1-065 - Children’s sensitivity to behavioral regularities: Relation to children’s theory of mind

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Theory of mind (ToM) involves insight into mental states such as desires and beliefs. ToM is operationalized with both tasks and mental state term acquisition, two measures which correlate reliably. Many claim that ToM is innate or develops within a year of age, whereas others have claimed that early success reflects an understanding of behavior. In the latter view, ToM could be learned partly through detection of environmental regularities (watching people repeat certain behaviors). Those arguing for an early onset have typically discounted this possibility, arguing, “the detection of environmental regularities plays a minor role, if any at all” (Surian & Meristo, 2014).

We present three studies that address children’s exposure to behavioral regularities, their ability to use regularities to reason about actions, and the link between their exposure to regularities and their ToM. Presentation 1 (Paulus) uses children’s eye gaze to measure implicit understanding. Children use regularities to infer future actions, but until 3.5 years of age, there is a dissociation between the implicit and explicit (verbal) systems. Presentation 2 (Gredebäck) examines 6-month-olds’ ability to predict future actions, finding a subgroup of infants who both anticipate future actions (e.g., looking to the mouth when a spoon is raised) and respond with larger pupil dilations (surprise) when that expectation is violated. Presentation 3 (Ruffman) uses an infant head camera to reveal a rich exposure to behavioral regularities, and that more exposure correlates with acquisition of mental (but not non-mental) state words, providing a link to an evolving ToM.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Ted Ruffman, University of Otago

Discussant

• Beate Sodian, LMU Muenchen

Individual Presentations

• Children’s and adults’ use of verbal information to visually anticipate others’ actions - Presenting Author: Markus Paulus, University of Munich

• Evidence for an internal model of social perception at 6 months of age - Presenting Author: Gustaf Gredebäck, Uppsala University; Marcus Lindskog, Uppsala University; Ben Kenward, Oxford Brookes University; Mari Fransson, University of Uppsala; Linda Forssman, Uppsala University; Joshua Juvrud, Uppsala University; Carin Marciszko, Uppsala University

• A Baby's Eye View: Theory of Mind Development Through Exposure to Repeated Behaviours - Presenting Author: Ted Ruffman, University of Otago; Damian Scarf, University of Otago