Theory of mind

Thomas Kuhn, Structure, 172173. Stephen E. Toulmin, "The Evolutionary Development of Natural Science," American Scientist 55 (1967) 456471. David L. Hull, Science as a Process An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science (Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1988) and Robert J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1987). 

Richards, Robert J. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1987. 

We can, I think, dismiss the first of these fairly easily because it seems that this is not a pure memory problem. For one thing, memory for individuals is probably stored elsewhere in the cortex (just as spatial memory is located in the hippocampus O Keefe Nadel 1978, Barton Purvis 1996). More importantly, perhaps, the whole essence of the social brain hypothesis is that it is the manipulations that individuals do with the information they have that is important rather than just remembering who s who. Finally, all the work on theory of mind in humans has shown quite conclusively that the problem lies in understanding another individual s mental state not in remembering factual information (Happe 1995, Kinderman et al.. in press) (see below, section 2.2). 

In contrast to the uncertainty with respect to monkeys, the situation in respect of great apes (or at least chimpanzees) is more clear cut. Chimpanzees emerged as the most frequent users of tactical deception in Byrne s (1995) analysis. In addition, evidence from experimental studies by Povinelli et al. (1990) and O Connell (1996) provide convincing evidence that these great apes at least do possess formal theory of mind. Children are not born with a theory of mind ability, but acquire it at about the age of 4 years (Astington 1994). Some individuals (whom we label autistic) never develop this ability (Leslie 1987, Happe 1994). O Connell (1996) devised a mechanical analogue of the standard false belief test which she applied to chimpanzees as well as normal children and autistic adults. Her results demonstrate rather clearly that chimps do better than autistic adults and about as well as 4-year-old children on the same test. In other words, chimps perform about as well as children who have just acquired basic theory of mind. 

Kinderman, P., Dunbar, R. Bentall, R. (in press). Theory of mind deficits and causal attributions. British Journal of Psychology. 

Leslie, A. M. 91987). Pretense and representation the origins of theory of mind. Psychological Review 94 412-426. 

O Connell, S. (1996). Theory of Mind in Chimpanzees. PhD thesis, University of Liverpool. 

Premack, D., Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind Behavioural Brain Sciences 4 515-526. 

To document these visual delights Claude Rifat, who was trained as a scientist in Geneva after his idyllic childhood in Saudi Arabia, made extensive sketches and notes, as part of his own effort to develop a theory of mind that could be related to basic science. But because he was not an artist, he asked Gilles Roth of the Museum of Natural History in Geneva, Switzerland to redraw them in the form shown here. 

These generalizations, which all flow from neurobiological work on the state control systems of the brain stem, have far-reaching implications for a general theory of mind as well as for a specific theory of dreaming. 

Brune M. 2005. Emotion recognition, theory of mind, and social behavior in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Res 133 135-147. 

Leitman DI, Ziwich R, Pasternak R, Javitt DC. 2006. Theory of Mind (ToM) and counterfactuality deficits in... 

Marjoram D, Job DE, Whalley HC, Gountouna VE, McIntosh AM, et al. 2006. A visual joke fMRI investigation into Theory of Mind and enhanced risk of schizophrenia. Neuroimage 31 1850-1858. 

Richell RA, Mitchell DG, Newman C, Leonard A, Baron-Cohen S, et al. 2003. Theory of mind and psychopathy Can psychopathic individuals read the language of the eyes Neuropsychologia 41 523-526. 

Let us now turn to the more philosophical and speculative aspect of this theory of mind. Granted that holography reflects in part the structure and organization of the brain, and granted also that the brain and its structure will in part reflect the nature of the mind arising from it, it follows therefore that the mind itself must in some sense be holographically structured. The questions we must ask then are (1) In what sense is the mind holographically structured, and (2) why should it be so structured ... 

Baron-Cohen S 1995 Mindblindness an essay on autism and theory of mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA... 

These results indicate that once children pass false-belief tasks they also improve in their ability to search their own mind for appropriate problem solutions. In addition to correlations with creativity, verbal and non-verbal intelligence, other studies have found further associations with non-social abilities such as working memory (Davis Pratt 1995), pantomime (Suddendorf et al 1999, Taylor Carlson 1997) and causal reasoning (Frye et al 1998). These findings fly in the face of the claim that there is an encapsulated theory of mind module. Indeed, the very idea that the human mind is characterized by new, independent, domain-specific modules seems to contradict the observation that the human mind is flexible and generative in its thoughts, actions and words (Corballis 2000). In regards to theory of mind, for example, we are quite happy to use the intentional stance beyond the social sphere (e.g., when we use mental terms to explain the actions of animals, plants and even machines). 

Suddendorf Neither would I. I wrote a review of apes capacity to think ahead (Suddendorf 1994, Suddendorf Corballis 1997). From what I could find, there was no credible evidence that apes, or any other animal for that matter, could flexibly anticipate the remote future. The survey was consistent with the so-called Bischof—Kohler hypothesis which states that animals may not be able to anticipate future motivational states and are thus limited to a present that is defined by the current state of drive or need. So the ability to imagine future motivational states (perhaps akin to the ability to attribute such states to others—i.e., theory of mind) and the consequential impetus to concern oneself with the remote future, may have... 

Cosmides L, Tooby J 1999 Evolutionary psychology. In Wilson R, Keil F (eds) MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, p 295—298 Davis HL, Pratt C 1995 The development of children s theory of mind the working memory explanation. Aust J Psychol 47 25—31... 

Frye D, Zelazo PD, Burack JA 1998 Cognitive complexity and control I. Theory of mind in typical and atypical development. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 7 116—121 Johnson MH 1993 Brain development and cognition. Blackwell, Oxford... 

Leslie AM 1992 Pretence, autism and the theory-of-mind module. Curr Dir Psych Sci 1 18-21 RaffRA 1996 The shape of life genes, development and the evolution of animal form. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL... 

Suddendorf T, Fletcher-Flinn CM 1997 Theory of mind and the origins of divergent thinking. J Creat Behav 31 169-179... 

Suddendorf T, Fletcher-Flinn CM 1999 Children s divergent thinking improves when they understand false beliefs. CreativRes J 12 115-128 Suddendorf T, Fletcher-Flinn CM, Johnston L 1999 Pantomime and theory of mind. J Genet Psych 160 31-45... 

Taylor M, Carlson SM 1997 The relation between individual differences in fantasy and theory of mind. Child Dev 68 436-455... 

Suddendorf I showed you data yesterday indicating that, at least in childhood, social intelligence (as measured by theory of mind tasks) is moderately correlated with measures of general intelligence. 

---