Theory of Mind (ToM) is one of the most relevant concepts in the field of social cognition, particularly in the case of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Literature showing that individuals with ASD display deficits in ToM is extensive and robust. However, some related issues deserve more research: the heterogeneous profile of ToM abilities in children with ASD and the association between different levels of ToM development and social, pragmatic, and adaptive behaviors in everyday life. The first objective of (...) this study was to identify profiles of children with ASD without intellectual disability (ID), based on explicit and applied ToM knowledge, and compare these profiles with a group of children with typical development (TD). A second objective was to determine differences in symptom severity, adaptive/social behavior, and pragmatic abilities between the profiles identified. Fifty-two children with a clinical diagnosis of ASD without ID and 37 children with TD performed neuropsychological ToM tasks and two vocabulary and memory tests. In addition, all of their mothers completed different questionnaires about applied ToM abilities, severity of ASD symptoms, adaptive/social skills, and pragmatic competence. Two subgroups were identified in the cluster analysis carried out with explicit and applied ToM indicators. The “Lower ToM abilities” profile obtained significantly lower scores than the “Higher ToM abilities” profile on all the ToM measures. Furthermore, the analysis of covariance, controlling for vocabulary and working memory (ANCOVAs), showed statistically significant differences in applied ToM abilities between the two groups of children with ASD without ID and the group with TD. However, only the group with “Higher ToM abilities” achieved similar performance to the TD group on the verbal task of explicit ToM knowledge. Finally, the “Lower ToM abilities” cluster obtained significantly higher scores on autism symptoms (social and communication domains) and lower scores on adaptive behavior and pragmatic skills than the cluster with “Higher ToM abilities”. Taken together, these findings have implications for understanding the heterogeneity in ToM skills in children with ASD without ID, and their differential impact on social, communicative, and adaptive behaviors. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM) may be defined as the ability to understand the mental states, such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions, of others. Impairment of ToM ability leads to disorders with pathologies in social skills, such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. In addition to differences in ToM ability among patient populations, there is variation between neurotypical individuals. Unfortunately, ToM tasks are usually developed for children or patients with cognitive disorders and cannot detect variations in healthy adults. (...) As an alternative tool, humor may be used. Humor plays a role in social communication and requires many different cognitive functions. Humor is believed to represent complex high-order cognitive processes. There are numerous types of humor; the most complex type is considered ToM humor, where an understanding of social/emotional content is necessary. Given the need for a ToM assessment test suitable for healthy adult populations, we developed a test for measuring humor comprehension and appreciation, with and without ToM content (ToM-HCAT). The present ToM-HCAT test is a performance test consisting of cartoons. The test measures perceived funniness, reaction time to perceived funniness decision, and meaning inference. Cartoons were selected after pilot studies involving 44 participants. Subscales were constituted according to expert views and confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis ( N = 135). Goodness of fit values for the final 35-item test were acceptable to excellent: GFI = 0.97; AGFI = 0.97; NFI = 0.97; RFI = 0.97, and SRMR = 0.067. Both categories were internally consistent (α 1 = 0.84, α 2 = 0.94). External validity was assessed against autistic traits. One hundred and three participants completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient and were grouped by +0.5 standard deviations from the mean as high in autistic traits. The meaning-inference scores of the subscale with the ToM cartoons were significantly lower ( p = 0.034) for the high autistic traits group, providing evidence of external validity. In conclusion, we developed and validated a test for assessment of ToM by humor comprehension and appreciation. We believe that the present test will be useful for the detection of variations in ToM ability in the healthy adult population. (shrink)

Theory of mind” consists in the ability to use concepts of intentional mental states, such as beliefs, emotions, intentions, goals, and perceptual states, in order to predict and interpret behavior. Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have revealed a distinctive network of neural regions that is active during theory-of-mind tasks, including the temporal-parietal junction, the posterior superior temporal sulcus, the medial prefrontal cortex, the precuneus, and the temporal poles (Van Overwalle 2009). Deficits in theory-of-mind abilities, (...) which are common in autism spectrum disorder (Tager-Flusberg 2007), typically correlate with broader difficulties in social understanding. -/- Many scholars have suggested that theory of mind is an innate adaptation for social cognition, emerging very early in development and playing a crucial role in social learning and the acquisition of language (Baron-Cohen 1997). However, others have argued that theory of mind is the product of largely domain-general learning processes and is acquired gradually over the course development through social experience (Wellman 2014). A third view argues that humans possess two systems for theory of mind: an innate, domain-specific “implicit” system and a learned, domain-general “explicit” system (Apperly and Butterfill 2009). (shrink)

