“I think I know what you mean”

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredyth Krych-Appelbaum ◽  
Julie Banzon Law ◽  
Dayna Jones ◽  
Allyson Barnacz ◽  
Amanda Johnson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Following Instructions ◽  
Visible Condition ◽  
The Mind

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to predict and understand the mental state of another. While ToM is theorized to play a role in language, we examined whether such a mentalizing ability plays an important role in establishing shared understanding in conversation. Pairs of participants engaged in a Lego model building task in which a director instructed a builder on how to create duplicate models from a prototype that only the director could see. We manipulated whether the director could see (visible condition) or could not see (hidden condition) the builder’s workspace. As predicted, the Mind in the Eyes test (a measure of ToM) predicted accuracy when the workspace was hidden. A high mentalizing ability was an advantage when instructing, resulting in fewer errors, but may be a disadvantage when following instructions. This research indicates that ToM plays a key role in communicating information effectively in conversation.

scholarly journals Negative and Neutral Valences of Affective Theory of Mind are More Impaired than Positive Valence in Clinically Stable Schizophrenia Patients

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 460-464
Author(s):  
Thammanard Charernboon
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Positive Valence ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Normal Controls

Objective People with schizophrenia show impairment in social cognition, such as emotion recognition and theory of mind. The current study aims to compare the ability of clinically stable schizophrenia patients to decode the positive, negative and neutral affective mental state of others with educational match-paired normal control.Methods 50 people with schizophrenia and 50 matched controls were compared on the positive, negative and neutral emotional valence of affective theory of mind using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Tests.Results The results showed that people with schizophrenia performed worse in negative and neutral emotional valence than normal controls; however, no significant differences in decoding positive valence were found.Conclusion Our data suggest that there is variability in the performance of affective theory of mind according to emotion valence; the impairments seem to be specific to only negative and neutral emotions, but not positive ones.

scholarly journals Reading the Mind in Robots: How Theory of Mind Ability Alters Mental State Attributions During Human-Robot Interactions

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 1550-1554
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn L. Schreck ◽  
Olivia B. Newton ◽  
Jihye Song ◽  
Stephen M. Fiore
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Navigation Task ◽  
The Mind

This study examined how human-robot interaction is influenced by individual differences in theory of mind ability. Participants engaged in a hallway navigation task with a robot over a number of trials. The display on the robot and its proxemics behavior was manipulated, and participants made mental state attributions across trials. Participant ability in theory of mind was also assessed. Results show that proxemics behavior and robotic display characteristics differentially influence the degree to which individuals perceive the robot when making mental state attributions about self or other. Additionally, theory of mind ability interacted with proxemics and display characteristics. The findings illustrate the importance of understanding individual differences in higher level cognition. As robots become more social, the need to understand social cognitive processes in human-robot interactions increases. Results are discussed in the context of how individual differences and social signals theory inform research in human-robot interaction.

Group membership and the effects on visual perspective taking

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Schneider ◽  
Anne Grigutsch ◽  
Matthias Schurz ◽  
Romi Zäske ◽  
Stefan R. Schweinberger
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Visual Perspective ◽  
Interference Effects ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Visual Perspective Taking ◽  
Mental State Ascription ◽  
Ethnic Nationality ◽  
Level 1

It has been hypothesized that visual perspective-taking, a basic Theory of Mind mechanism, might operate quite automatically particularly in terms of ´what´ someone else sees. As such we were interested in whether different social categories of an agent (e.g., gender, race, nationality) influence this mental state ascription mechanism. We tested this assumption by investigating the Samson level-1 visual perspective-taking paradigm using agents with different ethnic nationality appearances. A group of self-identified Turkish and German participants were asked to make visual perspective judgments from their own perspective (self-judgment) as well as from the perspective of a prototypical Turkish or German agent (other-judgment). The respective related interference effects - altercentric and egocentric interferences - were measured. When making other-judgments, German participants showed increased egocentric interferences for Turkish compared to German agents. Turkish participants showed no ethnic group influence for egocentric interferences and reported feeling associated with the German and Turkish nationality to a similar extent. For self-judgments, altercentric interferences were of similar magnitude for both ethnic agents in both participant groups. Overall this indicates that in level-1 visual perspective-taking, other-judgments and related egocentric interferences are sensitive to social categories and are better described as a flexible, controlled and deliberate mental state ascription mechanism. In contrast, self-judgments and related altercentric interference effects are better described as automatic, efficient and unconscious mental state ascription mechanisms. In a broader sense the current results suggest that we should stop considering automaticity an all-or-none principle when it comes theory of mind processes.

