Assess the claim that a test of false belief is a good tool for investigating children PDF

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Assesses the effectiveness of false belief tasks in children....

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False Belief and Theory of Mind

“Assess the claim that a test of false belief is a good tool for investigating children’s developing understanding of the mind” Theory of mind is a psychological concept in which people are able to understand other individuals’ mental states and therefore predict their behaviour. Children on the autism spectrum often have a deficit in this ability (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) as well as many other developmental disorders causing a lack of theory of mind. One way in which the ability can be tested is using false belief tests. A false belief means to believe that something is true when in reality it isn’t. Therefore, it may be possible to use a false belief test to see if children can understand that other people may not be aware of the same information as they are. However, there have been mixed success rates when using this type of testing (Wellman et al., 2003) and so this essay will evaluate whether the false belief test really can be used to explore children’s development of theory of mind. While it is argued that false belief testing is an efficient way of investigating the child’s mind, it is criticised as some children may be too young to understand the task and what is being asked of them (Perner et al,.1987). The Sally Anne test, developed by Baron-Cohen et al (1985), involved children watching dolls re-enact a story in which Sally puts a marble in her basket then leaves the scene, Anne then comes in and moves the marble from Sally’s basket into a box; the children will then be asked where Sally will look for her marble when she returns. Theoretically, this is a well-made test to observe if children understand that Sally has a false belief of the marble’s location, as they know where the marble is. However, this task may be too difficult for younger children to follow. Perner et al (1987) found that children aged 3 or under would fail at this task simply due to their short attention span and limited understanding of language. Children at such a young age may not stay concentrated 1

False Belief and Theory of Mind

enough to follow the narrative or they may fail the test due to lack of understanding: if they think they’re being asked where the marble is rather than where Sally thinks it is. In this case, the false belief task is inefficient at investigating the development of children’s understanding of the mind as it cannot be applied to all ages. However, it is possible that the above is only a criticism for certain types of false belief tasks and it may be possible to adjust the test to make it more accessible to the younger infants. Buttelmann et al (2009) were able to devise a false belief test that appeared to prove that infants as young as 18 months old have understanding of the beliefs and mental states of others. The study consisted of two experimenters, two lockable boxes and a toy. Experimenter 1 first taught the infant how to lock and unlock the boxes, making sure the child was able to do so independently. The toy was placed in one box and experimenter 2 then left. While gone, experimenter 1 moved the toy to the other box and locked them both. Experimenter 2 then returned and started trying to open the original box, showing clear disappointment at not being able to get the toy. Buttelmann et al (2009) found that 83.3% of infants would help experimenter 2 by unlocking the second box to show where the toy was – therefore demonstrating their understanding of the experimenter’s distress of not being able to find the toy (rather than distress of being unable to open box 1) and their knowledge of the experimenter’s false belief. Consequently, this would suggest that the false belief task is indeed an effective tool for testing if children of varying ages can understand the mind and mental states of others, as long as the test is made simple enough for infants to follow. This test could however be criticised for having a sample of only 24 infants (Buttelmann et al, 2009), as the small sample could question whether there are really enough results for the study to be generalisable to all children. 2

False Belief and Theory of Mind

Southgate et al (2007) provided further reason to suggest that the false belief can be used to assess children’s developing understanding of the mind, regardless of the young age. A false belief experiment was conducted with 2-year-old toddlers to show an infant can use their own knowledge and understanding to predict another’s behaviour. In this study, toddlers watched a video where an actor placed a toy in a box. While the actor was not looking, the toy was moved to another box before the actor then returned his gaze. Eye trackers were used to find that, upon the actors return, 17 out of the 20 tested toddlers looked at the original box – consequently showing that the child was correctly predicting the actor’s false belief and where he would look for the toy (Southgate et al 2007). Unfortunately, due to the small sample once again used, it can be unsure whether the results can be generalised to all children of that age. However, this false belief test could prove to be a reliable test when considering children’s developing understanding of the mind as participants would not require any linguistic abilities or an especially long attention span to show they understand the thoughts of an individual. In conclusion, false belief tasks do appear to be a relatively good tool for investigating children’s developing understanding of the mind. There are faults to be found with specific false belief tests, such as the Sally Anne test (Baron-Cohen, 1985) in which cases the test may be too complex for very young infants to understand, but these can be adjusted to make it more understandable for a younger sample. Further research may need to be carried out with larger samples as much of the existing research appears to have small sample sizes of which lack generalisability. Overall, false belief testing is a highly effective method of seeing if and when a child is able to understand the mental states and behaviours of others.

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False Belief and Theory of Mind

References Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the Autistic Child Have A “Theory of Mind”?, Cognition, 21 (1), 37-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/00100277(85)90022-8 Baron-Cohen, S., Tager-Flusberg, H. & Cohen, D. J. (2001). Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (2nd ed.). OUP Oxford Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M. & Tomasello, M. (2009). Eighteen-Month-Old Infants Show False Belief Understanding in An Active Helping Paradigm, Cognition, 112 (2), 337-342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.05.006 Perner, J., Leekam, S. R. & Wimmer, H. (1987). Three-Year-Olds’ Difficulty with False Belief: The Case for A Conceptual Deficit, Developmental Psychology, 5 (2), 125-137. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-835X.1987.tb01048.x Southgate, V., Senju, A. & Csibra, G. (2007). Action Anticipation Through Attribution of False Belief by 2-Year-Olds, Psychological Science, 18 (7), 587-592. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14679280.2007.01944.x Wellman, H. M., Cross, D. & Watson, J. (2003). Meta-Analysis of Theory-of-Mind Development: The Truth about False Belief, Child Development, 72 (3), 665684. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00304

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False Belief and Theory of Mind

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