Attributing mental states to story characters: A comparison of narratives produced by autistic and mentally retarded individuals

1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Tager-Flusberg ◽  
Kate Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Mentally Retarded ◽  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Standard Test ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Narrative Ability

ABSTRACTThis study investigated narrative abilities and their relation to theory of mind in autistic and mentally retarded subjects, who were matched for their linguistic competence on standardized measures of comprehension and production. We asked 27 autistic, 27 mentally retarded, and 17 normal subjects (whose age range matched the verbal mental age ranges of the developmentally disordered groups) to tell the story from a wordless picture book. Following their spontaneous narratives, a set of probe questions was asked about the story characters' feeling states. The autistic and mentally retarded subjects were also given a standard test of false belief. The main findings were that, when closely matched on language ability, no significant group differences were found on measures of narrative length, use of lexical cohesion devices, and mental state terms. On the probed questions, the autistic and mentally retarded subjects gave fewer appropriate emotion responses than the normal subjects, and the autistic subjects had difficulty explaining the emotional states correctly. For the autistic sample, the narrative measures were significantly correlated with performance on the theory of mind task. The findings are interpreted in terms of the contributions of both linguistic and social–cognitive factors in narrative ability.

scholarly journals Quantitative-Qualitative Analysis the Theory of Mind in Patients with Psychotic Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-117
Author(s):  
Dominika DOKTOROVÁ ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Psychotic Disorder ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Qualitative Evaluation ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Verbal Tasks ◽  
Questionnaire Method

The theory of mind deficit, as the ability to attribute mental states to others, could explain some of the symptoms of patients with psychotic disorder. The poor estimate of the mental states of other people could explain paranoid thinking, some variations in speech, peculiarities in behavior and other symptoms found in patients with this diagnosis. The aim of the research is to describe the theory of mind in psychiatric patients, as schizophrenia can be seen as a disorder of mental states. The research sample consisted of 30 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Data are obtained via questionnaire method and evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively. For research, we have used non-standardized mind-based verbal tasks. Based on frequency tables, psychiatric patients most failed in the theory of mind in dimensions - metaphors (60%) and mental states (50%). The other variables scored better while 30% of probands failed in the theory of mind of the 1st order, 26.7% of probands failed in the theory of second order, 16.7% in emotional states and 23.3% of all psychiatric patients in physical properties. Subsequently, we focused on the qualitative evaluation of individual areas. We found out, that patients scored the worst in the theory of mind tasks that refer to the mental states of others.

scholarly journals The preterm social brain: altered functional networks for Theory of Mind in very preterm children

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah I Mossad ◽  
Marlee M Vandewouw ◽  
Mary Lou Smith ◽  
Margot J Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Functional Mri ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Angular Gyrus ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Very Preterm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Preterm Born

Abstract Neurodevelopmental difficulties emerge in very preterm born children (<32-week gestation) in infancy and continue to early adulthood but little is known about their social-cognitive development. This study utilized the complementary methodological advantages of both functional MRI and magnetoencephalography to examine the neural underpinnings of Theory of Mind in very preterm birth. Theory of Mind, one of the core social-cognitive skills, is the ability to attribute mental states to others, and is crucial for predicting others’ behaviours in social interactions. Eighty-three children (40 very preterm born, 24 boys, age = 8.7 ± 0.5 years, and 43 full-term born, 22 boys, age = 8.6 ± 0.5 years) completed the study. In functional MRI, both groups recruited classic Theory of Mind areas, without significant group differences. However, reduced Theory of Mind connectivity in the very preterm born group was found in magnetoencephalography in distinct theta, alpha and beta-band networks anchored in a set of brain regions that comprise the social brain. These networks included regions such as the angular gyrus, the medial pre-frontal cortex, the superior temporal gyrus and the temporal poles. Very preterm born children showed increased connectivity compared to controls in a network anchored in the occipital gyri rather than classical social-processing regions. Very preterm born children made significantly more attribution errors and mis-construed the social scenarios. Findings offer novel insight into the neural networks, supporting social cognition in very preterm born children and highlight the importance of multimodal neuroimaging to interrogate the social brain in clinical populations.

