week 6 Flashcards
What is social cognition
Learning how to interact effectively with other people= key to success
Understanding of how people behave
Involves making reference to internal psychological states such as emotions, thoughts and desire
Involves knowing that other people are similar in nature to the self in that they have subjective experiences
Developmental progression
Preference for social stimulation
Faces, voices
Simple social interaction
Neonatal imitation
Understand the actions of others as goal-directed
Engage in joint attention/shared activities
Gaze-following, social referencing & pointing
Understand differences in desires
Understand differences in beliefs – ToM
Goal directed actions
Assume the actions of others have a purpose
Infants “represent human actions with respect to the objects and outcomes to which they are directed, rather than in terms of their superficial perceptual properties”
Rational imitation by infants Original head-touch study (Meltzoff, 1985; 1988)
Deferred imitation: 14-month old infants would imitate novel actions, even after a 1 week delay
Rational Imitation by Infants
Gergely et al. (2002)
14 month old infants
Hands occupied vs hands free
Different intentions suggested by simple changes in context
Intentionality
Not just what an actor did do, but what they meant to do
If something is done accidentally, suggests it was not the goal of the actor to perform that action
Differential imitation of the same action because of changes in context
Intentional vs accidental actions
Carpenter et al. (1998)
14 – 18 month olds
Objects with 2 possible actions + end result
Modelled both actions:
One accidental (“Whoops!)
One intentional (“There”)
“Can you make it work?”
Infants much more likely to imitate intentional actions
Interpret actions as directed towards achieving goal
Screen out accidental, unintentional actions
Suggests understanding of intentions of others
Social referencing: visual cliff Sorce et al. (1985)
Social referencing is a way to understand the mental states of others
1 year old infant on visual cliff
Mother at opposite side:
Fearful face – 0/17 cross
Happy face – 14/19 cross
Infant modulates reaction to object/event by reference to information gained the actions of another person
Desire
What’s a desire- preference for a particular option, motivating factor for action
Infants have a concept of desire early on
when do they understand others have desire
Early Desire-Based Psychology
Broccoli-Goldfish (Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997)
14- and 18-month-olds
Two bowls: raw broccoli and goldfish crackers
Infants prefer crackers
Experimenter eats both and prefers broccoli
Asked to give the experimenter one
14 months: usually give the one they like
18 months: usually give the one experimenter likes
Theory of mind (ToM)
The ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and to understand that other have belief, desires and intentions, that are different from one’s own
Understanding desires vs beliefs
Ability to understand desires of others develops earlier than ability to understand beliefs of others
Broccoli-Goldfish indicates the beginning of understand others mental states in a representational manner
Desires require representing objects, events and people
Beliefs require representing another person’s representation of objects, events and people
Theory of mind and false belief
Are children able to hold their own belief about the world, whilst also separately representing the belief held by another person?
Hard to test if child and other person have same belief
Therefore – create situation when other person holds a belief child knows to be wrong False belief task
Shows children understand difference between reality and a mental state
Philosopher Daniel Dennett proposes false belief as the test of understanding other’s minds
False Location/ Unexpected Transfer (Sally-Ann) Task (e.g. Wimmer & Perner, 1983)
Does the child understand that the character now holds a false belief about the object’s location?
Issues with Sally-Anne task?
Other task demands
Have to follow actions of 2 characters
Understand that Sally did not see switching
Remember where item used to be and where it is now
Language – appreciate precise meaning of the question
“Where” question – where Sally should look, not the child
Even if children DO understand that people can have false beliefs:
Need to override simple rules – e.g. ‘people will act in accord with their desires’
Unexpected Contents/ Smarties task (e.g Perner et al., 1987)
Children are shown a smarties box and asked what is inside
All children say smarties
Shown that pencils were inside the box
Put pencils back inside. What would another person think is in the box?
Most 3’s say pencils; Most 4’s say smarties
Self version: Before I showed you what was inside, what did you think was in the box. Similar results
Why do three-year-old fail
Belief-specific competence deficit
Performance deficit
More general competence deficit
False belief in infancy?
Onishi and Baillargeon (2005)
15 month olds; violation of expectation task
Search paradigm: toy hidden in one of two possible locations
Familiarization
Belief-induction (true or false)
Test trial (true of false)
15-month old infants looked longer when actor searched in the box inconsistent with her belief
Why do infants succeed 3-year-old fail, and 5-year-old succeed
Infants succeed on indirect test
Three-year-old fail on direct test
Performance/competence distinction in younger children?
Different ToM abilities or modules
ToM beyond age 4
ToM is more than passing FB tasks-individual differences in older children and adults
Need different tasks
Faux Pas test (Baron-cohen et al. 1999)
Mike was in one of the cubicles in the toilets at school. Joe and Peter were at the sinks nearby. Joe said “You know that new boy in the class, his name is Mike. Doesn’t he look really weird!” Mike then came out of the cubicles. Peter said “Oh hello Mike, are you going to play football now?”.
Faux Pas Detection Question: In the story did someone say something that they should not have said?
If “no”, proceed to the comprehension question.
Identification Question: What did they say that they should not have said?”
Comprehension Question: Where were Joe and Peter when they were talking?
Devine et al. (2016)
Longitudinal study – tested children at age 10 (previously tested between ages 4 & 6)
T1: Fb task, unexpected contents task, emotion FB task
T2: Strange stories, Triangles task, Silent film task
Findings:
Individual differences in ToM ability
Differences moderately stable across childhood
ToM ability related to social competence as rated by teachers
All measuring the same thing?
Term ToM used generally to refer to performance on all tasks
some task relate to each other due to them
Research shows minimal correlations between different tasks after controlling for age and IQ (Warnell & Redcay, 2019)
ToM is a diverse construct that likely requires other social and cognitive abilities.
Important because researchers tend to choose1 or 2 tasks to represent ToM.
Factors Influencing ToM
Social environment is hugely important for ToM development
Devine & Hughes (2018) – Meta-analysis of family factors affecting false belief understanding in early childhood.
3-7 year olds
93 studies
Parental SES
No. of siblings
Parental mental state talk
Mind-mindedness
