Philosophy and Psychology L5: Mindreading, Theory Theory, False belief, Mirror neurons

folk psychology = practice of attributing mental states to other agents in order to explain/ predict behavior

mindreading = the process of attribution itself

Mind reading is explained by

A) folk psychology

B) Theory Theory

C) Simulation Theory

D) Connectionism

_= mindreading depends on a theory that specifies how mental states relate to behavior and other mental states

A) Theory Theory

B) Simulation Theory

Theory Theory:

(externalist/internalist) =investigate the linguistic practice in which we use the theory by systematizing our psychological platitudes

(externalist/internalist) = investigate the individual capacities requirement for mindreading and their ontogenetic development (theory theory in developmental psychology)

Chimpanzees passed the TOM test as they consistently choose the correct photographs.

What did Denett critizise?

-measure of false belief attribution is missing

- probably the chimpanzee acted on his own belief

Do children (3 years) have a TOM?

No, 3 year olds give wrong answers on the Maxi Task of Wimmer and Perner. They make a false-belief-error.

When do children develop a TOM? at 4 years of age

Who is better at TOM Down-syndrome children or ASD children?

Downsyndrome children: 86% pass

ASD children: 80% fail

The false belief tast

- supports the Theory Theory (yes/no)

- presuposses the correctness of the Theory Theory (yes/no)

The false belief task

-is specizalized for cognitive abilities to explain and predict (yes/no)

- involves 2nd person observations (yes/no)

-involves 3rd person observations (yes/no)

This is the (implict/spontaneous) response to false belief:

- children are asked a direct question how the mistaken agent will act

- children (younger/from/older) the age of 4 succeed

This is the (implict/spontaneous) response to false belief:

- children's spontaneous reaction to the scenes are measured

- children (younger/from/older) the age of 4 succeed

Yes.

- cultures with less psychological concepts

- use of other strategies to explain and predict

- onset of false belief varies among cultures

- developmental countries score on chance level

- Western cultures are prone to fundamental attribution error (explain behavior rather with internal states than external factors)

_= infants look longer at an unexpected  event, where adults search at the correct location despite the false belief where the toy is hidden

A) false belief task

B) violation of expectation task

active helping paradigm = infants help adult to achieve a goal by examining what the adult believes

anticipatory look = attention and eye movement reflect cognitive and memory processes

They correctly look at the box where the ball is no longer present (anticipatory look), but then when asked they falsly conclude that the other person will look in the box where the toy really is.

Simulation theory= simulating to be the other person

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

Simulation theory (is/is not) an argument against eliminativism.

If folk psychology does not depend on a theory, then it cannot be false.

parsimony: understanding others depends on our own psychological mechanism, we don't need to elaborate on a theory.

Robert Gordon:

-simulating others works (with/without) introspection or inference

-you simulate being the other, in the other's situation: you (do/ dont) need to attribute pretend mental states

- this is a (conscious/unconscious) procedure

Mirror neurons= a class of visuomotor neurons that fire when we observe another agents intentional action and when we ourselves perform the action

problem of prior intentions = mirroring only provides us with the motor intention of the action, but not with the reason behind the action

- the (minority/majority) of mirror neurons is 'broadly congruent' = observed action is asscoiated with the executed action, but not a match!

- the (minority/Majority) of mirror neurons shows a one-to-one relationship

Do Mirror neurons support simulation theory? No.

- mirror neuron simulation is subconscious and does not involve

a. manipulating pretended states

b. understanding the self and others

c. inference or interpretation of any sort

Mirror neurons = understanding motor intentions of others, not reason behind it

- immediate, automatic and reflex-like understanding

- research is conducted on monkeys

- studies use EEG or fMRI to infer the existence of mirror neurons

- mirror neurons probably do not exist