Belief attribution despite verbal interference

False-belief (FB) tasks have been widely used to study the ability of individuals to represent the content of their conspecifics' mental states (theory of mind). However, the cognitive processes involved are still poorly understood, and it remains particularly debated whether language and inner speech are necessary for the attribution of beliefs to other agents. We present a completely nonverbal paradigm consisting of silent animated cartoons in five closely related conditions, systematically teasing apart different aspects of scene analysis and allowing the assessment of the attribution of beliefs, goals, and physical causation. In order to test the role of language in belief attribution, we used verbal shadowing as a dual task to inhibit inner speech. Data on 58 healthy adults indicate that verbal interference decreases overall performance, but has no specific effect on belief attribution. Participants remained able to attribute beliefs despite heavy concurrent demands on their verbal abilities. Our results are most consistent with the hypothesis that belief attribution is independent from inner speech.     

Matched false-belief performance during verbal and nonverbal interference

Language has been shown to play a key role in the development of a child's theory of mind, but its role in adult belief reasoning remains unclear. One recent study used verbal and nonverbal interference during a false-belief task to show that accurate belief reasoning in adults necessarily requires language (Newton & de Villiers, 2007). The strength of this inference depends on the cognitive processes that are matched between the verbal and nonverbal inference tasks. Here, we matched the two interference tasks in terms of their effects on spatial working memory. We found equal success on false-belief reasoning during both verbal and nonverbal interference, suggesting that language is not specifically necessary for adult theory of mind.     

Actors and actions: The role of agent behavior in infants' attribution of goals

Twelve-month-old infants attribute goals to both familiar, human agents and unfamiliar, non-human agents. They also attribute goal-directedness to both familiar actions and unfamiliar ones. Four conditions examined information 12-month-olds use to determine which actions of an unfamiliar agent are goal-directed. Infants who witnessed the agent interact contingently with a human confederate encoded the agent's actions as goal-directed; infants who saw a human confederate model an intentional stance toward the agent without the agent's participation, did not. Infants who witnessed the agent align itself with one of two potential targets before approaching that target encoded the approach as goal-directed; infants who did not observe the self-alignment did not encode the approach as goal-directed. A possible common underpinning of these two seemingly independent sources of information is discussed.     

Do people automatically track others’ beliefs? Evidence from a continuous measure

Recent findings suggest that tracking others’ beliefs is not always effortful and slow, but may rely on a fast and implicit system. An untested prediction of the automatic belief tracking account is that own and others’ beliefs should be activated in parallel. We tested this prediction measuring continuous movement trajectories in a task that required deciding between two possible object locations. We independently manipulated whether participants’ belief about the object location was true or false and whether an onlooker’s belief about the object location was true or false. Manipulating whether or not the agent’s belief was ever task relevant allowed us to compare performance in an explicit and implicit version of the same task. Movement parameters revealed an influence of the onlooker’s irrelevant belief in the implicit version of the task. This provides evidence for parallel activation of own and others’ beliefs.     

False-belief understanding at age 5 predicts beliefs about learning in year 3 of primary school

This study examined the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between children's theory of mind (ToM) and their beliefs about learning. A sample of 63 children was tested for theory of mind and verbal ability at four time points: 5, 6, 7 and 8 years of age. In addition, at Time 4, children were administered a questionnaire investigating their beliefs about learning. Results showed longitudinal and concurrent relationships between ToM and constructivist, but not reproductive, beliefs about learning. Crucially, false-belief understanding at age 5 predicted unique variance in constructivist beliefs about learning at age 8, when controlling for subsequent levels of ToM. This relationship was not due to verbal ability. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications of the longitudinal effect of theory of mind ability on constructivist beliefs about learning.     

Children’s attributions of beliefs to humans and God: cross-cultural evidence

The capacity to attribute beliefs to others in order to understand action is one of the mainstays of human cognition. Yet it is debatable whether children attribute beliefs in the same way to all agents. In this paper, we present the results of a false-belief task concerning humans and God run with a sample of Maya children aged 4-7, and place them in the context of several psychological theories of cognitive development. Children were found to attribute beliefs in different ways to humans and God. The evidence also speaks to the debate concerning the universality and uniformity of the development of folk-psychological reasoning.     

It’s in your nature: a pluralistic folk psychology

I suggest a pluralistic account of folk psychology according to which not all predictions or explanations rely on the attribution of mental states, and not all intentional actions are explained by mental states. This view of folk psychology is supported by research in developmental and social psychology. It is well known that people use personality traits to predict behavior. I argue that trait attribution is not shorthand for mental state attributions, since traits are not identical to beliefs or desires, and an understanding of belief or desire is not necessary for using trait attributions. In addition, we sometimes predict and explain behavior through appeal to personality traits that the target wouldn’t endorse, and so could not serve as the target’s reasons. I conclude by suggesting that our folk psychology includes the notion that some behavior is explained by personality traits—who the person is—rather than by beliefs and desires—what the person thinks. Consequences of this view for the debate between simulation theory and theory theory, as well as the debate on chimpanzee theory of mind are discussed.     