The current study aimed to investigate differences in theory of mind between left-behind children and non-left-behind children in rural China and to examine the potential protective role of general reasoning ability in left-behind children’s theory of mind. Participants included 213 children aged 7.10 to 13.67 years (111 boys and 102 girls, M = 10.51 years, SD = 1.33), 101 of whom were left behind in rural areas by one or both migrating parents for at least 6 (...) months. The Strange Stories task, a second-order false belief task and a faux pas task were used to measure children’s theory of mind, and Sessions B and C in Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices were used to test children’s general reasoning ability. The results showed that left-behind children scored lower on both the faux pas task and Strange Stories task. Additionally, on second-order false belief understanding, left-behind boys performed worse than non-left-behind boys, while left-behind girls scored higher than non-left behind girls. Moreover, children’s general reasoning ability moderated the relationship between parental migrant status and children’s faux pas understanding: For children with high levels of general reasoning ability, left-behind children performed similarly to non-left-behind children, while for children with low levels of general reasoning ability, left-behind children scored lower than non-left-behind children, indicating that general reasoning ability buffered the negative effect of being left behind on children’s theory of mind development. The implications of these findings for training directed at left-behind children are discussed. (shrink)

Theory of Mind(ToM) is a neurocognitive system that allows the perceiver to attribute mental states, such as intentions, beliefs, or feelings, to others’ actions. The aim of the present work is to analyse the engagement of the ToM system in communication, in particular, in communicative intention processing. To this aim, we propose anIntention Processing Network(IPN) with its own principles and mechanisms, that is, a brain network differentially engaged according to the complex intertwining of the context, goal, and action (...) involved. According to our IPN model, a set of brain regions of the ToM system (i.e. left and right temporoparietal junction, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex) are differentially involved in comprehending different types of intention, such as private or social intentions. We provide independent and convergent evidence on the role of the IPN model in communicative intention processing and we show that the engagement of the IPN does not depend upon the communicative means used, that is, written language, auditory language, or gesture. Evidence deriving from different experimental paradigms, including neuroimaging, lesion, neurodegenerative, and brain stimulation studies are discussed. In our view, this evidence establishes a link between ToM and pragmatics studies and suggests the role of intention processing as a core feature of human communication. (shrink)

There is growing acceptance among language evolution researchers that an increase in our ancestors’ theory of mind capacities was critical to the origins of language. However, little attention has been paid to the question of how those capacities were in fact upgraded. This article develops a novel hypothesis, grounded in contemporary cognitive neuroscience, on which our theory of mind capacities improved as a result of an increase in our System-2 thinking capacities, in turn based in an (...) increase in our working memory capacities. I contrast this hypothesis with what would appear to be the default position among language evolution researchers, namely, that our theory of mind became more powerful as a result of genetic change to a domain-specific mindreading system which we share with other great apes. While the latter hypothesis is not implausible, it arguably enjoys less empirical support at present than does the alternative hypothesis I develop. (shrink)

Theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF) have traditionally been measured starting in preschool and share a similar developmental progression into childhood. Although there is some research examining early ToM and EF in the first 3 years, further empirical evidence and a theoretical framework for a ToM-EF relationship from infancy to preschool are necessary. In this paper we review the ToM-EF relationship in preschoolers and provide evidence for early development in ToM, EF, and the ToM-EF relationship. We (...) propose that models of cognitive control (i.e., Hierarchical Competing Systems Model: Marcovitch & Zelazo (Journal of Cognition and Development 7:477–501, 2006), (Developmental Science 12:1–25, 2009)); and Levels of Consciousness Model: Zelazo (Trends in Cognitive Science 8:12–17, 2004) account for the ToM-EF relationship across childhood through domain-general developments in the ability to form and reflect on relevant representations that can guide behavior in both ToM and EF situations. The combination of these models also presents unique, domain-general considerations for interpreting early ToM from infancy to preschool. (shrink)

The neuropsychological and functional characterisation of mental state attribution (‘‘theory of mind’’ (ToM)) has been the focus of several recent studies. The literature contains opposing views on the functional specificity of ToM and on the neuroanatomical structures most relevant to ToM. Studies with brain-lesioned patients have consistently found ToM deficits associated with unilateral right hemisphere damage (RHD). Also, functional imaging performed with non-braininjured adults implicates several specific neural regions, many of which are located in the right hemisphere. The (...) present study examined the separation of ToM impairment from other deficits associated with brain injury. We tested 11 patients with unilateral right hemisphere damage (RHD) and 20 normal controls (NC) on a.. (shrink)

Theory of mind is a key consideration in autism spectrum conditions and is frequently associated with social, emotional, behavioural and mental health difficulties. The latest practical workbook in the Talkabout series, this book is designed to support those for whom theory of mind does not come naturally. It teaches strategies that can be used to identify others' thoughts and feelings based on their behaviour, as well as how to adapt behaviour in order to competently manage social (...) situations and have positive interactions. With fully illustrated activities covering topics such as thoughts, feelings and actions, knowledge and beliefs, and respect, the programme outlined in this book can be used with children and young people to develop and confidently implement an awareness of theory of mind. Key features include: Assessments, targets, lesson plans and over ninety activities to support theory of mind Structured activities which progress from simple concepts to more complex skills Opportunities for skills to be practiced and recapped Fully photocopiable and downloadable resources Packed full of flexible activities to suit different levels and ages, this is a vital resource for educators and therapists looking to support children and young people with poor theory of mind as they develop the skills necessary to create positive interactions. (shrink)

Three- to six-year-olds were given Heyes's proposed task and theory of mind tasks. Although they correlated, Heyes's was harder; only 50% of participants with a theory of mind reached a criterion of 75% correct. Because of the complex series of inferences involved in Heyes's task, it is possible that one could have a theory of mind and fail Heyes's version.

