3-177 - New Perspectives on Implicit Theory of Mind

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Implicit Theory of Mind has recently attracted great interest in Cognitive Development. Infants analyze actions in terms of goals and intentions and they make action predictions based on a representation of agents’ beliefs. Several longitudinal studies indicate that these competencies are in continuity with a later, explicit Theory of Mind. However, few studies have used multi-measure and within-subject designs to explore the generality and consistency of mind understanding in infancy and its predictive relations to later Theory of Mind. Paper 1 tested multiple implicit Theory of Mind abilities in 14- and 18-month-old infants and found evidence for a developmental relation between intention and belief understanding. Paper 2 looked into the relation between implicit and explicit false belief longitudinally and found evidence for the generality of the predictive relationship across tasks. While these findings support the idea of conceptual continuity in the mental domain, they do not provide information about how implicit false belief reasoning differs from explicit reasoning. Paper 3 tested Apperly & Butterfill’s (2009) theory that implicit false belief reasoning is subserved by an efficient but inflexible cognitive system, comparing 6-year-olds and adults on the same task. Finally, paper 4 extends the theme of the symposium by asking how implicit social understanding supports object learning, given that object concepts are defined socially by aligning functional perspectives. In sum, the present symposium brings together current perspectives on the developmental origins and functions of human understanding of the mind, with a focus on unresolved issues in this important domain.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Beate Sodian, Universtat Muenchen

• Diane Poulin-Dubois, Concordia Univ

Individual Presentations

• The development of Implicit understanding of Theory of Mind in 14- and 18-month-old infants - Presenting Author: Jessica Yott, Concordia University; Diane Poulin-Dubois, Concordia Univ

• The Longitudinal Relation of Implicit and Explicit False Belief Understanding - Presenting Author: Beate Sodian, Universtat Muenchen; Susanne Elisabeth Kristen, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München; Maria Licata, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München

• Comparing children's and adults' performance in comparable explicit and implicit tasks on false-belief tracking - Presenting Author: David Buttelmann, University of Erfurt; Beatrice Gromma, University of Erfurt; Frances Buttelmann, Universität Erfurt

• How flexibly can 2-year-olds change their functional perspective on artifacts in imitation tasks? - Presenting Author: Sabina M Pauen, University of Illinois; Julia Wissner, Universität Heidelberg