Understanding of others’ knowledge in French and Japanese children: A comparative study with a disambiguation task on 16–38-month-olds

In order to explain the cultural differences reported in the results of false-belief tasks, we attempted to verify the ‘task bias hypothesis’ suggested by certain studies (e.g. Tardif et al. (2004). Journal of Child Language, 31, 779–800; Rubio-Fernandez & Geurts (2013). Psychological Science, 24(1), 27–33. doi 10.1177/0956797612447819). At the same time, we aimed to observe the theory of mind (ToM) ability of infants and young children under the age of three in verbal communication. To this end, we propose a new protocol to test young children's ToM ability, with particular attention paid to the linguistic aspect of the task. This original disambiguation task using proper nouns (first names) was tested on a total of 32 children aged between 16 and 38 months, in France and Japan. The results revealed that after the age of 30 months children begin to correctly interpret nouns while simultaneously taking into account their partner's knowledge (50% of the French and 29% of the Japanese children were successful), whereas this remains difficult for younger children (no child under 30 months was successful). The analysis of error types has shown that ‘memory bias’ was dominant in younger children in particular and ‘association bias’ was rarely observed across all ages. Given that the results of French and Japanese children did not differ significantly, we assume that this new task design could minimise the influence of cultural difference caused by the characteristics of different languages.     

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。     

A nonverbal test of knowledge attribution: a comparative study on dogs and children

The sensitivity of eleven pet dogs and eleven 2.5-year-old children to others’ past perceptual access was tested for object-specificity in a playful, nonverbal task in which a human Helper’s knowledge state regarding the whereabouts of a hidden toy and a stick (a tool necessary for getting the out-of-reach toy) was systematically manipulated. In the four experimental conditions the Helper either participated or was absent during hiding of the toy and the stick and therefore she knew the place(s) of (1) both the toy and the stick, (2) only the toy, (3) only the stick or (4) neither of them. The subjects observed the hiding processes, but they could not reach the objects, so they had to involve the Helper to retrieve the toy. The dogs were more inclined to signal the place of the toy in each condition and indicated the location of the stick only sporadically. However the children signalled both the location of the toy and that of the stick in those situations when the Helper had similar knowledge regarding the whereabouts of them (i.e. knew or ignored both of them), and in those conditions in which the Helper was ignorant of the whereabouts of only one object the children indicated the place of this object more often than that of the known one. At the same time however, both dogs and children signalled the place of the toy more frequently if the Helper had been absent during toy-hiding compared to those conditions when she had participated in the hiding. Although this behaviour appears to correspond with the Helper’s knowledge state, even the subtle distinction made by the children can be interpreted without a casual understanding of knowledge-formation in others.     

成人在错误信念任务上的表现

考察成人在错误信念(FB)任务上是否存在"知识偏差"效应。实验1重复Birch等的实验程序并未得到与之一致的结果,成人在FB任务上的表现不理想,且无"知识偏差"效应存在。实验2排除琴盒位置及颜色的突出性影响后,结果与实验1相似。成人在FB任务上的不佳表现与成人具有心理理论的事实相悖,说明把通过FB任务作为衡量心理理论的唯一评定标准有待商榷。     

Do the right thing: The assumption of optimality in lay decision theory and causal judgment

Human decision-making is often characterized as irrational and suboptimal. Here we ask whether people nonetheless assume optimal choices from other decision-makers: Are people intuitive classical economists? In seven experiments, we show that an agent’s perceived optimality in choice affects attributions of responsibility and causation for the outcomes of their actions. We use this paradigm to examine several issues in lay decision theory, including how responsibility judgments depend on the efficacy of the agent’s actual and counterfactual choices (Experiments 1–3), individual differences in responsibility assignment strategies (Experiment 4), and how people conceptualize decisions involving trade-offs among multiple goals (Experiments 5–6). We also find similar results using everyday decision problems (Experiment 7). Taken together, these experiments show that attributions of responsibility depend not only on what decision-makers do, but also on the quality of the options they choose not to take.     

Age-Related Changes in Children's and Adults’ Explanations of Interpersonal Actions

We investigated the content of children's and adults’ explanations of interpersonal actions. Participants were 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children, as well as adults, who were presented with 8 stories containing either prosocial or antisocial target actions, and asked to explain why each actor performed that action. In half of the stories, an interpersonal event preceded the action. Children and adults provided situational and mental-state explanations, but mental-state explanations were especially common for antisocial actions not preceded by an interpersonal event. With increasing age, participants explained prosocial actions by referring to the actor's goals, but referred to the actor's emotions and beliefs to explain antisocial actions. Finally, adults were most likely to mention psychological goals. These results suggest that (a) elementary school children provide a variety of explanations for interpersonal events; (b) children use different types of explanations flexibly, depending on the context and nature of the target action; (c) the frequency of different types of explanations for interpersonal actions changes during childhood; and (d) between middle childhood and adulthood, the recognition of psychological goals increases greatly.     

