Pantomime and Theory of Mind

Suddendorf, Thomas; Fletcher-Flinn, Claire M.; Johnston, Leah

doi:10.1080/00221329909595378

Cited by 28 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Earlier false-belief understanding has recently been found to be significantly correlated with various factors, including number of siblings (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;Perner, Ruffinan, & Leekam, 1994), language ability (Jenkins & Astington, 1996;, metalinguistic skills (Fletcher-Flinn & Snelson, 1997), computer use (Fletcher-Flinn & Suddendorf, 1996, attachment security (Fonagy, Redfern, & Charman, 1997), imaginary object pantomime Suddendorf, Fletcher-Flinn, & Johnston, 1999;M. Taylor & Carlson, 1997), working memory (Davis & Pratt, 1995;Keenan, Olson, & Marini, in press), and social competence (Lalonde & Chandler, 1995).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's Divergent Thinking Improves When They Understand False Beliefs

Suddendorf¹,

Fletcher-Flinn²

1999

Creativity Research Journal

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Much research has recently been devoted to the study of the development of a representational theory of mind. By about age 4 most children understand that people, including they themselves, may misrepresent the world (e.g., Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1983; Gopnik & Astington, 1988;Moore, Pure, & Furrow, 1990; Perrier, Leekam, & Wimmer, 1987;Wimmer & Perrier, 1983). This understanding of false belief is evidence for a representational theory of mind, because it implies an understanding that mental states are attitudes to representations of the world, rather than attitudes to direct copies of reality (Dennett, 1978;Wimmer & Perrier, 1983). Although some research suggests that even 3-year-old children may be able to pass simpler versions of classic theory-of-mind tasks (Chandler & Hala, 1994;Saltmarsh, Mitchell, & Robinson, 1995;Sullivan & Winner, 1993) and may have an implicit understanding of belief (Clements & Perrier, 1994, many researchers maintain the traditional view that fundamental cognitive changes are responsible for 4-year-olds' understanding of false beliefs (e.g., Flavell, 1993;Olson, 1993;Perner, 1995). This research was supported by a Telecom New Zealand research grant to Claire M. Fletcher-Flinn.We thank the children, parents, and teachers of the participating kindergartens. We are grateful to Linda Harris for her assistance in testing the children. We appreciate the thoughtful comments by Michael Corballis and Thomas Keenan on an earlier version of this manuscript.The participating children were a subset of a larger study on the effects of computers on young children. The falsebelief data is expected to be published also in the context of this computer project.Manuscript

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Children's Divergent Thinking Improves When They Understand False Beliefs

Suddendorf¹,

Fletcher-Flinn²

1999

Creativity Research Journal

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“…In reality, there are multiple types of pantomime (Boyatzis and Watson 1993;O'Reilly 1995;Suddendorf et al 1999), and the differences between them have important evolutionary and developmental implications that are not discussed in gestural models of language origin. To a first approximation, there is a distinction between egocentric and allocentric pantomimes.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Proto-actingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pantomime might be the most fundamental form of pretense (Suddendorf et al 1999). When miming, a person is pretending to perform some action or pretending that a part of their body is some other object.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Proto-actingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proto-Acting as a New Concept: Personal Mimicry and the Origins of Role Playing

Brown¹

2017

Humanities

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Proto-acting is introduced here as a new concept that refers to a set of processes that are intermediate between everyday role playing (in the Erving Goffman sense) and dramatic acting. Its most characteristic process is the voluntary act of personal mimicry, which can occur in everyday contexts, such as quoting someone during conversation, or in performance contexts, such as impressionism. Proto-acting involves character portrayal, but on a much simpler and more transient scale than in dramatic acting, where a person may portray a character for an extended period of time during a stage performance. For example, this might involve impersonating the characters while reading a bedtime story to a child, or children themselves portraying characters while engaging in pretend play. Other key features of proto-acting are that it tends to be driven by gesture, have minimal scripting, and involve short bouts of alternation between the self and characters. Proto-acting, as based on personal mimicry, might provide a cognitive foundation for dramatic acting in human development. Moreover, proto-acting itself might be underlain evolutionarily by the process of pantomime, which often involves intentional mimicry of the actions of other people. Hence, the proto-acting concept is able to shed light on processes relevant to cognition, development, the performing arts, and human evolution.

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“…With this ability children can also distinguish between appearance and reality and can understand representational change (e.g., Gopnik & Astington, 1988). Other correlates include episodic memory (Perner & Ruffman, 1995), divergent thinking , imaginary object pantomime (Suddendorf, Fletcher-Flinn & Johnston, 1997) and a host of other skills that I categorize under the label metamind (Suddendorf, in press). Heyes is right that there is as yet no convincing evidence for a representational theory of mind in nonhuman primates, nor is the evidence convincing for any of the correlates of metarepresentation.…”

Section: Simpler For Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simpler for evolution: Secondary representation in apes, children, and ancestors

Suddendorf

1998

Behav Brain Sci

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Great apes show behavioural evidence for secondary representation similar to that of children of about two years of age. However, there is no convincing evidence for metarepresentation in apes. A good evolutionary interpretation should be parsimonious and must bring developmental and comparative data in accord. I propose a model based on the work of Perner (1991) and close by pointing out a logical flaw in Heyes' second proposed experiment.

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Pantomime and Theory of Mind

Cited by 28 publications

References 40 publications

Children's Divergent Thinking Improves When They Understand False Beliefs

Children's Divergent Thinking Improves When They Understand False Beliefs

Proto-Acting as a New Concept: Personal Mimicry and the Origins of Role Playing

Simpler for evolution: Secondary representation in apes, children, and ancestors

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