#9553 - Theory Of Mind - Children & Youth Markets

• Theory of mind (ToM) is the intuitive understanding of one's own and other people's minds or mental states— including thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, knowledge, intentions, desires, and emotions—and of how those mental states influence behaviour.

• ToM is an innate human ability. The understanding that others have mental states different from one's own makes it possible to infer what others are thinking and to predict their behaviour. This ability to recognize one's own state of mind and those of others is central to human consciousness.

The Theory Of The Mind

• The word theory in ToM refers to a person's tacit belief rather than to theory in the scientific sense. However, ToM is similar to a scientific theory in that it enables one to interpret and predict another's actions by evaluating their thoughts, beliefs, desires, or emotions. ToM also qualifies as a theory in the sense that the representations of reality generated by ToM are not directly observable.

• The ability to develop a ToM is a cognitive ability that develops by degrees from infancy through childhood and adolescence on into adulthood. It forms a basis for a child's acquisition of language and the development of appropriate social behaviour and skills. ToM includes the ability to understand that the representations generated in one's mind do not necessarily reflect the real world and that other people may hold different representations. Empathy—the ability to understand another person's perceptions on a deep level without reference to one's own perceptions—may be a culminating feature of ToM development.

• ToM is involved in all aspects of daily living and social interactions. It underlies learning and teaching and the ability to follow directions and understand socially based information. ToM skills are essential for working cooperatively. They also underlie the ability to manipulate and deceive others. A lack of ToM skills is considered by many to be a core deficit in autism. and studies of autism have promoted research on the development and complex functioning of ToM.

• As a basic component of human consciousness ToM has roots in philosophy, particularly in the groundwork for a science of the mind laid down by René Descartes (1596–1650).

• The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896– 1980) suggested that before the age of 3 or 4 egocentrism prevents children from understanding that other people's thoughts and viewpoints may differ from their own. In 1978 Nicholas Humphrey proposed that introspective consciousness has a specific function; it enables social animals to predict each other's behaviour. Being aware of the effects of emotions on one's own behaviour enables humans to predict the reactions of others to those same emotions.

Theory Of Mind In Infants & Toddlers

• Although children clearly begin to develop ToM at an earlier age than Piaget thought, researchers disagree as to which behaviours indicate a developing ToM in children younger than 3, and it has been very difficult to assess ToM in preverbal children.

• Some researchers argue that mimicking by infants is indicative of a developing ToM. Infants under 1 year expect hands and objects to move in ways that are goal-oriented. Between 6 and 12 months infants develop “joint attention”—looking in the direction of someone else's gaze. Between 12 and 18 months babies will look in the direction that someone is pointing, rather than at the person's finger, and will themselves point to draw someone's attention to something. In 2000 Charman and colleagues found that children who showed the highest rates of joint attention at 20 months scored the highest on ToM tests at 44 months.

• Some researchers argue that as early as 14 months babies can understand intentional behaviour and therefore understand that other people are intentional and mental beings. An 18-month-old who watches an adult try unsuccessfully to hang a loop on a hook will imitate the intended rather than the failed action, even though the baby has only seen the failed action. Toddlers begin to recognize that other people have desires and likes and dislikes that are different from their own.

• Three-year-olds begin to understand that other people's minds are distinct from their own but cannot yet clearly distinguish between what they know and what others know. Nevertheless, 3-year-olds have a fairly well-developed ToM. Most 3-year-olds can talk about mental states using words such as think, know, and remember. They can distinguish mental states such as dreams. They also understand that perception can lead to knowledge:

Theory of Mind In Pre-schoolers

• At about age 4 children recognize that other people have minds and that their minds may hold different information. They also recognize that appearances may be deceptive and can mislead. The appearance-reality (A-R) task is used to assess a child's ability to distinguish between reality and representation.

  • A child is given a sponge that is painted to look like a rock. When asked what the object looks like and what it is really, a 3-year-old will give the same answer to both questions—either a rock or a sponge. In contrast, a 4-year-old will correctly answer that it looks like a rock but is really a sponge. By the age of 5 children can understand that someone who appears happy may actually be sad.

• Although it is clear that the abilities to pass false-belief and A-R tasks at about age 4 represent important milestones in ToM development, the nature of these cognitive shifts is unclear. Simulation theory argues that children learn to understand other's beliefs through imagination—by imagining themselves in another person's situation. Other scientists believe that this milestone occurs through a process of conceptual change or through the maturing of structures in the brain that facilitate reasoning about the minds of others. Many psychologists believe that failure on false-belief and other ToM tasks is due to children's immature executive functioning.

• Although understanding false belief is universal in normal children over the age of 5, a number of factors appear to affect the exact age at which the skill is acquired. Success on false-belief tests correlates with short-term memory ability. Children with larger vocabularies and...