Plans or Outcomes: How Do We Attribute Intelligence to Others?

Humans routinely make inferences about both the contents and the workings of other minds based on observed actions. People consider what others want or know, but also how intelligent, rational, or attentive they might be. Here, we introduce a new methodology for quantitatively studying the mechanisms people use to attribute intelligence to others based on their behavior. We focus on two key judgments previously proposed in the literature: judgments based on observed outcomes (you're smart if you won the game) and judgments based on evaluating the quality of an agent's planning that led to their outcomes (you're smart if you made the right choice, even if you didn't succeed). We present a novel task, the maze search task (MST), in which participants rate the intelligence of agents searching a maze for a hidden goal. We model outcome-based attributions based on the observed utility of the agent upon achieving a goal, with higher utilities indicating higher intelligence, and model planning-based attributions by measuring the proximity of the observed actions to an ideal planner, such that agents who produce closer approximations of optimal plans are seen as more intelligent. We examine human attributions of intelligence in three experiments that use MST and find that participants used both outcome and planning as indicators of intelligence. However, observing the outcome was not necessary, and participants still made planning-based attributions of intelligence when the outcome was not observed. We also found that the weights individuals placed on plans and on outcome correlated with an individual's ability to engage in cognitive reflection. Our results suggest that people attribute intelligence based on plans given sufficient context and cognitive resources and rely on the outcome when computational resources or context are limited.     

Knowledge Attributions and Behavioral Predictions

Recent work has shown that knowledge attributions affect how people think others should behave, more so than belief attributions do. This paper reports two experiments providing evidence that (a) knowledge attributions also affect behavioral predictions more strongly than belief attributions do, and (b) knowledge attributions facilitate faster behavioral predictions than belief attributions do. Thus, knowledge attributions play multiple critical roles in social cognition, guiding judgments about how people should and will behave.     

The origins of belief representation: Monkeys fail to automatically represent others’ beliefs

Young infants’ successful performance on false belief tasks has led several researchers to argue that there may be a core knowledge system for representing the beliefs of other agents, emerging early in human development and constraining automatic belief processing into adulthood. One way to investigate this purported core belief representation system is to examine whether non-human primates share such a system. Although non-human primates have historically performed poorly on false belief tasks that require executive function capacities, little work has explored how primates perform on more automatic measures of belief processing. To get at this issue, we modified Kovács et al. (2010)’s test of automatic belief representation to examine whether one non-human primate species—the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta)—is automatically influenced by another agent’s beliefs when tracking an object’s location. Monkeys saw an event in which a human agent watched an apple move back and forth between two boxes and an outcome in which one box was revealed to be empty. By occluding segments of the apple’s movement from either the monkey or the agent, we manipulated both the monkeys’ belief (true or false) and agent’s belief (true or false) about the final location of the apple. We found that monkeys looked longer at events that violated their own beliefs than at events that were consistent with their beliefs. In contrast to human infants, however, monkeys’ expectations were not influenced by another agent’s beliefs, suggesting that belief representation may be an aspect of core knowledge unique to humans.     

三岁之前幼儿对错误信念的理解

关于幼儿开始理解错误信念的年龄,一直存在激烈的争论。目前颇具影响力的观点认为,幼儿只有在4岁左右才能理解错误信念,3岁幼儿至多只能隐性理解错误信念。支持这种观点的证据主要来自于对幼儿的错误信念的言语实验。由于这些实验结果被认为与言语测试范式相关,越来越多的实验采用非言语测试方法,结果发现3岁,甚至3岁之前幼儿就能够理解错误信念。同时,这一观点也获得了一些理论证据的支持。     

儿童在错误信念任务上的知识偏差

采用3种任务考查儿童在错误信念（FB）推理中是否存在知识偏差。被试为60名3—5岁幼儿,结果表明,对于3岁及4岁儿童来说,FB任务是存在知识偏差的。知识偏差的大小与年龄呈负相关关系,3岁与4岁、4岁与5岁儿童的知识偏差的大小均有显著差异。     

False belief and language comprehension in Cantonese-speaking children

The current research compared two accounts of the relation between language and false belief in children, namely that (a) language is generally related to false belief because both require secondary representation in a social-interactional context and that (b) specific language structures that explicitly code metarepresentation contribute uniquely to the language-false belief relation. In three studies, attempts were made to correlate Cantonese-speaking children's false belief with their general language comprehension and understanding of certain structures that explicitly express metarepresentational knowledge. Results showed that these structures failed to predict false belief after age, nonverbal intelligence, and general language comprehension were considered. In contrast, general language remained predictive of false belief after controlling for age, nonverbal intelligence, and language structures. The current findings are more consistent with a general language account than a language structure account.