Mind-Reading
Mind-Reading
We are all mind readers
The phenomenon can be used to explore the interconnection between functional structure of the mind and anatomical structure of the brain
Mind-reading involves the ability to make sense of other people’s behavior in psychological terms and coordinate our behavior with othersMind-reading is often taken to require a very distinctive kind of thinking
To understand it, we need contributions from developmental psychology, developmental disorders, primate cognition, evolutionary psychology, and neuroimaging.
To start: How does the ability to read others’ minds develop in children?
It may begin with pretend play
Chapter 12: Section 12.1
Describe the stages of development in pretend play. What is common to all types of pretend play?
Emerges very early in infancy (13 months – fairly sophisticated by end of the second year)
1. Pretending to carry out a familiar activity
2. Other-directed, pretending some object has properties it does not
3. Object-substitution, pretending some object is a different objectExplain the basic observations from which Leslie’s model of the pretense system begins. What does Leslie conclude from them?
Pretend play depends on how the infant represents the world (primary representations)
Primary representations alone are not sufficient to explain pretend play
But pretend representations must preserve their ordinary meaningDescribe Leslie’s model of the pretense system. How does he think it relates to the mindreading system?
Primary representations are decoupled from their usual functions (they are “quarantined”)
This allows them to feature in pretend play
The decoupling mechanism involves some sort of quotation device
I PRETEND “this banana: it is a telephone”
The same “decoupling” mechanism works both for pretend play, and attributions of propositional attitudes (beliefs, etc) to others
The difference is in the operators applied to the decoupled representations
BELIEVE versus PRETEND
Decoupling mechanism provides inputs to dedicated Theory of Mind Mechanism (ToMM)Are there other, perhaps simpler ways to explain pretend play?
Leslie’s theory depends on the concept of metarepresentation
To represent (think about) the idea of a representation
Chapter 12: Section 12.2
Why does the phenomenon of autism seem to support Leslie’s basic claim that pretend play involves metarepresentation?
Basic idea: there is a common mechanism in pretend play and metarepresentation
This would be supported by the existence of disorders affecting both mindreading and pretend play
It is well documented that autistic children fail to engage in pretend playDescribe the false belief task.
Sally places her doll in the green box, then leaves
Anne moves the doll from the green box to the white box
Sally returns and looks for her doll
Where does she look?Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith studied normal, autistic, and Downe’s syndrome children
Although autistic children were ahead of others in mean age, mean verbal mental age, and mean non-verbal mental age, yet 80% failed the Sally-Anne test.
So autistic children have in common their inability to engage in pretend play, and to understand false beliefsChapter 12: Section 12.2
What observation threatens Leslie’s claim that pretend play and mindreading depend on a common system?
Children demonstrate pretend play as early as 13 months, and it is well developed by three.
Children do not pass false belief test until almost four.
Why the delay? Perhaps BELIEVE is harder to use in metarepresentations than PRETEND?Is the false belief task a good test of mindreading abilities?
Can one pass the test without the concept of metarepresentations?
Is the source of the difficulty simply the complexity of the propositions that are involved?
“Sally believes doll is in green box, which was true then she was present, but now is no longer true”
Chapter 12: Section 12.3
Describe Baron-Cohen’s model of the mindreading system. How does it develop? What are the functions of its components?
Intentionality (ID): Identify goal-directed movement
Eye Direction (EDD): Helps with intentionality
Emotion (TED): Identify underlying mood
ID, EDD, and TED are the basis for further development of Shared Attention, Empathy, and Theory of MindWhat is joint visual attention? How is it related to the theoretical concepts of Shared Attention Mechanism, Empathy System, and Theory of Mind Mechanism?
Looking at something because someone else is looking at it
Embedded representation: Mother SEES (I see cup). I SEE (Mother sees cup)
This is the key step in developing SAM
Significantly, autistic children have difficulties with joint visual attention
Shared Attention is presumably the foundation for development of empathy, and theory of mind
TES and TOMM must be separate abilities, since they are affected differently in autistics and psychopathsEarlier Development of TOM?
Senju et al, Psychological Science, July 2011
18-month-olds use past experience to attribute beliefs to other people.
Infants wore opaque blindfolds, or blindfolds that looked opaque but were transparent.
Infants saw actor wear the blindfold while “Anne” moved an object
Infants who knew blindfolds were opaque expected actor to exhibit a false belief, but infants with trick blindfolds did not.
