8
3
Q
Piaget 3 mountains task
A
- Looking at perspective taking
- Child seated at one of sides of mountain and shown doll
- Have photographs of what the mountain looks like at different sides
- Have to point to what the doll would be able to see
- Couldn’t pass task till about 7/8
- Criticisms:
- -> Test too complication
- -> Confounding variable of mental rotation skill
4
Q
Meta representation
A
- Said perspective taking task ignored mental states
- Wellman said other people have representation that differ from our own
- Dennett:
- -> At a punch and Judy show
- -> Realised that the 3 year olds started laughing when they recognised things that the guy in the show didn’t
5
Q
False-belief task
A
- Wimmer and Perner (1983)
- Introduced a boy or a girl that hides an object in one location and then leaves the scene
- Friend walks in and takes the object out of that place and puts in a different box
- Boy comes back in and ask children where does the boy look for the toy?
- If children have theory of mind they will be able to predict the boy has a false belief about the situation
6
Q
Wellman
A
- 2001
- Meta analysis of 178 false belief studies
- Found between 3 and 5 have a grasp about what is going on
- Found if they do well on one of the tests they will do well on the other
7
Q
Nativists accounts
A
- Mind-reading is innate
- Hard wired to track mental states of others
- They say the reason children can’t pass these tests earlier in life is because of their language skills
8
Q
Evidence for nativist theories
A
- TOM = universal
- Specific impairments with children with autism = more likely to fail TOM test and its nothing to do with environmental upbringing, its a specific deficit in TOM reasoning (Baren-Cohen, Leslie and Frith, 1985)
9
Q
False belief experiment as evidence for nativist
A
- Ballargeon (2005)
- Violation of expectation experiment
- Children will look longer at something unexpected
Phase 1:
- 15 month olds saw person playing with object
- Placed object in green box
- Woman comes in, reaches for object and plays with is
Phase 2:
- Split into 4 groups:
- -> Object moves to yellow box but actor doesn’t see (false belief)
- -> Object moved to yellow box and actor sees but then object moved back to green and actor doesn’t see (false belief)
- Object remains in green and actor sees (true belief)
- Object moved to yellow and actor sees (true belief)
Findings:
- Children surprised when woman in false belief task reached to location where object actually was
- Meta representations
- Challenged idea children take time to develop meta representations
Criticism:
-Kulke et al (2018) failed to replicate findings
10
Q
Individual differences
A
- Dunn and Hughes (2015)
- If we took 300 3 year old children, not all of them have TOM
- Individual differences are stable over time
- Predicted by wide range of cognitive social factors
- Linked with a range of social outcomes
11
Q
Explanations for individual differences in mind reading
A
- Execuitve function = higher order processes involved in conscious control of thought and action
- Functioning of prefrontal cortex and inhibitory control, working memory and shifting
2 ways to measure executive function:
- Stroop paradigm:
- -> Shown happy and sad face
- -> Asked children to point to happy face when you say happy
- -> People made a lot of errors
Shifting:
- -> Set of cards with either rabbits or boats on them
- -> Cards also either red or blue
- -> Researcher will first say all cards with rabbits go to left and all with boats go to right
- -> Will then change the rule
- -> Age 3-5 good on both tasks = same time children get better at false belief
12
Q
Twin studies
A
- Evidence for environment
- Hughes (2005)
- Age 3 had heavy genetic component = supports nativist
- Age 5-9, genes decrease and greater importance of external environment
13
Q
What parts of external environment matter?
A
- Children’s exposure to conversations that make references to thoughts, feelings and desires
- Dunn et al (1991) found children who engage in more of these conversations out performed their peers on the false belief tasks
14
Q
Mind-mindedness
A
-Idea that you view others as individuals with their own thoughts, desires and feelings
15
Q
Do families matter for mind reading?
A
- Meta analysis of 93 studies
- More mind minded parent is, more likely children will do better in TOM test
- More that parents use mental state language, better they do on TOM
- If you have old siblings more likely to do better
- Children in families that are struggling do worse
- However not many longitudinal studies
16
Q
Cole and Mitchell (1998) environmental influence
A
- Children that underperformed in the belief tasks were the ones that had mothers who stated they were experiencing hardship and distress
- Children with single parents most disadvantaged
17
Q
Genes and TOM
A
- Hughes (1999)
- 119 same sex 3 year old twins
- Substantial genetic influence found
- At age 3 heretibility was 67%
18
Q
Genetic basis of TOM
A
- Xia, Wu and Su (2012)
- 101 adults
- Tested 7 candidate genes
- Found the COMT gene was associated with cognitive TOM performance