Two substantive comments are made. The first is methodological, and concerns Heyes's proposals for a critical test for theory of mind. The second is theoretical, and concerns the appropriateness of asking questions about theory of mind in nonhuman primates. Although Heyes warns against the apparent simplicity of the theory of mind hypothesis, she underplays the linguistic implications.

The theory of mind (ToM) deficit associated with autism spectrum disorder has been a central topic in the debate about the modularity of the mind. In a series of papers, Philip Gerrans and Valerie Stone argue that positing a ToM module does not best explain the deficits exhibited by individuals with autism (Gerrans 2002; Stone & Gerrans 2006a, 2006b; Gerrans & Stone 2008). In this paper, I first criticize Gerrans and Stone’s (2008) account. Second, I discuss various (...) studies of individuals with autism and argue that they are best explained by positing a higher-level, domain-specific ToM module. (shrink)

We tested if the newly designed ToMotion task reflects a single construct and if the atypical groups differ in their performance compared to typically developing peers. Furthermore, we were interested if ToMotion maps a developmental sequence in a Theory of Mind performance as exemplified by increasing difficulty of the questions asked in every item. The sample consisted of 13 adolescents that have been diagnosed with a developmental language disorder and 14 adolescents that are deaf or hard of hearing. (...) All of these adolescents were in special schools for secondary vocational education. The control group existed of 34 typical developing adolescents who were in regular intermediate vocational education, ranging from level 2 to 4. The ToMotion, available in a spoken Dutch version and in a version in Sign Language of the Netherlands, was used to map ToM abilities. An attempt has been made to fill the gap of missing studies of ToM in adolescents by developing a new measuring instrument. In conclusion, assessing ToM with the ToMotion results in a picture that DHH adolescents score lower than TD peers. However, their scores are as consistent as those of the TD peers. The picture of DLD adolescents is the reverse. They show no differences in ToM scores, but seem to be somewhat more inconsistent compared to TD peers. We provide a discussion on those results and its implications for future research. What this paper adds? The current study introduces a new visual Theory of Mind task, ToMotion, designed specifically to assess ToM in adolescents in an ecologically valid way and adapted to the needs of adolescents with language and communication difficulties. (shrink)

This commentary criticizes nonverbal methods of assessing theory-of-mind on the basis of prior training of the critical response because they would encourage simple, nonmentalistic, associative solutions even in subjects with mentalistic capacities. I propose instead a new experimental paradigm based upon the use of spontaneous responses in less artificial situations. This method has already provided positive evidence of some level of ToM understanding in nonhuman primates.

Research on theory of mind has primarily focused on demonstrating and understanding the ability to represent others' non‐factive mental states, for example, others' beliefs in the false‐belief task. This requirement confuses the ability to represent a particular kind of non‐factive content (e.g., a false belief) with the more general capacity to represent others' understanding of the world even when it differs from one's own. We provide a way of correcting this. We first offer a simple and theoretically motivated (...) account on which tracking another agent's understanding of the world and keeping that representation separate from one's own are the essential features of a capacity for theory of mind. We then show how these criteria can be operationalized in a new experimental paradigm: the “diverse‐knowledge task.”. (shrink)

A major challenge for research in artificial intelligence is to develop systems that can infer the goals, beliefs, and intentions of others (i.e., systems that have theory of mind, ToM). In this research, we propose a cognitive ToM framework that uses a well-known theory of decisions from experience to construct a computational representation of ToM. Instance-based learning theory (IBLT) is used to construct a cognitive model that generates ToM from the observation of other agents' behavior. The (...) IBL model of the observer distinguishes itself from previous models of ToM that make unreasonable assumptions about human cognition, are hand-crafted for particular settings, complex, or unable to explain a cognitive development of ToM compared to human's ToM. The IBL model learns from the observation of goal-directed agents' behavior in a gridworld navigation task, and it infers and predicts the behaviors of the agents in new gridworlds across different degrees of decision complexity in similar ways to the way human observers do. We provide evidence for the alignment of the IBL observer's predictions under various levels of decision complexity. We also advance the demonstration of the IBL predictions using a classic test of false beliefs (the Sally–Anne test), which is commonly used to test ToM in humans. We discuss our results and the potential of the IBL observer model to improve human–machine interactions. (shrink)