Chapter 12: Section 12.4
How does Leslie explain the time lag between the capacity for metarepresentation and the ability to pass the false belief task?
Metarepresentations: I PRETEND “It is raining”. Mother BELIEVES “It is raining”
Is the second so much harder?
Leslie: What is harder is representing false beliefsLeslie’s selection processor hypothesis: TOM has a default setting of “true belief”
To pass the false belief test, children must be able to override the default
This requires additional executive controlHow has Leslie’s selection processor hypothesis been tested experimentally?
Sally puts the kitten in the green box, then leaves
Anne moves the kitten from the green box to the white box
Sally returns and looks for the kitten
Where does she look?All children pass the false belief test
But, suppose Sally has food that will harm the kitten. In which box will she put the food?
Only 14% answer correctly
In the false belief condition, children pass the standard version of the test
In the kitten condition, further inhibition is required – most cannot do thatIn what way is Perner’s explanation for the time lag different from Leslie's?
Perner objects to the “default true belief” hypothesis
According to Perner, “belief” necessarily implies that the proposition can be either true or false
Perner: Pretend play does not involve beliefs, and therefore does not involve metarepresentation
Chapter 12: Section 12.5
What is the difference between simulationist accounts of mindreading and the accounts of researchers such as Leslie and Perner?
Simulationists assume that children simulate the thoughts and actions of others
No need to be concerned with Theory of Mind at all
Social coordination and social understanding are not specialized systems
They work by co-opting other cognitive systems
Co-opting:
An existing module is adapted for some other purpose
In this case, we use our own mind as a model of other peoples’ minds
As children, we have worked out many rules for behavior: These become co-opted.
We project ourselves into the position of someone else and try to work out what we would do in that position
We do this by running our own decision-making systems with pretend inputs
Decision-making systems run "off-line" – outputs are descriptions of actions, which we then use to predict other people’s behaviorWhat is standard simulationism? How does introspection figure into the account?
Goldman: Introspection leads to self knowledge
We understand the psychological states of others by analogy with our own psychological states
We have a special self-monitoring system for identifying our own psychological states
We can then attribute these states to othersWhat is radical simulationism? How is it different from standard simulationism?
Does not start from representations of other people’s mental states
I.e., no metarepresentations – we represent the world itself, but from the perspective of others
Simulator is thinking about the world from another point of view, not about another person’s psychological statesWhich is the more plausible version of simulationism? Why?
Which makes the more plausible assumptions?
The radical version does not require metarepresentation
But it does require adopting the “another’s perspective”.
Sally-Anne problem: “I assume that I am Sally”. Is that a plausible possibility?What can studies of the brain (especially fMRI) tell us about mind-reading and its development?
Interpreting fMRI data can be tricky
Need for control conditions to identify relevant areas of activity
Studies require several separate tasks in order to sort out the various cognitive activities
E.g., rule out search for causes, and simple representation of falsehood
Describe the false photograph task. Why is it used for studying cognitive development?
A way to study the processing of false beliefs without requiring TOM
A useful control in fMRI studies
Sally places object on green box, and a photo is taken
Anne moves the object from the green box to the white box
The photograph is developed
Where is the object in the photo?Describe the experiments that led Saxe and Kanwisher to believe that there is a neural system dedicated to mindreading.
Found activation in Median Prefrontal Cortex, Superior Temporal Sulcus, and Tempero-Parietal Junction for false belief, but not for simple falsehood, or hidden causes test
Supports the idea of dedicated TOM module
Note, however, that other controls may still be necessaryExplain the evidence that seems to show that low-level mindreading abilities depend on co-opted systems.
Mechanisms that mediate a specific emotion are also involved when one recognizes that emotion in others.
This may support a simulationist view. But, not necessarily:
Evolution of new abilities is easier if some older system can be adaptedWhat is a mirror neuron? Why might mirror neurons be relevant when discussing simulationism?
Neurons in macaque monkeys that are involved in movement also fire when monkey sees the movement in others
Mirror neurons never to date observed in humans, but there might be mirror regions
Again, suggests there might be some commonality of action and recognitionMirror Neurons and TOMM
Ramachandran (“The tell-tale brain”) describes recent evidence for mirror neurons in humans
Suggests the TOM deficits in autistic children stem from deficits in mirror neuron regions
Relates this activity to understanding of metaphor