Theory of Mind - Theory of Mind Development

Theory of Mind Development

The study of which animals are capable of attributing knowledge and mental states to others, as well as when in human ontogeny and phylogeny this ability developed, has identified a number of precursory behaviors to a theory of mind. Understanding attention, understanding of others' intentions, and imitative experience with other people are hallmarks of a theory of mind which may be observed early in the development of what will later become a full-fledged theory. In studies with non-human animals and pre-verbal humans, in particular, researchers look to these behaviors preferentially in making inferences about mind.

Simon Baron-Cohen identified the infant's understanding of attention in others, a social skill found by 7 to 9 months of age, as a "critical precursor" to the development of theory of mind. Understanding attention involves understanding that seeing can be directed selectively as attention, that the looker assesses the seen object as "of interest," and that seeing can induce beliefs. Attention can be directed and shared by the act of pointing, a joint attention behavior which requires taking into account another person's mental state, particularly whether the person notices an object or finds it of interest. Baron-Cohen speculates that the inclination to spontaneously reference an object in the world as of interest ("proto-declarative pointing") and to likewise appreciate the directed attention and interests of another may be the underlying motive behind all human communication.

Understanding of others' intentions is another critical precursor to understanding other minds because intentionality, or "aboutness", is a fundamental feature of mental states and events. The "intentional stance" has been defined by Daniel Dennett as an understanding that others' actions are goal-directed and arise from particular beliefs or desires. Both 2- and 3-year-old children could discriminate when an experimenter intentionally vs. accidentally marked a box as baited with stickers. Even earlier in ontogeny, Andrew N. Meltzoff found that 18 month-old infants could perform target manipulations that adult experimenters attempted and failed, suggesting the infants could represent the object-manipulating behavior of adults as involving goals and intentions. While attribution of intention (the box-marking) and knowledge (false-belief tasks) is investigated in young humans and nonhuman animals to detect precursors to a theory of mind, Gagliardi et al. have pointed out that even adult humans do not always act in a way consistent with an attributional perspective. In the experiment, adult human subjects came to make choices about baited containers when guided by confederates who could not see (and therefore, not know) which container had been baited.

Recent research in developmental psychology suggests that the infant's ability to imitate others lies at the origins of both a theory of mind and other social-cognitive achievements like perspective-taking and empathy. According to Meltzoff, the infant's innate understanding that others are "like me" allows it to recognize the equivalence between the physical and mental states apparent in others and those felt by the self. For example, the infant uses his own experiences orienting his head/eyes toward an object of interest to understand the movements of others who turn toward an object, that is, that they will generally attend to objects of interest or significance. Some researchers in comparative disciplines have hesitated to put a too-ponderous weight on imitation as a critical precursor to advanced human social-cognitive skills like mentalizing and empathizing, especially if true imitation is no longer employed by adults. A test of imitation by Alexandra Horowitz found that adult subjects imitated an experimenter demonstrating a novel task far less closely than children did. Horowitz points out that the precise psychological state underlying imitation is unclear and cannot, by itself, be used to draw conclusions about the mental states of humans.