研究心理理论的新方法——失言识别任务

心理理论是对他人心理状态进行推论的能力。考察心理理论的经典范式是错误信念任务, 而青少年和成人在这种任务上可能出现天花板效应。为了测量青少年和成人的心理理论, Valerie E. Stone和她的合作者设计了失言识别任务。征求了Stone意见, 对失言识别任务的提出、构成、使用进行了介绍, 说明了该任务相对于经典范式的优势; 与此同时, 分析了失言识别任务范式存在的一些问题, 比如其效度指标问题, 与言语能力的分离问题, 失言识别任务与执行功能之间的分离等。未来研究可以尝试编制失言识别任务的本土化的量表, 并利用其探讨年长个体心理理论水平发展变化的规律。     

5～8岁儿童对模糊信息具有多重解释的理解

参照Carpendale和Chandler的实验范式,研究儿童对于“人们可能对同样信息给出不同解释”这一现象的理解,考察5~8岁儿童的解释性心理理论的发展。结果表明,5岁儿童不能理解心理过程的解释性,认为同样的信息只有一种合理的解释。从6岁开始,儿童才认识到,模糊信息可以有多种解释,但6、7岁时的这种理解并不完善,成绩随着任务要求而变化。8岁儿童才有比较稳定的解释性心理理论。     

儿童理解误信念的心理机制假设

儿童心理理论是近20年来发展心理学研究热点,对其研究主要是在误信念实验范式之下进行的。儿童理解误信念的心理机制问题是误信念研究的核心问题之一,研究者从不同的角度出发,采用不同的方法,提出了儿童如何理解误信念的几个重要假设,包括：元表征假设、事实掩盖假设、心理理论机制假设、计算资源假设。此文综述了这些假设,以期借鉴使用。     

The concept of evolution and revolution

We hypothesize that there exist certain similarities between the strategies adopted by a biological organism, an individual or a social group, when faced by an aggressor. These strategies consist in either minimizing the aggression or else combating it immediately, in order to preserve, in the short term, the identity of the system under attack. One of the strategies commonly adopted for this purpose is retrocession, permitting the biological, neurobiological organism, or the social individual or group to elude certain environmental elements and return to a situation in which other escape routes may be taken.

In the long term, preservation of the external identity is accomplished by modification of the internal identity. Man uses in vivo or, after “extrusion,” ex vivo immunizing and cognitive functions to cope with the environment. He is thus able to create, ex vivo, therapeutic techniques by manipulating internal identity. In order to accomplish this, a profound knowledge is needed, at the level of each individual, of the functional mechanisms of biological and neurobiological identities.

Though social and biological sciences are progressing, they have great difficulties in finding the common language necessary to communicate productively. Analogies between these two domains, that we shall attempt to illustrate, may contribute to facilitating such communication.     

Much ado about nothing? Why going non-semantic is not merely semantics

This paper argues that deciding on whether the cognitive sciences need a Representational Theory of Mind matters. Far from being merely semantic or inconsequential, the answer we give to the RTM-question makes a difference to how we conceive of minds. How we answer determines which theoretical framework the sciences of mind ought to embrace. The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 1 outlines Rowlands’s (2017) argument that the RTM-question is a bad question and that attempts to answer it, one way or another, have neither practical nor theoretical import. Rowlands concludes this because, on his analysis, there is no non-arbitrary fact of the matter about which properties something must possess in order to qualify as a mental representation. By way of reply, we admit that Rowlands’s analysis succeeds in revealing why attempts to answer the RTM-question simpliciter are pointless. Nevertheless, we show that if specific formulations of the RTM-question are stipulated, then it is possible, conduct substantive RTM debates that do not collapse into merely verbal disagreements. Combined, Sections 2 and 3 demonstrate how, by employing specifying stipulations, we can get around Rowlands’s arbitrariness challenge. Section 2 reveals why RTM, as canonically construed in terms of mental states exhibiting intensional (with-an-s) properties, has been deemed a valuable explanatory hypothesis in the cognitive sciences. Targeting the canonical notion of mental representations, Section 3 articulates a rival nonrepresentational hypothesis that, we propose, can do all the relevant explanatory work at much lower theoretical cost. Taken together, Sections 2 and 3 show what can be at stake in the RTM debate when it is framed by appeal to the canonical notion of mental representation and why engaging in it matters. Section 4 extends the argument for thinking that RTM debates matter. It provides reasons for thinking that, far from making no practical or theoretical difference to the sciences of the mind, deciding to abandon RTM would constitute a revolutionary conceptual shift in those sciences.     

Exposure to behavioral regularities in everyday life predicts infants’ acquisition of mental state vocabulary

There are two broad views of children's theory of mind. The mentalist view is that it emerges in infancy and is possibly innate. The minimalist view is that it emerges more gradually in childhood and is heavily dependent on learning. According to minimalism, children initially understand behaviors rather than mental states, and they are assisted in doing so by recognizing repeating patterns in behavior. The regularities in behavior allow them to predict future behaviors, succeed on theory-of-mind tasks, acquire mental state words, and eventually, understand the mental states underlying behavior. The present study provided the first clear evidence for the plausibility of this view by fitting head cameras to 54 infants aged 6 to 25 months, and recording their view of the world in their daily lives. At 6 and 12 months, infants viewed an average of 146.5 repeated behaviors per hour, a rate consistent with approximately 560,000 repetitions in their first year, and with repetitions correlating with children's acquisition of mental state words, even after controlling for their general vocabulary and a range of variables indexing social interaction. We also recorded infants’ view of people searching or searching for and retrieving objects. These were 92 times less common and did not correlate with mental state vocabulary. Overall, the findings indicate that repeated behaviors provide a rich source of information for children that would readily allow them to recognize patterns in behavior and help them acquire mental state words, providing the first clear evidence for this claim of minimalism.

