Theory of mind: a new perspective on the puzzle of belief ascription

The concept of Theory of Mind (ToM) has considerably changed since its first proposal. The aim of first human studies was to understand how young children acquire the representation of others’ mental states, in particular beliefs, and how they distinguish them from their own and from reality. The False Belief Task was designed to prove the acquisition of this capacity. According to children’s performances in this test the acquisition of ToM has been attested at around four years of age. In last years it has been shown that using spontaneous response tasks also 15-month-old-children could attribute to an agent a false belief about the location of an object. These results have generated the puzzle of belief-ascription: Why do 3-year-old children fail the classical false belief tasks whereas much younger children show the correct expectation in the spontaneous response tasks? In this paper I shall argue that (i) infants and young children, when confronted with the two forms of false belief tasks do not face the same problem and (ii) behind the two testing situations there are different ways to understand theory of mind. I shall propose that what appears in infants is the natural human disposition to intersubjectivity

The Development of Anthropomorphism in Interaction: Intersubjectivity, Imagination, and Theory of Mind

Human beings frequently attribute anthropomorphic features, motivations and behaviors to animals, artifacts, and natural phenomena. Historically, many interpretations of this attitude have been provided within different disciplines. What most interpretations have in common is distinguishing children’s manifestations of this attitude, which are considered “natural,” from adults’ occurrences, which must be explained by resorting to particular circumstances. In this article, I argue that anthropomorphism is not grounded in specific belief systems but rather in interaction. In interaction, a non-human entity assumes a place that generally is attributed to a human interlocutor, which means that it is independent of the beliefs that people may have about the nature and features of the entities that are anthropomorphized. This perspective allows us to explain the problems that emerge if we consider anthropomorphism as a belief: (i) adults under certain circumstances may anthropomorphize entities even if they perfectly know that these entities have no mental life; (ii) according to the situation, the same entity may be anthropomorphized or treated as an object; (iii) there is no consistency among the entities that are anthropomorphized; (iv) there is individual variability in anthropomorphization, and this variability derives from affective states rather than from different degrees of knowledge about the entity that is anthropomorphized or greater or lesser naivety of the person who anthropomorphizes. From this perspective, anthropomorphism is a basic human attitude that begins in infants and persists throughout life. The difference between adults and children is not qualitative but rather a matter of complexity

Aux origines de l’anthropomorphisme

Dès la première enfance, les humains attribuent des traits de comportement anthropomorphe, tels des intentions, des perceptions et même des sentiments, aux artefacts. Pourquoi cette attitude est-elle si répandue ? Dans le champ de la psychologie, on a longtemps attribué ces comportements à l’exercice d’une forme primitive de la pensée, et notamment à l’incapacité prêtée aux jeunes enfants de distinguer entre le niveau physique et le niveau mental de la réalité. On admettait aussi que cette incapacité, propre aux enfants, pouvait, dans des situations affectivement chargées ou difficiles, affecter le comportement des adultes.Des recherches récentes ont montré, toutefois, que les très jeunes enfants sont parfaitement en mesure de distinguer entre ce qui relève du physique et ce qui relève du mental. Nous proposons donc dans cet article l’hypothèse qu’à l’origine de l’anthropomorphisme l’on ne trouve pas une modalité spécifique de la pensée, mais plutôt des modalités d’interaction précocement apprises. Plusieurs études consacrées au développement social de l’enfant montrent en effet que ce qu’on appelle « anthropomorphisme » est une extension aux non-humains de modalités interactionnelles propres au dialogue entre humains.Since a very young age humans attribute anthropomorphic features like intentions, perceptions and even feelings to artifacts. Why is this behavior so common? In the past developmental psychologists have considered this attitude as a primitive form of thinking. They maintained that young children where unable to distinguish between physical and mental events. Adults would adopt a similar attitude only when facing affectively charged or difficult situations. However, recent research has shown that also young children make distinctions between the “physical” and the “mental”. In this article I argue that anthropomorphism is not a primitive form of thinking but has its origins in interaction modalities acquired during infancy.A number of studies devoted to social development show that what we call “anthropomorphism” is an extension to non-humans of forms of interactions typical of human dialogue

The Place of Development in the History of Psychology and Cognitive Science

In this article, I analyze how the relationship of developmental psychology with general psychology and cognitive science has unfolded. This historical analysis will provide a background for a critical examination of the present state of the art. I shall argue that the study of human mind is inherently connected with the study of its development. From the beginning of psychology as a discipline, general psychology and developmental psychology have followed parallel and relatively separated paths. This separation between adult and child studies has also persisted with the emergence of cognitive science. The reason is due essentially to methodological problems that have involved not only research methods but also the very object of inquiry. At present, things have evolved in many ways. Psychology and cognitive science have enlarged their scope to include change process and the interaction between mind and environment. On the other hand, the possibility of using experimental methods to study infancy has allowed us to realize the complexity of young humans. These facts have paved the way for new possibilities of convergence, which are eliciting interesting results, despite a number of ongoing problems related to methods

Towards a Model of the Interplay of Mentalizing and Mirroring in Embodied Communication

Kahl S, Kopp S. Towards a Model of the Interplay of Mentalizing and Mirroring in Embodied Communication. In: Airenti G, Bara BG, Sandini G, eds. Proceedings of the EuroAsianPacific Joint Conference on Cognitive Science. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. Vol 1419. CEUR-WS.org; 2015: 300-305