1Knowledge of Other Peopleand Oneself• “naïve psychology”: Children’s common-sense levelof understanding of people.• Three psychological constructs are at the center ofnaïve psychology, the ideas that people commonly useto understand human behavior:– Desires– Beliefs– Actions.What do infants know about people?• Intentions: the goal or desire to act in a certainway.• Self: recognizing themselves. (self video)… beyond infancy?• Theory of mind (2-5 years): the basicunderstanding of how the mind works andinfluences behavior.• A theory of mind includes knowledge of:– Perceptions (see, hear, smell, touch, feel)– psychological states (emotions, desires, beliefs)– actions.Wellman’s model of preschoolersTheory of Mindunderstanding the connections between others’ desiresand their actions.2Theory of Mind:False Belief ProblemsFalse-belief problems test children’s understanding thatother people will act in accord with their own beliefseven if the child knows that those beliefs are incorrect.(Smarties video)Some findings in false-belief problems:– 3-year-olds fail, cross-culturally.– 3-year-olds more likely to succeed if they collaboratewith experimenter to deceive another child– 4-year-olds succeedInformation Processing on Theory of Mind• What processes and representations are necessary tosolve the task?• Theory of mind improves due to the growth of generalinformation-processing skills essential to understandingother people's minds, such as keeping track ofconflicting information.Socio-cultural Theories on Theory of Mind• Theory of mind comes from interactions with people.• Children with older siblings do better in false-belief task.•Child as product of evolution. Focus on innate knowledge in areas that have beenimportant to people through human history. Specialized learning mechanisms - For example,language acquisition device. Children’s informal theories: Children activelyorganize their understanding into informal theoriesrelated to important domains like psychology, biology,and physics.Change occurs through:Specialized learning mechanismsActively organizing experiences into theoriesCore Knowledge Theories3Core Knowledge on Theory of Mind• There is a Theory of Mind Module (TOMM), a brainmechanism devoted to understanding others which maturesover the first five years of life.Children with Autism• Autism: a syndrome that involves a variety of intellectual andemotional difficulties.– Rarely form close relationships.– Show greater interest in objects than people.– Engage in solitary repetitive behavior.– Lack normal language skills, specifically using verbs such as “know” or“think”– Most do not engage in pretend play• Children with autism find tasks that test understanding of theknowledge of other people's minds particularly hard.• Theories on the nature of