Research Highlights

• Six- to 25-month-olds wore head cameras to record home life from infants’ point-of-view and help adjudicate between nativist and minimalist views of theory-of-mind (ToM).
• Nativists say ToM is too early developing to enable learning, whereas minimalists say infants learn to predict behaviors from behavior patterns in environment.
• Consistent with minimalism, infants had an incredibly rich exposure (146.5/h, >560,000 in first year) to repeated behaviors (e.g., drinking from a cup repeatedly).
• Consistent with minimalism, more repeated behaviors correlated with infants’ mental state vocabulary, even after controlling for gender, age, searches witnessed and non-mental state vocabulary.

     

近十年来国外游戏研究新进展

游戏一直是国外研究者非常关注的研究课题之一．本文总结论述了近十年来国外关于亲子游戏与幼儿发展、装扮游戏与幼儿心理理论的发展、游戏的治疗作用等游戏研究领域的新进展。     

关于儿童特质理解的心理理论研究

特质理解是心理理论研究中的一个重要研究领域,它对于社会能力的促进和发展具有重要的意义,章概述了国外该研究领域的主要研究成果及研究动态,包括心理理论与特质、儿童特质的起源信念研究、儿童特质词使用与特质理解发展、特质推理与特质理解发展研究,在此基础上,分析了该领域研究中存在的问题并对该领域未来的发展趋势作了展望。     

儿童假装研究综述

本文介绍了假装的定义、假装的发展、假装的实质、假装的特点、假装与心理理论的关系、及国内近期关于假装的研究,探讨了假装这一领域需要进一步研究的问题,对今后的研究提出了展望。     

家庭微系统对幼儿心理理论的影响:因素、过程和机制

基于国内外家庭对幼儿心理理论影响的研究,可将家庭微系统分成三个子系统:家庭基本环境子系统(包含家庭社会经济地位和兄弟姐妹数量类型)、父母与儿童互动子系统(包含依恋类型、教养方式、情绪表达和亲子游戏)和兄弟姐妹与儿童互动子系统(包含合作冲突和假装游戏)。家庭微系统对幼儿心理理论的影响机制模型可假设为:家庭基本环境子系统中家庭社会经济地位影响着父母与儿童互动子系统,兄弟姐妹数量类型影响着兄弟姐妹与儿童互动子系统。父母与儿童互动子系统、兄弟姐妹与儿童互动子系统中的各变量均通过心理状态术语使用这一中介变量进而影响儿童心理理论的发展。该模型需要实证研究加以进一步验证。     

婴儿心理理论的发展:表现和机制

婴儿心理理论发展研究是探索人类社会认知起源、发生和发展的重要领域.从联合注意、情绪理解、意图理解、愿望理解和错误信念理解等方面分析了几个月至3岁左右的婴儿心理理论发生和发展的研究现状.为了探讨3岁以下婴儿心理理论的发展过程,研究者发展了一些适合婴儿语言和行为发展特征的非言语和言语测试任务,包括非言语自发—反应错误信念任务、言语自发—反应错误信念任务,同时也采用眼动技术和事件相关电位技术来考察心理理论发展水平和发展机制.婴儿心理理论的发生和发展在不同测试任务上表现出一定的年龄特征.这与认知功能(如语言、执行功能)的发展、环境因素(如家庭、同伴、文化)以及神经系统发育有关.也有一些最新研究从心理理论发生和发展的基因、激素水平进行了探讨.最后提出了该领域未来研究可以进一步探讨的问题.     

The Intelligence of White Foreign Born Criminals

Children's understanding of cognition increases greatly between early childhood and adolescence. This increase provides a developmental bridge between young children's understanding of mental states to adolescents' and adults' epistemological reflection. The author presents a framework for describing developmental changes in children's understanding of cognitive activities. He distinguishes 4 aspects of children's understanding of cognition: (a) knowledge of mental states, (b) knowledge of occurrence of particular activities, (c) knowledge of organization of cognitive activities, and (d) epistemological thought. He discusses phenomenological awareness of cognitive activities and social experience as influences on children's concepts of cognition.     

自闭症儿童的心理理论与中心信息整合的关系探讨

自闭症儿童的心理理论一直是儿童心理理论研究的重要领域,自闭症儿童身上心理理论缺失这一领域特殊性的加工缺损与弱的中心信息整合这一领域一般性的加工异常之问的关系研究逐渐受到了广泛关注。在阐述自闭症领域的心理理论研究,并介绍弱的中心信息整合理论的基本观点和实验证据之后,在此探讨了两者之间的关系,包括两者相互独立的观点、相互关联的观点以及其他的不同观点,并对今后的研究方向做出了展望。