The theory of mind (ToM) framework has been criticised by emerging alternative accounts. Each alternative begins with the accusation that ToM's validity as a research paradigm rests on the assumption of the ‘unobservability’ of other minds. We argue that the critics' discussion of the unobservability assumption (UA) targets a straw man. We discuss metaphysical, phenomenological, epistemological, and psychological readings of UA and demonstrate that it is not the case that ToM assumes the metaphysical, phenomenological, or epistemological claims. However, (...) ToM supports the psychological UA as a claim about cognitive processes responsible for mindreading. The latter can be interpreted as a claim that (a) neither the other's ‘mindedness’ in general nor the other's particular mental states are observable (i.e. apprehended perceptually); (b) particular mental states are unobservable, whereas some aspects indicative of ‘mindedness’ are observable; (c) some mental states are unobservable but some are also observable. Whereas the critics tend to attribute (a) to ToM, most ToM accounts actually take positions (b) or (c). We conclude that the allegations against ToM for positing UA are seriously misdirected. We further bring out an important stipulation of any account of observability of mental states: mental states are not observable in the same way as the sensory properties of physical objects. (shrink)

The Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) holds that the mind is a computer and that cognition is the manipulation of representations. CTM is commonly viewed as the main hypothesis in cognitive science, with classical CTM (related to the Language of Thought Hypothesis) being the most popular variant. However, other computational accounts of the mind either reject LOTH or do not subscribe to RTM. CTM proponents argue that it clarifies how thought and content are causally relevant in (...) the physical world, and they frame this argument in terms of the physical symbol hypothesis, formalism, or syntactic engines. This article focuses on specific problems with CTM, with four main sections covering the introduction of the three main variants of CTM, the most important conceptions of computational explanation in cognitive science, skeptical arguments against CTM raised by Hilary Putnam, and common objections to CTM. (shrink)

‘Social cognition’ refers to the psychological capacities that humans and other animals use to reason about other agents and navigate complex social environments. This chapter focuses on the dominant approach to social cognition in contemporary cognitive science, which is centered around a capacity known as theory of mind or mindreading. Subjects covered include the false-belief task, the social brain network, mirror neurons, major accounts of theory of mind, objections to the theory-of-mind framework, mindreading in (...) non-human animals, and new research on the ways that theory of mind is affected by social context. (shrink)

In recent years, many scientists and philosophers have begun to believe that a new theoretic revolution is occurring in cognitive science. The revolution is the rise of theoretical models of "4E+S" cognition. "4E" denotes "embodied", "embedded", "enacted", and "extended"; "S" denotes "situated". Differentiating from the traditional computational theory or representational theory of cognition, this branch of new cognitive scientists and philosophers have begun to claim that cognition is embodied, embedded, enacted, extended and situated. All of these five theories (...) agree that cognitive processes can proceed beyond the boundary of the brain. Thus we can synthesize them together as "transcranial cognition" or "transbrain cognition". The questions are: Are there common characteristics of these five models? Can we integrate them together with a new model of cognition? Is the "4E+S" model a real Copernicus style revolution of cognitive science? This article analyzes these questions and provides the following answers: There is a common characteristics of these cognitive theories and it is the characteristics of transcranialness, i. e. cognition or mind can exist beyond brain; We can integrate them together as transcranial cognition; The new theory of cognition or mind is a new big extended theory of traditional cognitive science. (shrink)

Both mindreading and stereotyping are forms of social cognition that play a pervasive role in our everyday lives, yet too little attention has been paid to the question of how these two processes are related. This paper offers a theory of the influence of stereotyping on mental-state attribution that draws on hierarchical predictive coding accounts of action prediction. It is argued that the key to understanding the relation between stereotyping and mindreading lies in the fact that stereotypes centrally involve (...) character-trait attributions, which play a systematic role in the action–prediction hierarchy. On this view, when we apply a stereotype to an individual, we rapidly attribute to her a cluster of generic character traits on the basis of her perceived social group membership. These traits are then used to make inferences about that individual’s likely beliefs and desires, which in turn inform inferences about her behavior. (shrink)

The "theory of mind" framework has been the fastest growing body of empirical research in contemporary psychology. It has given rise to a range of positions on what it takes to relate to others as intentional beings. This book brings together disparate strands of ToM research, lays out historical roots of the idea, and indicates better alternatives.

