A Problem for Minimal Theory of Mind

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Background

Mindreading is the process of identifying a mental state as a mental state that some particular individual, another or yourself, has. To say someone has a theory of mind is another way of saying that she is capable of mindreading.

Butterfill & Apperly (2013) constructed a minimal theory of mind. This theory describes a model of minds and actions which, if it were implemented, would enable you to track others’ false beliefs. At least within limits.

This minimal model has a signature limit: it does not enable you to track false beliefs which essentially involve a mistake about numerical identity. Such as Lois Lane’s false belief that Superman and Clark Kent are distinct people (Jerry & Joe, 1939).

Signature limits generate predictions. Automatic belief-tracking in adults, and belief-tracking in infants, are both subject to signature limits associated with minimal theory of mind.^[1]

The Kovács Effect

Kovács, Téglás, & Endress (2010) established that another’s irrelevant belief can influence how quickly you can detect the presence of an object. Despite some initial doubts (Phillips et al., 2015), this finding has been widely replicated by several labs (including Wel, Sebanz, & Knoblich, 2014; Edwards & Low, 2017; El Kaddouri, Bardi, De Bremaeker, Brass, & Wiersema, 2020).

Question

Why do others’ false beliefs ever have an effect on your own actions?

Motor Mindreading Conjecture

Predictions of the Conjecture

In motor mindreading only, goal-tracking will manifest sensitivity to agents’ beliefs.
In motor mindreading only, physically constraining protagonists or participants will impair belief tracking.

This talk concerns the second prediction only.

Findings So Far

Low, Edwards, & Butterfill (2020) support the prediction: physically constraining a protagonist did impair belief tracking.

Six (2022, p. Experiment 2) did not support the prediction: physically constraining participants did not impair their belief tracking.

And the results from a study in preparation that builds on Zani, Butterfill, & Low (2020)’s balance paradigm found only suggestive evidence for the prediction.

Glossary

automatic : As we use the term, a process is automatic just if whether or not it occurs is to a significant extent independent of your current task, motivations and intentions. To say that mindreading is automatic is to say that it involves only automatic processes. The term `automatic' has been used in a variety of ways by other authors: see Moors (2014, p. 22) for a one-page overview, Moors & De Houwer (2006) for a detailed theoretical review, or Bargh (1992) for a classic and very readable introduction

model : A model is a way some part or aspect of the world could be.

signature limit : A signature limit of a system is a pattern of behaviour the system exhibits which is both defective given what the system is for and peculiar to that system. A signature limit of a model is a set of predictions derivable from the model which are incorrect, and which are not predictions of other models under consideration.

tracking an attribute : For a process to track an attribute or thing is for the presence or absence of the attribute or thing to make a difference to how the process unfolds, where this is not an accident. (And for a system or device to track an attribute is for some process in that system or device to track it.)
Tracking an attribute or thing is contrasted with computing it. Unlike tracking, computing typically requires that the attribute be represented.

References

Bargh, J. A. (1992). The Ecology of Automaticity: Toward Establishing the Conditions Needed to Produce Automatic Processing Effects. The American Journal of Psychology, 105(2), 181–199. https://doi.org/10.2307/1423027

Butterfill, S. A., & Apperly, I. A. (2013). How to construct a minimal theory of mind. Mind and Language, 28(5), 606–637.

Carruthers, P. (2015a). Mindreading in adults: Evaluating two-systems views. Synthese, forthcoming, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0792-3

Carruthers, P. (2015b). Two systems for mindreading? Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 7(1), 141–162. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-015-0259-y

Edwards, K., & Low, J. (2017). Reaction time profiles of adults’ action prediction reveal two mindreading systems. Cognition, 160, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.12.004

Edwards, K., & Low, J. (2019). Level 2 perspective-taking distinguishes automatic and non-automatic belief-tracking. Cognition, 193, 104017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104017

El Kaddouri, R., Bardi, L., De Bremaeker, D., Brass, M., & Wiersema, J. R. (2020). Measuring spontaneous mentalizing with a ball detection task: Putting the attention-check hypothesis by Phillips and colleagues (2015) to the test. Psychological Research, 84(x), 1749–1757. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01181-7

Fizke, E., Butterfill, S. A., Loo, L. van de, Reindl, E., & Rakoczy, H. (2017). Signature limits in early theory of mind: Toddlers spontaneously take into account false beliefs about an objects’ location but not about its identity. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, forthcoming.

