Theory of Mind - ECIRCUS - EU Framework VI Project - Education through Characters with emotional-Intelligence and Role-playing Capabilities that Understand Social interaction

“An individual has a theory of mind if he imputes mental states to himself and others. A system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory because such states are not directly observable, and the system can be used to make predictions about the behaviour of others” (Premack & Woodruff, 1978).

The concept of theory of mind (ToM) was reviewed regarding whether ToM-abilities of school children could have an impact on the interaction with the FearNot! software respectively the results of the interaction.

In research concerning ToM the distinction has to be made between ToM abilities and ToM theories. Research in ToM abilities focuses on which tasks that require certain ToM abilities can be solved by children of which age. ToM theories try to explain why children of a certain age are able to solve certain tasks but not others. For the FearNot! evaluation purpose, ToM abilities are more important than ToM theories, because if it is possible to differentiate the users regarding their ToM abilities, it can be examined whether they have a relation to the interaction process or result.

The core idea of ToM abilities is that children have to develop a comprehension of mental states that can influence behaviour. A classical experiment in this area is the false-belief-task by Wimmer and Perner (1983). Here, the children (Ss) are told the story of a boy called Maxi. In the presence of Maxi, Maxi’s mother puts a bar of chocolate in a blue cupboard. Then, Maxi goes out to play, while his mother puts the chocolate in the green cupboard. Maxi comes back then and looks for the chocolate. The child Ss are then asked where Maxi will look after the chocolate: in the blue or in the green cupboard. As a result, no child S under 4 years was able to solve the task correctly, but 57% of the 4-6 years olds and 86% of the 6-9 year olds. The explanation for this is, that children develop a concept of mental states (in this case Maxi’s belief that the chocolate is in the blue cupboard) and that this mental states influence behaviour (in this case where to look after the chocolate) at the age of 4 earliest.

A differentiated view of the abilities children develop is presented by Wellman and Liu (2004). They developed a ToM scale consisting of 7 Rasch scaled items (tasks). Rasch scaled in this context means that a child that is able to solve a difficult item is very probably also able to solve an easier one. The most difficult task which can be solved by most 6 year olds is the so called “real-apparent emotion task” (derived from Harris et al., 1986). The ability needed to solve this task is to recognize that people can display a certain emotion mimicly while feeling differently.

The overwhelming majority of research on ToM abilities focuses on preschool children. Especially, there are no measurements for ToM abilities that can be applied to older children or adults. Wellman and Hickling (1994) analyzed the language used by 6-10 year olds and found the 10 years olds have a different conception of the human mind. They found that they “distinguish between persons and minds” and develop “a conception of the mind itself as an independent, active entity.” The fact that 10 years olds use and understand phrases like “My mind wandered” or “My mind was racing” compared to 6 year olds were interpreted as evidence.

Wellman and Hickling used two different tasks for the measurement of the children’s concept of an independent, active mind: the “metaphor task” and the “explanation task”. In the metaphor task, the Ss were asked to explain mental metaphors like the above mentioned ones and nonmental metaphors (like “the car is dead”) and found that younger Ss do understand nonmental metaphors but not mental ones, although in a pretest they found that the younger ones can explain what “mind” is. The explanation offered is that younger Ss cannot explain the mental metaphors because they cannot view a person and her mind independently.

In the explanation task, Ss had to explain verbally to the experimenter how they imagine an object (balloon or apple) that they cannot see with their eyes. The answers were coded as

• simple mental: like “You just think a lot”,
• complex mental: like “I think about an apple I’ve seen before, then I take it out of my memory” or
• personified: like “Your mind draws it and puts it right in front of you”.

As a result, the older the Ss the more complex respectively personified explanations they offer. Again, Wellman and Hickling interpret this result as evidence for the development of the children’s concept of “mind” as an more active and independent entity.

Created on 01/26/2007 01:42 PM by ecirweb
Updated on 01/26/2007 01:44 PM by ecirweb