The case for computationalism about the mind is in doubt when we acknowledge that there are mental phenomena that require, for a proper accounting, that we get below the level of symbol processing. Such phenomena show us that a computational theory of mind cannot be complete. Chief among these phenomena is emotion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 31.1 (2007) 189-196MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Fiction and Theory of Mind: An ExchangeLisa Zunshine University of KentuckyBrian Boyd's review of my new book, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Ohio State University Press, 2006) engages a large variety of issues.1 I would like to address an important question about the integration of scientific methodology with literary analysis suggested (...) by Boyd's discussion.2 As I argue below, two different perspectives of this integration may mark two different—indeed, incompatible—ways of formulating the disciplinary goals and philosophy of the new field of cognitive literary theory.Why We Read Fiction makes a case for admitting the recent findings of cognitive psychologists into literary studies by showing how their research into the ability to explain behavior in terms of the underlying states of mind can furnish us with a series of surprising insights into our interaction with literary texts. Using as my case studies novels ranging from Richardson's Clarissa, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Nabokov's Lolita, and Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, I advance and explore a series of hypotheses about cognitive cravings that are satisfied—and created!—when we read fiction.Although my study draws on the already well-established as well as forthcoming work of numerous cognitive scientists (including Simon Baron-Cohen, Clark H. Barrett, Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Christopher Frith, Uta Frith, Paul Bloom, Susan Carey and Elizabeth Spelke, Peter Carruthers, Andy Clark, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, Alison Gopnik, Francesca Happe, Paul [End Page 189] Harris, Lawrence Hirschfeld, Stanley Klein, Alan Leslie, Andrew Meltzoff, Robert Mitchell, Keith Oatley, Gloria Origgi, Oliver Sacks, Dan Sperber, James Stiller, and Endel Tulving), it makes a point of being accessible to non-specialist readers. Cognitive science can be incredibly complicated and so can literary criticism, but I wanted to write a book on cognitive literary theory that does not scare anybody away with unnecessary jargon, knotty sentences, and overlong quotations. (Ironically, I must have succeeded too well in making my book reader-friendly and tucking my references in the endnotes since Boyd observes that I rely on only "a few findings" of cognitive scientists in my discussion.)The book consists of three parts. The first part, "Attributing Minds," introduces the first key theoretical concept of this book: mind-reading, also known as Theory of Mind. Drawing on the work of Simon Baron-Cohen (Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind), I suggest that fiction engages, teases, and pushes to its tentative limits our mind-reading capacity. Building on the recent research of Robin Dunbar and his colleagues, I then consider one particular aspect of Woolf's prose as an example of spectacular literary experimentation with our Theory of Mind. Finally, I turn to Steven Pinker's controversial analysis of Woolf in The Blank Slate to discuss the possibilities of a more profitable dialogue between cognitive science and literary studies.Of particular importance to this part of my argument is my belief that fictional narratives endlessly experiment with rather than automatically execute our evolved cognitive adaptations. When cognitive scientists succeed in isolating a certain regularity of our information-processing—for example, a constraint on the number of mutually reflecting minds that we can process with ease—we can take that constraint and see how it plays itself out in a fictional narrative. What we discover is that where there is a cognitive constraint, there is a "guarantee" of sorts that writers will intuitively experiment in the direction of challenging that constraint, probing and poking it and getting around it. The exact forms of such probing and poking will depend on specific cultural circumstances, including the mind-reading profiles of individual writers and their readers. The cognitive "limits" thus present us with creative openings rather than with a promise of stagnation and endless replication of established forms. This realization marks the possibility of a genuine interaction between cognitive psychology and... (shrink)

I respond to an argument presented by Daniel Povinelli and Jennifer Vonk that the current generation of experiments on chimpanzee theory of mind cannot decide whether chimpanzees have the ability to reason about mental states. I argue that Povinelli and Vonk’s proposed experiment is subject to their own criticisms and that there should be a more radical shift away from experiments that ask subjects to predict behavior. Further, I argue that Povinelli and Vonk’s theoretical commitments should lead them (...) to accept this new approach, and that experiments which offer subjects the opportunity to look for explanations for anomalous behavior should be explored. (shrink)

Elements of Mind provides a unique introduction to the main problems and debates in contemporary philosophy of mind. Author Tim Crane opposes those currently popular conceptions of the mind that divide mental phenomena into two very different kinds (the intentional and the qualitative) and proposes instead a challenging and unified theory of all the phenomena of mind. In light of this theory, Crane engages students with the central problems of the philosophy of mind--the (...) mind-body problem, the problem of intentionality (or mental representation), the problem of consciousness, and the problem of perception--and attempts to find solutions to these problems. A fresh and engaging exploration of the main issues in the philosophy of mind, Elements of Mind is easily accessible to students with no background in the subject. (shrink)

The “somatic marker mechanism” (SMM; Damasio 1994) is proposed as the cognitive and neural basis of the theory of mind mechanism. The SMM evolved for evaluating the intentions, dispositions, and relationships of conspecifics; hence, it is adaptive in the social domain. It is predicted that chimpanzees will indeed have theory of mind (ToM) ability, but that this will be socially domain-specific. Domain-general ToM will be found only in primates with abstract, symbolic language (adult humans). Putative ToM (...) tests require revision in the light of these distinctions. (shrink)

Whether to treat autism as exculpatory in any given circumstance appears to be influenced both by models of autism and by theories of moral responsibility. This article looks at one particular combination of theories: autism as theory of mind challenges and moral responsibility as requiring appropriate experience of the reactive attitudes. In pursuing this particular combination of ideas, we do not intend to endorse them. Our goal is, instead, to explore the implications of this combination of especially prominent (...) ideas about autism and about moral responsibility. These implications can be quite serious and practical for autists and those who interact directly with autists, as well as for broader communities as they attend to the fair, compassionate, and respectful treatment of increasing numbers of autistic adults. We find that these theories point to a limited range of situations in which autists should not be blamed for transgressive actions for which neurotypical individuals should be blamed. We build on what others have written on these issues by bringing in a recent cognitive model of the role theory of mind plays in empathy, by discussing the social implications of the theoretical findings, and by raising questions about the compatibility of reactive attitude theories of moral responsibility with the neurodiversity approach to autism. (shrink)

Autism and schizophrenia are presented as the extremes of disorders affecting the social brain. By viewing human cognition impairment in terms of competence and performance, a variety of social brain disorders can be identified along the autistic-psychotic continuum.

