Feature

What's in that Child's Mind?

How children view the world has implications for how they act in it.

Thomas Keenan and Megan Harvey

The study of psychology has, for most of its history, been fundamentally concerned with the human mind -- its nature, how it works, and how it develops. Today, many developmental psychologists believe that preschool children are concerned with a similar set of questions, developing what many researchers refer to as a theory of mind.

A great deal of research suggests that during the preschool years (ages 2 to 4), young children are developing an understanding that both they and others have minds and that the mind is the seat of thinking and consciousness. They understand that people have beliefs, desires, and intentions. Furthermore, children begin to understand that people act on the basis of their beliefs and not on the basis of reality.

Around the age of 4 to 5, children begin to lie effectively, to empathise with other people, to understand non-literal language such as sarcasm, and they show a new level of sophistication in their social interactions. Each of these accomplishments relies on the development of an awareness and understanding of the mind.

Research on the child's developing understanding of mind has suggested that there are at least two distinct stages in the child's growing awareness of mind. Young preschoolers are said to hold a "copy theory of mind". By saying that, we mean that children have some understanding that people have beliefs, desires, and intentions; however, children who hold a copy theory incorrectly believe that peoples' minds are connected directly to the world, that their beliefs or desires are literal copies of reality. In other words, peoples' beliefs reflect the way the world is.

For example, if a 3-year-old sees a small part of a picture and guesses that it's a flower, but then sees that the picture really shows a rabbit, the child will tend to claim that they originally thought the picture was of a rabbit. In addition, the child will tend to assume that another person who sees the same restricted view will also think that the picture shows a rabbit. They believe that thoughts are copies of reality.

In contrast, around age 4 children develop a representational theory of mind (RTM) where the child understands that people mentally represent the world to themselves. These representations can be faithful to the world or they can misrepresent it (that is, they can be false). Thus, with an RTM, children understand that people can hold very different or even conflicting mental representations of the same thing. Using the above example, a 4-year-old would be more likely to acknowledge that they and the other person would think the picture could be different things.

How do we demonstrate the presence of a representational theory of mind in children's reasoning?

Stemming from the work done with chimpanzees, a test known as the "false belief task" has been used to demonstrate that a child has an RTM. In the false belief task, a child watches as one of two puppets places an object, such as chocolate, in a red box. This puppet then leaves the scene and it is explained to the child that while the puppet is away, it can't hear or see what is going on. Next, the other puppet takes the object from the red box and places it in a green box. Finally, the first puppet returns and the child subject is asked "Where will puppet look for her chocolate?" or "Where will she think her chocolate is?"

Most 3-year-olds will fail this task, incorrectly claiming that the puppet would look where the chocolate really is. These children clearly hold a copy theory of the mind, assuming that the puppet's belief will directly reflect reality. On the other hand, most 4-year-olds demonstrate an RTM, predicting that the puppet would look where she originally put the chocolate. These older children understand that the puppet would hold a false belief, and moreover, would act on the basis of her belief and not on reality.

We call the child's understanding a "theory of mind" because it takes the form of a theory in that he/she has to postulate the existence of unseen entities (beliefs, desires, feelings, thoughts) and to understand how they relate to each other (e.g., desires give rise to beliefs and actions). Furthermore, children actively evaluate the evidence for their theory, revising or discarding their theory when they encounter evidence that the theory cannot explain. Many researchers have used the metaphor of the "child as scientist" to describe how children's theories develop, arguing that development is a process of theory construction and revision.

How Does a Theory of Mind Develop?

Whereas a great deal of research has gone into the attempt to answer the question of when children first acquire a representational theory of mind, less research has been focused on the question of how theory of mind development takes place. Advocates of the "theory theory" argue that children's acquisition of an understanding of mind takes place following the general principles of conceptual change. Children form theories, evaluate these on the basis of evidence, and update their theories in the light of contradictory evidence. Research on the child's theory of mind has demonstrated that there is relatively good evidence that these processes of theory change do underlie the child's developing understanding of mind, but not all researchers find this account completely satisfying.

The "theory theory" account fails to acknowledge other changes in cognition which might also further the child's developing understanding. One such change is the increase in working memory, which increases throughout development until it reaches its peak around adolescence. A number of researchers have suggested that this developing capacity to hold increasing amounts of information actively "in mind" allows for the development of more complex mental representations of a situation, and thus for a more advanced understanding of the world.