Sources of cognitive conflict and their relevance to Theory of Mind proficiency in healthy ageing. A preregistered study.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Foyzul Rahman ◽  
Sabrina Javed ◽  
Ian Apperly ◽  
Peter Hansen ◽  
Carol Holland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Response Speed ◽  
Cognitive Conflict ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Outcome Knowledge

Age-related decline in Theory of Mind (ToM) may be due to waning executive control, which is necessary for resolving conflict when reasoning about others’ mental states. We assessed how older (OA; n=50) versus younger adults (YA; n=50) were affected by three theoretically relevant sources of conflict within ToM: competing Self-Other perspectives; competing cued locations and outcome knowledge. We examined which best accounted for age-related difficulty with ToM. Our data show unexpected similarity between age groups when representing a belief incongruent with one’s own. Individual differences in attention and motor response speed best explained the degree of conflict experienced through conflicting Self-Other perspectives. However, OAs were disproportionately affected by managing conflict between cued locations. Age and spatial working memory were most relevant for predicting the magnitude of conflict elicited by conflicting cued locations. We suggest that previous studies may have underestimated OA’s ToM proficiency by including unnecessary conflict in ToM tasks.

DISCOURSE ON FAILURE OF INTELLIGENCE: A THEORY OF MIND PERSPECTIVE

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Elena Botts
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Mind Theory ◽  
Improve Analysis ◽  
Epistemic Process

This article aims at explicating that can we usefully talk about a failure of intelligence and deliberating the perspective of mind theory into it. Failures of intelligence are useful insofar as they can be evaluated so as to improve analysis. In this process, it is important that one considers the psychological processes that underpin analytical failures. It is especially important to consider how failures of intelligence are governed by an insufficient ability to understand the perspectives of others. This ability to determine others mental states is known as the theory of mind. This paper further argues that discourse on the failure of intelligence is increased because of a flaw in the epistemic process among intelligence operators and consumers.

Thinking about Things

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Sainsbury
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Semantic Description ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Representational Theory Of Mind

In the blink of an eye, I can redirect my thought from London to Cairo, from cookies to unicorns, from former President Obama to the mythical flying horse, Pegasus. How is this possible? How can we think about things that do not exist, like unicorns and Pegasus? Thinking About Things addresses these and related questions, taking as its framework a representational theory of mind. It explains how mental states are attributed, what their aboutness consists in, whether or not they are relational, and whether any of them involve nonexistent things like unicorns. The explanation centers on display theory, a theory of what is involved in attributing attitudes like thinking, hoping, and wanting. These attributions are intensional: some of them seem to involve nonexistent things, and they typically have semantic and logical peculiarities, like the fact that one cannot always substitute one expression for another that refers to the same thing without affecting truth. Display theory explains away these seeming anomalies. For example, substituting coreferring expressions does not always preserve truth because the correctness of an attribution depends on what concepts it displays, not on what the concepts refer to. And a concept that refers to nothing may be used in an accurate display of what someone is thinking. The book describes how concepts can be learned, originated, and given a systematic semantic description, independently of whether there exist things to which they refer. There being no things we are thinking about does not mean that we are not thinking about things.

Do people with schizophrenia display theory of mind deficits in clinical interactions?

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. McCABE ◽  
I. LEUDAR ◽  
C. ANTAKI
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Negative Symptoms ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Chronic Schizophrenia ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Behaviour Therapy ◽  
Cognitive Behaviour ◽  
Clinical Interactions ◽  
Therapy Sessions

Background. Having a ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) means that one appreciates one's own and others' mental states, and that this appreciation guides interactions with others. It has been proposed that ToM is impaired in schizophrenia and experimental studies show that patients with schizophrenia have problems with ToM, particularly during acute episodes. The model predicts that communicative problems will result from ToM deficits.Method. We analysed 35 encounters (>80 h of recordings) between mental health professionals and people with chronic schizophrenia (out-patient consultations and cognitive behaviour therapy sessions) using conversation analysis in order to identify how the participants used or failed to use ToM relevant skills in social interaction.Results. Schizophrenics with ongoing positive and negative symptoms appropriately reported first and second order mental states of others and designed their contributions to conversations on the basis of what they thought their communicative partners knew and intended. Patients recognized that others do not share their delusions and attempted to reconcile others' beliefs with their own but problems arose when they try to warrant their delusional claims. They did not make the justification for their claim understandable for their interlocutor. Nevertheless, they did not fail to recognize that the justification for their claim is unconvincing. However, the ensuing disagreement did not lead them to modify their beliefs.Conclusions. Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated intact ToM skills in conversational interactions. Psychotic beliefs persisted despite the realization they are not shared but not because patients cannot reflect on them and compare them with what others believe.

Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Fodor
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Computational Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Computational Theory ◽  
Methodological Solipsism ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractThe paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes to itself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful.

Did a Little Birdie Really Tell Odin? Applying Theory of Mind to Old Norse Religion

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 280-308
Author(s):  
Declan Taggart
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
Religious Theory ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Theory of mind, the theory that humans attribute mental states to others, has become increasingly influential in the Cognitive Science of Religion in recent years, due to several papers which posit that supernatural agents, like gods, demons, and the dead, are accredited greater than normal knowledge and awareness. Using Old Norse mythology and literary accounts of Old Norse religion, supported by archaeological evidence, I examine the extent to which this modern perspective on religious theory of mind is reflected in religious traditions from the Viking Age. I focus especially on the extent to which superperception and superknowledge were attributed to Old Norse supernatural agents and the impact of this on expressions of religion; how the attribution of theory of mind varied with circumstances and the agents to which it was being attributed; and the extent to which features of religious theory of mind common in other societies were present in the historical North. On this basis, I also evaluate the usefulness of Old Norse historiography to Cognitive Science of Religion and vice versa.

scholarly journals The Interaction Between Caudate Nucleus and Regions Within the Theory of Mind Network as a Neural Basis for Social Intelligence

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Votinov ◽  
Artem Myznikov ◽  
Maya Zheltyakova ◽  
Ruslan Masharipov ◽  
Alexander Korotkov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Caudate Nucleus ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Functional Integration ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Caudate Nuclei ◽  
Structural Peculiarity ◽  
The Right

The organization of socio-cognitive processes is a multifaceted problem for which many sophisticated concepts have been proposed. One of these concepts is social intelligence (SI), i.e., the set of abilities that allow successful interaction with other people. The theory of mind (ToM) human brain network is a good candidate for the neural substrate underlying SI since it is involved in inferring the mental states of others and ourselves and predicting or explaining others’ actions. However, the relationship of ToM to SI remains poorly explored. Our recent research revealed an association between the gray matter volume of the caudate nucleus and the degree of SI as measured by the Guilford-Sullivan test. It led us to question whether this structural peculiarity is reflected in changes to the integration of the caudate with other areas of the brain associated with socio-cognitive processes, including the ToM system. We conducted seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analysis of resting-state fMRI data for 42 subjects with the caudate as a region of interest. We found that the scores of the Guilford-Sullivan test were positively correlated with the FC between seeds in the right caudate head and two clusters located within the right superior temporal gyrus and bilateral precuneus. Both regions are known to be nodes of the ToM network. Thus, the current study demonstrates that the SI level is associated with the degree of functional integration between the ToM network and the caudate nuclei.

scholarly journals Understanding of Emotional States in Persons with Pedophilia / Pedophilic Disorder

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 84-99
Author(s):  
L.Y. Demidova ◽  
N.V. Dvoryanchikov
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Regulation ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Sexual Drive ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Icd 10 ◽  
High Level

This article highlights the problem of emotional perception in pedophilia (ICD-10) / pedophilia disorder (ICD-11). In present paper, emotional perception is considered as abilities of recognizing and identifying a wide range of mental states like emotions, affects, moods, feelings. The assumption about relations of alexithymia and disturbances in the recognition of emotions, perspective taking, empathy with pedophilia and regulatory mechanisms of activity verified empirically. Two groups of persons accused of sexual crimes are compared: 44 people with pedophilia, 32 people without the disorder; also 95 persons who haven't been accused were examined for the control group; as well intra-group comparison of pedophilic persons with egosyntonic and egodystonic attitude toward sexual drive was made. Contradictions of earlier studies are resolved in the result: it is shown that in pedophilia the ability of understanding emotional states remains normal at first sight (in comparison with the deficits found in the accused without pedophilia). However, the group with pedophilia is characterized by extremely high level of alexithymia and based on this the consistently conclusion is made about disturbances of emotional regulation in egosyntonic form of this disorder.

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