Social competence, theory of mind, and executive function in institution-reared Turkish children

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 519-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evren Etel ◽  
Bilge Yagmurlu
Keyword(s):  
Executive Function ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Social Competence ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
Scaling Analysis ◽  
Turkish Children ◽  
The Social ◽  
Behavioral Assessments

This study had two aims. The first aim was to measure mental state understanding in institution-reared children by using a theory of mind (ToM) scale, and to examine the role of cultural context in sequencing of ToM acquisition. The other aim was to investigate ToM in relation to social competence and executive function (EF). Due to its pronounced role in mental state understanding and social interactions, we assessed receptive language as well. The participants were 107 institution-reared children aged 3 to 5 years in Turkey. Two visits were held within 2 days for behavioral assessments. In the first visit, the ToM scale was administered; in the second visit, the child was given the language test and the EF tasks. The social competence scales were completed by the child’s primary care provider in the institution. Guttman scaling analysis revealed that an understanding of diverse beliefs developed earlier than knowledge access, favoring the “individualistic pattern.” The regression analysis showed that EF was a significant predictor of ToM, but neither of them was associated with social competence when age was controlled. Receptive language predicted social competence and EF directly, and ToM indirectly through EF, pointing to the importance of this ability for early development.

Mindfulness improves theory of mind in psychosis

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilio López-Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Randomized Clinical Trial ◽  
Psychotic Disorder ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Community Center ◽  
Rehabilitation Treatment ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
The Mind

Impaired Theory of Mind (ToM) ability is a core feature of psychotic disorders that challenges psychosis treatment. We aimed to explore the effect of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention (MBI) on ToM ability in a randomized clinical trial (RCT). A sample of 36 participants diagnosed with psychotic disorder were recruited from a community center and randomly allocated to Integrated Rehabilitation Treatment (IRT) or IRT+MBI. ToM skills were assessed through the Hinting Test and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). IRT+MBI scored higher in RMET than IRT at posttreatment. MBI is a promising tool for improving ToM ability in psychosis.Keywords: psychotic disorders, theory of mind, mindfulness-based-interventions.

The Mind and its Tenement; Their Mutual Relations

1856 ◽  
Vol 2 (18) ◽  
pp. 479-494
Author(s):  
C. Lockhart Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
The Mind

“The knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and the body” saith the founder† of modern science, in discoursing of human philosophy, or the knowledge of ourselves, as he terms it, is “fit to be emancipate and made a knowledge by itself. The consideration is double: either how and how far the humours and effects of the body do alter or work upon the mind; or again, how and how far the passions and apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body. The former of these,” (the influence of the body on the mental state,) continues Bacon, “hath been enquired and considered as a part and appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or superstition. For the physician prescribeth cures of the mind in phrensies and melancholy passions; and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to exhilarate the mind, to confirm the courage, to clarify the wits, to corroborate the memory and the like: but the scruples and superstitions of diet and other regimen of the body in the sect of Pythagoreans, in the heresy of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet do exceed. … The root and life of all which prescripts is besides the ceremony, the consideration of that dependency, which the affections of the mind are submitted unto, upon the state and disposition of the body.”

scholarly journals Archetype, Psyche, World

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Jon Mills
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
External World ◽  
Analytical Psychology ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
Internal Parameters ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Ontological Position

Abstract In our dialogues over the nature of archetypes, essence, psyche, and world, I further respond to Erik Goodwyn’s recent foray into establishing an ontological position that not only answers to the mind-body problem, but further locates the source of Psyche on a cosmic plane. His impressive attempt to launch a neo-Jungian metaphysics is based on the principle of cosmic panpsychism that bridges both the internal parameters of archetypal process and their emergence in consciousness and the external world conditioned by a psychic universe. Here I explore the ontology of experience, mind, matter, metaphysical realism, and critique Goodwyn’s turn to Neoplatonism. The result is a potentially compatible theory of mind and reality that grounds archetypal theory in onto-phenomenology, metaphysics, and bioscience, hence facilitating new directions in analytical psychology.

scholarly journals The Perception of Neighbour in CMLL Publicistics

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-147
Author(s):  
Loreta Vaičiulytė-Semėnienė
Keyword(s):  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Favourable Response ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
Distant Neighbour ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Dictionary Definitions ◽  
What Matters

This article deals with the content of neighbour on the basis of the forms of the noun ‘neighbour’ (Lith. kaimynas). Efforts are made to strike a balance between the structural and the cognitive approach to its meaning. The sample base for the study consists of 700 published sentences sourced in the Corpus of the Modern Lithuanian Language (CMLL) compiled by the Centre for Computational Linguistics at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas.The study has revealed a neighbour to be someone who experiences a certain mental state, someone who, in his or her (un)favourable response to the environment, affects another person in a relatively close space. Emotionally charged, this effect shows a neighbour who is a nice or a bad person to live next-doors with. The (dis)harmony of attitudes, values, and actions grounded on an (un)favourable mind-set defines a dynamic coexistenceof neighbours, or a failure to coexist.When it comes to the perception of neighbour that shifts in time, what matters is the shared space of the neighbours that has its relative boundaries and is measured as a distance – the closeness resulting in the distinction between a close > distant neighbour; yet even more important is the camaraderie – the proximity of attitudes, values, and the actions that they define – something that the dictionary definitions of the word neighbour tend to omit – and the related gradational differences between a homey > strange neighbour. When it comes to building and maintaining proximity, it is the neighbour’s temper, polite and supportive interaction, and behaviour that favours another person, such as sharing things with them and all kinds of assistance, especially in need, that matters. As the mind-sets, values, and behaviours assimilate, the neighbours become one – they become homey to each other. And the axis of oneness grounded on favour in neighbourhood is God.

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