Whether any non-human animal can attribute mental states to others remains the subject of extensive debate. This despite the fact that several species have behaved as if they have a ‘theory of mind’ in various behavioral tasks. In this paper, we review the reasons of skeptics for their doubts: That existing experimental setups cannot distinguish between ‘mind readers’ and ‘behavior readers’, that results that seem to indicate ‘theory of mind’ may come from studies that are (...) insufficiently controlled, and that our own intuitive biases may lead us to interpret behavior more ‘cognitively’ than is necessary. The merits of each claim and suggested solution are weighed. The conclusion is that while it is true that existing setups cannot conclusively demonstrate ‘theory of mind’ in non-human animals, focusing on this fact is unlikely to be productive. Instead, the more interesting question is how sophisticated their social reasoning can be, whether it is about ‘unobservable inner experiences’ or not. Therefore, it is important to address concerns about the setup and interpretation of specific experiments. To alleviate the impact of intuitive biases, various strategies have been proposed in the literature. These include a deeper understanding of associative learning, a better knowledge of the limited ‘theory of mind’ humans actually use, and thinking of animal cognition in an embodied, embedded way; that is, being aware that constraints outside of the brain, and outside of the body, may naturally predispose individuals to produce behavior that looks smart without requiring complex cognition. To enable this kind of thinking, a powerful methodological tool is advocated: Computational modeling, namely agent-based modeling and, particularly, cognitive modeling. By explicitly simulating the rules and representations that underlie animal performance on specific tasks, it becomes much easier to look past one’s own biases and to see what cognitive processes might actually be occurring. (shrink)

The theory of mind (ToM) deficit associated with autism has been a central topic in the debate about the modularity of the mind. Most involved in the debate about the explanation of the ToM deficit have failed to notice that autism’s status as a spectrum disorder has implications about which explanation is more plausible. In this paper, I argue that the shift from viewing autism as a unified syndrome to a spectrum disorder increases the plausibility of the (...) explanation of the ToM deficit that appeals to a domain-specific, higher-level ToM module. First, I discuss what it means to consider autism as a spectrum rather than as a unified disorder. Second, I argue for the plausibility of the modular explanation on the basis that autism is better considered as a spectrum disorder. Third, I respond to a potential challenge to my account from Philip Gerrans and Valerie Stone’s recent work (Gerrans, Biol Philos 17:305–321, 2002; Stone and Gerrans, Trends Cogn Sci 10:3–4, 2006a; Soc Neurosci 1:309–319, 2006b; Gerrans and Stone, Br J Philos Sci 59:121–141, 2008). (shrink)

In naturalistic settings, great apes exhibit impressive social intelligence. Despite this, experimental findings are equivocal about the extent to which they are aware of other minds. At the high level, there is only negative evidence that chimpanzees and orangutans understand the concept of belief, even when simplified non-verbal versions of the ‘location change’ false belief test are used (Call & Tomasello, 1999). More remarkably, even the evidence that they are aware of simpler mental states – such as seeing – is (...) equivocal and ‘decidedly mixed’ (Call & Tomasello 2005, p. 61). At best, there appear to be signature limits to simian capacities in this regard. In addition, there exists a range of proposals about what lies behind their particular form of social intelligence. Within the cognitivist camp, these range from positing a Naïve, Weak, or Minimal Theory of Mind (Bogdan 2009, Tomasello, Call and Hare 2003, Apperly and Butterfill 2009); Perceptual Mindreading (Bermúdez 2009); an Early Mindreading System (Nichols and Stich 2003); or a Theory of Behaviour (Povinelli and Vonk 2004). -/- In line with this experimental evidence, this contribution motivates a different explanatory possibility. It defends the view that the basic ways that apes and humans (both children and adults) engage with other minds is emotionally charged, enactive and non-representational. If true, this would be important for thinking about the moral status of animals capable of such mind minding. This is not only because it would identify an important cross species commonality, but also especially because it would promote the importance of non-cognitive aspects of such engagements. For example, it is at odds with the idea that having a ‘theory of mind’ is required for being phenomenally conscious (Carruthers 2000, 2005). (shrink)

Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus provided some of our most cherished assumptions about physics and ethics. He postulated an infinite universe made exclusively of atoms and void. He also treated slaves and women as equals and defined our standards of pleasure and luxury. Now David Swift turns to Epicurus for help with another significant mystery: the scientific explanation of mind. Using Epicurean ideas that our minds are in our chests and, perhaps even more radically, that meaning is understood in our (...) sense organs he re-examines and reinterprets the works of philosophers like Descartes, Locke, Kant and Mill and scientists such as Pavlov, Freud, Skinner and Rogers. Seen in the light of the Epicurean concept, Renaissance philosophy and classic scientific psychology validate a surprisingly consistent and coherent scientific explanation of behaviour. The mechanisms of meaning, knowledge, learning and remembering are explained in terms of biological reflexes. The secrets of love, hate and loyalty are revealed as non-verbal knowledge only accessible as feelings. And success, failure, criminal and other behaviours are shown to be the results of learned experience not genetic predisposition. At last we have the possibility of a plausible biologically-based general psychological theory. (shrink)

Since the BBS article in which Premack and Woodruff (1978) asked “Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?,” it has been repeatedly claimed that there is observational and experimental evidence that apes have mental state concepts, such as “want” and “know.” Unlike research on the development of theory of mind in childhood, however, no substantial progress has been made through this work with nonhuman primates. A survey of empirical studies of imitation, self-recognition, social relationships, deception, (...) role-taking, and perspective-taking suggests that in every case where nonhuman primate behavior has been interpreted as a sign of theory of mind, it could instead have occurred by chance or as a product of nonmentalistic processes such as associative learning or inferences based on nonmental categories. Arguments to the effect that, in spite of this, the theory of mind hypothesis should be accepted because it is more parsimonious than alternatives or because it is supported by convergent evidence are not compelling. Such arguments are based on unsupportable assumptions about the role of parsimony in science and either ignore the requirement that convergent evidence proceed from independent assumptions, or fail to show that it supports the theory of mind hypothesis over nonmentalist alternatives. Progress in research on theory of mind requires experimental procedures that can distinguish the theory of mind hypothesis from nonmentalist alternatives. A procedure that may have this potential is proposed. It uses conditional discrimination training and transfer tests to determine whether chimpanzees have the concept “see.” Commentators are invited to identify flaws in the procedure and to suggest alternatives. Key Words: apes; associative learning; concepts; convergence; deception; evolution of intelligence; folk psychology; imitation; mental state attribution; monkeys; parsimony; perspective-taking; primates; role-taking; self-recognition; social cognition; social intelligence; theory of mind. (shrink)

The study argues that linguistic/communication dysfunctions present in disorganized schizophrenia may stem, at least in part, from an impaired theory of mind. Using pragmatics and systemic linguistic theory, the study examined speech samples of two disorganized schizophrenic patients and attempted to determine if their communicative failures are because they lack theory of mind in the sense that they do not take into account the interlocutor's mind, i.e., the interlocutor's intentions, dispositions, and knowledge; or because (...) they have a hyper-theory of mind through which they over-attribute mental states to their interlocutor, i.e., assume that their interlocutor has access to their intentions, dispositions, and knowledge. The study indicates that disorganized schizophrenics are unlikely to be characterized as lacking a theory of mind; rather they seem to have a hyper-theory of mind, to which the psychopathological symptoms of hallucinations, delusions of reference and incoherent speech can be attributed. (shrink)

Theory of "conceptual pragmatism" takes into account both modern philosophical thought and modern mathematics. Stimulating discussions of metaphysics, a priori, philosophic method, much more.

