Three-year-olds' theories of mind are symbolic but of low complexity

Halford, Graeme S.; Andrews, Glenda

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00682

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Perner 1999, 2003); for an attempt in terms of varying relational complexity of the underlying representations, see (Halford and Andrews 2014)? Empirically, there are two sets of questions raised in this context that are currently hotly debated: First, are precocious infant ToM capacities really restricted to task formats tapping mere looking behaviour-arguably good indicators of utterly implicit and automatic processes-or do children before age 4 reveal their nascent ToM capacities in behaviours more rationally guided and integrated such active anticipatory helping (Rhodes and Brandone 2014) or even spontaneous verbal behaviour (Rubio-Fernández and Geurts 2013)?…”

Section: The Relation Of 2-systems-accounts and More Traditional Concmentioning

confidence: 98%

In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

Rakoczy

2015

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When do children acquire a propositional attitude folk psychology or theory of mind? The orthodox answer to this central question of developmental ToM research had long been that around age 4 children begin to apply "belief" and other propositional attitude concepts. This orthodoxy has recently come under serious attack, though, from two sides: Scoffers complain that it over-estimates children's early competence and claim that a proper understanding of propositional attitudes emerges only much later. Boosters criticize the orthodoxy for underestimating early competence and claim that even infants ascribe beliefs. In this paper, the orthodoxy is defended on empirical grounds against these two kinds of attacks. On the basis of new evidence, not only can the two attacks safely be countered, but the orthodox claim can actually be strengthened, corroborated and refined: what emerges around age 4 is an explicit, unified, flexibly conceptual capacity to ascribe propositional attitudes. This unified conceptual capacity contrasts with the less sophisticated, less unified implicit forms of tracking simpler mental states present in ontogeny long before. This refined version of the orthodoxy can thus most plausibly be spelled out in some form of 2-systemsaccount of theory of mind.Keywords Theory of mind · Social cognition · Intensionality · Cognitive development When in ontogeny do children acquire a folk psychology or "theory of mind" (ToM)-the conceptual framework of propositional attitudes with which we describe and explain each other? This central question of developmental ToM research has been dis-B Hannes Rakoczy

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Section: The Relation Of 2-systems-accounts and More Traditional Concmentioning

confidence: 98%

In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

Rakoczy

2015

Synthese

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“…The relational complexity metric has been applied to tasks in many different content domains including transitive inference (Halford, 1984 ; Andrews and Halford, 1998 ; Andrews, 2010 ; Andrews and Mihelic, 2014 ), suppositional reasoning (Birney and Halford, 2002 ), categorical syllogisms (Zielinski et al, 2010 ), conditional reasoning (Cocchi et al, 2014 ), class inclusion (Halford and Leitch, 1989 ), inferences based on classification hierarchies (Halford et al, 2002b ), card sorting (Halford et al, 2007a ), balance scale reasoning (Halford et al, 2002a ; Andrews et al, 2009 ), numerical reasoning (English and Halford, 1995 ; Andrews and Halford, 2002 ; Knox et al, 2010 ), and theory of mind (Andrews et al, 2003 ; Halford and Andrews, 2014 ), as well as decision making in gambling tasks (Bunch et al, 2007 ; Andrews et al, 2008 ), delay of gratification (Bunch and Andrews, 2012 ), reversal learning and conditional discrimination (Andrews et al, 2012 ), and comprehension of relative clause sentence (Andrews et al, 2006 ). The breadth with which the relational complexity metric has been (can be) applied contrasts with other metrics that apply to specific content domains or tasks with a specific structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning Following Stroke: A Relational Complexity Approach Using the Tower of London

Andrews¹,

Halford²,

Chappell³

et al. 2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Planning on the 4-disk version of the Tower of London (TOL4) was examined in stroke patients and unimpaired controls. Overall TOL4 solution scores indicated impaired planning in the frontal stroke but not non-frontal stroke patients. Consistent with the claim that processing the relations between current states, intermediate states, and goal states is a key process in planning, the domain-general relational complexity metric was a good indicator of the experienced difficulty of TOL4 problems. The relational complexity metric shared variance with task-specific metrics of moves to solution and search depth. Frontal stroke patients showed impaired planning compared to controls on problems at all three complexity levels, but at only two of the three levels of moves to solution, search depth and goal ambiguity. Non-frontal stroke patients showed impaired planning only on the most difficult quaternary-relational and high search depth problems. An independent measure of relational processing (viz., Latin square task) predicted TOL4 solution scores after controlling for stroke status and location, and executive processing (Trail Making Test). The findings suggest that planning involves a domain-general capacity for relational processing that depends on the frontal brain regions.

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“…They adapted calibration feedback consisting of information about performance as well as about the monitoring accuracy. However, young children that are not yet able to process ternary relations ( Halford & Andrews, 2014 ) or the low-performers ( Urban & Urban, 2018 , 2020 ) may have difficulties to take into account this rather complex external cue, but they are able to improve their monitoring accuracy when performance feedback is provided.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Children are able to perform analogies if they can represent the relevant relations. Children from the age of 2 can represent binary relations and from the age of 5 to 6 they can process ternary relations ( Halford & Andrews, 2014 ). If there is a causal relation between analogical reasoning and uncertainty monitoring, preschoolers should be able to adjust their uncertainty monitoring in relation to feedback.…”

Section: Overconfidence At the Preschool Agementioning

confidence: 99%

Anchoring effect of performance feedback on accuracy of metacognitive monitoring in preschool children

Urban

2021

Eur. J. Psychol.

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Preschool children are generally inaccurate at evaluating past and predicting future performance. The present study examines the effect of performance feedback on the accuracy of preschoolers’ predictive judgments and tests whether performance feedback acts as an anchor for postdictive judgments. In Experiment 1, preschool children (n = 40) solved number patterns, and in Experiment 2 they solved object patterns (n = 59). The results in both experiments revealed, firstly, that children receiving performance feedback made more accurate predictive judgments and lowered their certainty after their incorrect answer. Secondly, the children relied on performance feedback more than on actual task experience when making postdictive judgments, indicating that performance feedback was used as an anchor for subsequent postdictive judgments.

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Three-year-olds' theories of mind are symbolic but of low complexity

Cited by 5 publications

References 7 publications

In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

In defense of a developmental dogma: children acquire propositional attitude folk psychology around age 4

Planning Following Stroke: A Relational Complexity Approach Using the Tower of London

Anchoring effect of performance feedback on accuracy of metacognitive monitoring in preschool children

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