A Unified Account of General Learning Mechanisms and Theory‐of‐Mind Development

Abstract

Abstract. Modularity theorists have challenged that there are, or could be, general learning mechanisms that explain theory-of-mind development. In response, supporters of the 'scientific theory-theory' account of theory-of-mind development have appealed to children's use of auxiliary hypotheses and probabilistic causal modeling. This article argues that these general learning mechanisms are not sufficient to meet the modularist's challenge. The article then explores an alternative domain-general learning mechanism by proposing that children grasp the concept belief through the progressive alignment of relational structure that occurs as a result of structural-comparison. The article also explores the implications of the proposed account for Fodor's puzzle of conceptual learning.

Structure Mapping for Social Learning

“…Several researchers have posited that the process of alignment can foster the development of ToM (Bach, 2014;Baldwin & Saylor, 2005;Pham, Bonawitz, & Gopnik, 2012;San Juan & Astington, 2012). While infants have been shown to have an early understanding of ToM (see Baillargeon, Scott, & He, 2010 for a review), there is ample evidence that this ability develops between 3 and 5 years of age (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001).…”

Analogical Comparison Promotes Theory‐of‐Mind Development

“…This is important in considering ToM learning because the key insights needed for ToM are relational in nature (Bach, 2014; Baldwin & Saylor, 2005; Lohmann & Tomasello, 2003). For example, if a child hears that “X believes that Y is true,” they need to understand that this describes a relation between X and Y—roughly, believes ( X , Y ), rather than “Y is true.” To take a more complex example, consider the belief‐desire schema described by Bartsch and Wellman (1995)— persons who desire the content of a representation P and believe that action A will bring about the realization of P are disposed to perform action A .…”

“…This schema is part of the ToM knowledge that a child must come to understand (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995). As Bach (2014) puts it: “it is often overlooked that the belief‐desire law is a relational category. The members of relational categories are united on the basis of shared relational structure, e.g.…”

“…As new instances are aligned with the schema, it is further abstracted (Ferry et al, 2015; Kuehne, Forbus, Gentner, & Quinn, 2000). Thus, although the initial schema may be context‐specific, applying it to further instances results in gradual abstraction (Bach, 2014; Gentner & Medina, 1998).…”

“…Nor are we the first to propose that structure mapping is a key mechanism in ToM development. For instance, Bach (2014) reviewed theories of ToM learning and suggested that structure mapping offers a plausible mechanism for how children could gain such insight from experience: “A central appeal of Gentner and colleagues' structure‐mapping theory is its explanation for how learners develop relational category knowledge. The core idea is that comparison, which involves the structural‐alignment of two representations, induces an epistemic focus on relations while demoting the epistemic importance of object‐realizers.…”