Jerry, S., & Joe, S. (1939). Superman. Superman., (1).

Kampis, D., & Kovács, Á. M. (2022). Seeing the World From Others’ Perspective: 14-Month-Olds Show Altercentric Modulation Effects by Others’ Beliefs. Open Mind, 5, 189–207. https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00050

Kovács, Á. M., Téglás, E., & Endress, A. D. (2010). The social sense: Susceptibility to others’ beliefs in human infants and adults. Science, 330(6012), 1830–1834. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1190792

Kulke, L., von Duhn, B., Schneider, D., & Rakoczy, H. (2018). Is Implicit Theory of Mind a Real and Robust Phenomenon? Results From a Systematic Replication Study. Psychological Science, 0956797617747090. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617747090

Low, J., Drummond, W., Walmsley, A., & Wang, B. (2014). Representing how rabbits quack and competitors act: Limits on preschoolers’ efficient ability to track perspective. Child Development, forthcoming.

Low, J., Edwards, K., & Butterfill, S. A. (2020). Visibly constraining an agent modulates observers’ automatic false-belief tracking. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 11311. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68240-7

Low, J., & Watts, J. (2013). Attributing false-beliefs about object identity is a signature blindspot in humans’ efficient mindreading system. Psychological Science, 24(3), 305–311.

Moors, A. (2014). Examining the mapping problem in dual process models. In Dual process theories of the social mind (pp. 20–34). Guilford.

Moors, A., & De Houwer, J. (2006). Automaticity: A Theoretical and Conceptual Analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(2), 297–326. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.2.297

Mozuraitis, M., Chambers, C. G., & Daneman, M. (2015). Privileged versus shared knowledge about object identity in real-time referential processing. Cognition, 142, 148–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.05.001

Oktay-Gür, N., Schulz, A., & Rakoczy, H. (2018). Children exhibit different performance patterns in explicit and implicit theory of mind tasks. Cognition, 173, 60–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.01.001

Phillips, J., Ong, D. C., Surtees, A. D. R., Xin, Y., Williams, S., Saxe, R., & Frank, M. C. (2015). A Second Look at Automatic Theory of Mind: Reconsidering Kovács, Téglás, and Endress (2010). Psychological Science, 26(9), 1353–1367. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614558717

Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(04), 515–526. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00076512

Scott, R. M., Richman, J. C., & Baillargeon, R. (2015). Infants understand deceptive intentions to implant false beliefs about identity: New evidence for early mentalistic reasoning. Cognitive Psychology, 82, 32–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2015.08.003

Sinigaglia, C., Quarona, D., Riva, G., & Butterfill, S. A. (2021). Seeing ain‘t believing: How we read other minds. In Preparation, x(x).

Six, P. (2022). Observing Action in Uncertainty: The Role of Belief-tracking in Action Observation (Thesis). Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. https://doi.org/10.26686/wgtn.19669581

Wang, B., Hadi, N. S. A., & Low, J. (2015). Limits on efficient human mindreading: Convergence across chinese adults and semai children. British Journal of Psychology, 106(4), 724–740. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12121

Wel, R. P. R. D. van der, Sebanz, N., & Knoblich, G. (2014). Do people automatically track others’ beliefs? Evidence from a continuous measure. Cognition, 130(1), 128–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.10.004

Zani, G., Butterfill, S. A., & Low, J. (2020). Mindreading in the balance: Adults’ mediolateral leaning and anticipatory looking foretell others’ action preparation in a false-belief interactive task. Royal Society Open Science, 7(1), 191167. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191167

Endnotes

In favour: Wang, Hadi, & Low (2015); Low & Watts (2013); Low, Drummond, Walmsley, & Wang (2014); Mozuraitis, Chambers, & Daneman (2015); Edwards & Low (2017); Fizke, Butterfill, Loo, Reindl, & Rakoczy (2017); Oktay-Gür, Schulz, & Rakoczy (2018); Edwards & Low (2017); Edwards & Low (2019). Against: Kulke, von Duhn, Schneider, & Rakoczy (2018) argue that although the paradigm from Low & Watts (2013) replicates, attempts to modify it to avoid confounding factors do not produce comparable results. See also Scott, Richman, & Baillargeon (2015); Carruthers (2015); Carruthers (2015a); Kampis & Kovács (2022). ↩︎