Progress in the “theory of mind” debate would be better served at this point by abandoning the search for a perfect “critical experiment” and developing an incremental research program based on a systematic theory of “theory of mind.” Studies using the goggle procedure advocated by Heyes should dissociate the ability to see from possible behavioral artifacts of “blind” trainers.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes’s Theory of MindEnrique Chávez-ArvizoDesmond M. Clarke. Descartes’s Theory of Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 267. Cloth, $49.95.Desmond Clarke, commentator on Cartesian natural philosophy, has now published an interpretation of Descartes's dualism, a theme which can hardly be said to be underrepresented in the literature. The monograph is divided into nine chapters concerned with explanation, sensation, imagination and memory, the passions, the (...) will, language, thought, substance, and property dualism—yes, property dualism.The book pushes forward a reading of Descartes's theory of mind, made from a perspective which Clarke has adopted over the last three decades or so, that maintains that Descartes was primarily (and willingly) a scientist and incidentally (and reluctantly) a philosopher. From this viewpoint, according to Clarke, natural philosophy provides the paradigm for genuine explanation in Descartes's metaphysics. Furthermore, given that Descartes rejects Scholastic substantial forms and real qualities as explanatorily infertile and since substances are equally unfruitful, substances play no explanatory role in his system of philosophy. Substance dualism is not at the center of Descartes's philosophy of mind; his account of explanation is. This makes Descartes not a substance dualist; but a property dualist. So argues, in very broad strokes, Clarke. [End Page 116]Unlike us, Descartes did not draw a sharp distinction between philosophy and science. For him, these two realms of enquiry were part of a unified realm of knowledge, what he deemed scientia or philosophy in the wider sense. Hence his use of the instructive metaphor of philosophy as a tree, whose roots are metaphysics, the trunk physics, and the branches the other sciences which he reduces to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics, and morals (Letter Preface to Picot, French translation of the Principles of Philosophy, Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery [Paris: Vrin, 1989], 14). However, Descartes did distinguish the roots from the trunk, that is, metaphysics (or "first philosophy") from physics (or "natural philosophy"). Commentators on Descartes's system of philosophy ignore his natural philosophy at their peril, for it does shed considerable light on his metaphysics. But, likewise, Descartes's philosophy greatly illuminates his science. It is for this reason that I want to cast doubt on Clarke's apparent scientific imperialism in which Descartes's methodological, epistemological, and metaphysical concerns are forced to play second fiddle to his scientific views. We cannot neatly fit Descartes's metaphysical views into Clarke's scientific mold, nor can we force them in, without incurring serious error. I do not think that one has to choose between one and the other as being primary, between the tree of knowledge and the inverted tree of knowledge. We need to keep in mind that in Descartes's system of philosophy, both science and philosophy are interconnected and that both parts elucidate each other.Clarke's attempt to eliminate substance from Descartes's account of mind is problematic. True, the term 'substance' is an extremely ambiguous one and Descartes's comments about it are often blurred and puzzling. On the one hand, one must concede that the concept of substance plays a small role in Descartes's natural philosophy, in which although the material universe is depicted in terms of extended substance or res extensa, physics is ultimately unwrapped by way of laws describing the behavior of particles in virtue of their size, shape, and motion. But, in contrast, substance plays a far more prominent role in his metaphysics, not to mention in his theology. This leads to a related point. Clarke overlooks the importance of theology for Descartes's philosophical project and the role of God in Cartesian natural philosophy.The level of argument drops considerably in the final chapter, where Clarke offers an uncritical and not very clear survey of naming and necessity, the identity theory, anomalous monism, and property dualism. This chapter seems in tension with his disapproval of anachronistic readings of Descartes (8-9) and contains some serious slips. Clarke's answer to his own question "Was Descartes, then, a substance dualist" is a mind boggling "Yes and no" (258), and his claim that Descartes was a property dualist, collapses under... (shrink)

Whether any non-human animal can attribute mental states to others remains the subject of extensive debate. This despite the fact that several species have behaved as if they have a ‘theory of mind’ in various behavioral tasks. In this paper, we review the reasons of skeptics for their doubts: That existing experimental setups cannot distinguish between ‘mind readers’ and ‘behavior readers’, that results that seem to indicate ‘theory of mind’ may come from studies that are (...) insufficiently controlled, and that our own intuitive biases may lead us to interpret behavior more ‘cognitively’ than is necessary. The merits of each claim and suggested solution are weighed. The conclusion is that while it is true that existing setups cannot conclusively demonstrate ‘theory of mind’ in non-human animals, focusing on this fact is unlikely to be productive. Instead, the more interesting question is how sophisticated their social reasoning can be, whether it is about ‘unobservable inner experiences’ or not. Therefore, it is important to address concerns about the setup and interpretation of specific experiments. To alleviate the impact of intuitive biases, various strategies have been proposed in the literature. These include a deeper understanding of associative learning, a better knowledge of the limited ‘theory of mind’ humans actually use, and thinking of animal cognition in an embodied, embedded way; that is, being aware that constraints outside of the brain, and outside of the body, may naturally predispose individuals to produce behavior that looks smart without requiring complex cognition. To enable this kind of thinking, a powerful methodological tool is advocated: Computational modeling, namely agent-based modeling and, particularly, cognitive modeling. By explicitly simulating the rules and representations that underlie animal performance on specific tasks, it becomes much easier to look past one’s own biases and to see what cognitive processes might actually be occurring. (shrink)

This seminal contribution to Kant studies, originally published in 1982, was the first to present a thorough survey and evaluation of Kant's theory of mind. Ameriks focuses on Kant's discussion of the Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason, and examines how the themes raised there are treated in the rest of Kant's writings. Ameriks demonstrates that Kant developed a theory of mind that is much more rationalistic and defensible than most interpreters have allowed.

Do children have a theory of mind? If they do, at what age is it acquired? What is the content of the theory, and how does it differ from that of adults? The Child's Theory of Mind integrates the diverse strands of this rapidly expanding field of study. It charts children's knowledge about a fundamental topic - the mind - and characterizes that developing knowledge as a coherent commonsense theory, strongly advancing the understanding (...) of everyday theories as well as the commonsense theory of mind. Wellman presents evidence that children as young as age three do possess a commonsense theory of mind - that they grasp the distinction between mental constructs and physical entities and that they have an understanding of the relationship between individuals' mental states and their overt actions. He delves in detail into questions about the nature of adults' commonsense theories of mind and about the nature of commonsense theories. Wellman then examines the content of the three-year-old's theory of mind, the nature of children's notions of mind before age three, the changes in the theory during subsequent development from ages three to six, and the young child's conception of mind in comparison with those of older children and adults. Henry M. Wellman is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. (shrink)