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the practice of attributing mental states to other agents in order to explain or predict behavior

the process of attribution itself

in general mindreading = folk psychology

"the theory that we have a theory of what other people's minds do "

mindreading depends on a theory that specifies how mental states relate to behaviour and pther mental states

mental states are defined in theoretical terms they are postulated entities of a folk psychological theory

functionalism : focus on the relation between external circumstances, internal states and overt behavior

1. externalist
2. internalist

investigate the linguistic practice in which we use the theory by systemizing our psychological 'platitudes' (e.g. "those who are tired need to rest")

investigate the individual capacities requirement for mind reading and their ontogenetic development ( Theory of mind in development psychology)

chimpanzees presented with video scene of a human actor struggling with variety of problems

each vido the chimpanzee was shown several photographs, one had the solution to the problem

acoording to PandM , the chimpanzees consistent choice being correct meant that it has a theory of mind

what is missing is a measure of false belief attribution

how do we know that chimpanzees acted on the belief of he other agent rather than it's own belief ?

children need to verbally predict another agent's action on the basis of her false belief

test consists of a kid putting things in a place and the thing being moved, where will the kid look for the thing ?

Maxi drawer test

Sally Anne test ( autism )

3 year old : typically give the wrong answer to the question where Maxi will look for the object

4 year old : correctly predict that maxi will look for the object in the orginal place

conclusion : children develop theory of mind around 4 years

the Sally Anne false belief test was administered to a group of autistic children , a group of children with down syndrome and a control group of pre school children

80% children with autism filed the false belief test

50% of down syndrome children and 85% percent of the normal preschool children passed the test

children with autism have difficulty understanding false belief test

ASD is primarily the result of a dysfunctional Theory of Mind

subjects given shambled pictures form comic strips

put them in right order to male a coherent story and tell in their words

three types of stories : mechanical , behavioral and mentalistic stories

kids with autism would not be able to pass the mentalistic story in theory

it is ingenious but very difficult task and taps (only) one aspect of people's understanding of the minds of others

put us in an observational mode and do not capture the fuller picture of how we understand other people

1. experiments explicitly test for specialized cognitive activities of expanding and predicting
2. the experiments involve third person observations rather than second person

cross cultural differences in the development of theory of mind, e.g. performance on the verbal false belief test

cultures with less/without psychological concepts

cultural differences in behavior prediction and/or explanation strategies

similar trajectories but wide range variations in onset of false belief understanding across cultures (children in Papa New Guinea score no better than chance at the age of 6 )

the language in Malaysia does not allow for more than 8 words that describe emotions therefor how can we teach them about their emotions

the concept of *rus* : is the set of both what we call 'thoughts' and 'feelings' and they do not make any conceptual distinctions between the two , no word for think or feel"

some cultures seem to not have any psychological concepts at all

they use the phrase that roughly translates " what would he say?" for "what would he think "

in china they explain behavior by citing the fact that a person has been recently fired rather than mentioning anything about their character and or perosnlaity

more prone to fundamental attribution error

= people tend to explain another agent's behavior in terms of internal states rather than external factors

infants' capacity to understand false belief is inferred form their spontaneous behavior ( gaze direction, looking times )

infants look longer at an "unexpected event" where adults search at the second correct location despite their else belief about where the toy is hidden

introduce "violation of expectation" task

anticipatory looking paradigm' and "active helping paradigm "

1. young infants understand false beliefs in spontaneous response tests
2. 2/3 year olds correctly anticipate the behavior of Sam the Mouse by looking at the blue box where he falsely believed the cheese to be hidden(→ is the false belief the capacity to understand or to verbalize ?)

mindreading depends on the capacity to "put ourselves in the other's shoes' by imagining what we would think and how we wold act in their shoes

if folk psychology does not depend on a theory, it cannot be false

understanding others depends on our own psychological mechanisms, we don't need elaborate theory of mind

feeding 'pretend' beliefs and desires into ne's own offline practical reasoning system and attributing the outcome to the agent we try to understand

"first the attribution creates in herself pretend states intended to match those of the target "

simulating others without introspection or inference

you simulate being the other in others situation, and therfore you don't need to attribute pertend mental states

understanding why Ann took the umbrella : you simply note that 'it is raining' form her point of view

less demanding : no introspection, inference and attribution of pretend mental states

still a conscious procedure

class o visuomotor neurons that fire when we observe other agent's intentional action, and we ourselves perform this action

allow us to put ourselves in the shoes of others

mirror neurons allow for immediate, automatic and almost reflex like understanding of others

manipulating pretend mental states ( beliefs, desires, intentions)

understanding the self/others distinctions

inference or interpretation of any sort

subjects were presented with movies of individuals who smelled contents of a glass ( disgusting , pleasant, neutral)
fMRI scan while they were themselves inhaling these odorants trough mask
same brain areas were activated during own experience and just watching

mirror only porpvides us with the motor intention of the action

1. motor intentions : intentions to perform bodily movements
2. prior intentions : reasons why we perform certain bodily movements (as part of action )

only 30 % shows a strict one to one relation between visual and motor properties of the cell

60% of the mirror neurons are broadly congruent i.e. denote relation between an observed action and its associated execution action ( not a match )