Research by Tom Keenan at the University of Canterbury has shown that children's working memory, measured by the number of items which they could remember over a short period of time, predicted their performance on a series of false belief tasks, even when their age and language ability were statistically controlled for.

This research suggests increases in working memory allow the child to form more powerful and complex theories which better explain people's behavior. As children's working memory develops, they find themselves able to consider more evidence in relation to a theory which may spur the processes of theory change which are so important to the "theory theory" account of development. Keenan's claim is not that the "theory theory"is incorrect, but rather that it is in need of revision.

Individual Differences

Another recent trend has been to examine whether there are individual differences associated with the child's acquisition of a theory of mind. A recent review of this work suggested that there are at least three ways in which individual differences have been examined in relation to the child's theory of mind.

First, researchers have begun to examine the potential consequences of the delayed development of a theory of mind. Recent studies have made a connection between conduct disorder and delays in the child's acquisition of a theory of mind. That is, children who acquire a theory of mind late seem to be at risk of developing behavior problems, problems which usually take the form of externalising disorders (acting up in class, fighting, and other aggressive behaviors).

Other theoretical work has suggested that delays in acquiring a theory of mind may be the start of a developmental pathway which leads to serious long-term consequences such as aggressive behavior towards others, but this hypothesis has not yet been examined empirically.

Second, researchers have started to look at the contexts and the mechanisms that lead to differences in when and how children acquire a theory of mind. For example, differences in the types of language parents use with their children have been linked to the earlier acquisition of a theory of mind. Parents who use a great deal of talk about feelings and other mental states in their conversations with their children tend to have children who are successful on false-belief tasks earlier than children whose parents use less of this sort of language.

Other research has shown that parents whose disciplinary strategies would include discussing the feelings and perspectives of others, as opposed to parents who simply command their children without talking about feelings and perspectives, tend to have children who excel on theory-of-mind tasks. In general, the research literature suggests that there are a great deal of individual differences in when children acquire a theory of mind.

Third, the suggestion has been made that there might be rather significant cross-cultural variations in the make-up of peoples' theories of mind. While there has been relatively little cross-cultural work on theory of mind, psychologists are beginning to examine how cultural beliefs and practices might lead to different ways of viewing the mind. The studies done to date have demonstrated some striking differences in the make-up of a theory of mind as a function of cultural differences, but most children seem to acquire the basics in a similar fashion at around the same age.

In summary, the work on individual differences in the child's theory of mind suggests that there are some interesting patterns of difference in the acquisition, content, and nature of theory of mind. These differences are in need of further study and offer the promise of further illuminating our understanding of the developmental processes that underlie the acquisition of a theory of mind.

What Difference Does it Make?

Given the relatively well-documented developments that have been observed in the child's developing understanding of the mind, it is worth asking the question "what differences does a representational theory of mind make?" That is, what kinds of changes would we expect to see in the mental life of a child who has developed a representational understanding of the mind?

This question is important for two reasons. First, if children really do develop a "theory" of mind, then we would expect to see changes consistent with the acquisition of a theory, that is, across the board changes in the child's understanding of mental life. Second, the child's acquisition of a theory of mind acts as a powerful developmental organiser, wherein changes in the child's understanding of mind will have a significant impact on related developments, particularly on his or her social cognition. Thus, we should expect to see a number of changes which hinge on children acquisition of a representational theory of mind.

Children's language development is one of these areas of change. While children are reasonably fluent in their language by the preschool years, they are far from being competent speakers. They often fail to understand simple speech acts where the speaker's true meaning differs from what they actually say, such as when people speak metaphorically or sarcastically.

In our lab, we have demonstrated that children who do well on theory-of-mind tasks are more likely to be able to comprehend a sarcastic speaker than children who fail these tasks. We see this relationship as suggesting that the child requires a representational theory of mind in order to understand simple sarcasm. When someone speaks sarcastically, they say one thing but mean another by it. They don't intend their audience to take them literally; rather, they want the audience to understand their true meaning. Clearly, understanding such speech requires the child to have an awareness of minds and to recognise that while people might say one thing, they can really believe something different.

Another area in which we might expect to see developmental changes is in children's play. One type of play that develops rapidly in the preschool years is pantomime, or the gestural representation of objects. Using gestures is an important part of communication in addition to being an aspect of children's play. Thomas Suddendorf of the University of Auckland has suggested that with the development of a representational theory of mind, children's gestural representations change.

When asked to pretend to dig with a shovel, 2- and 3-year-old children will most often use their hand to represent the digging function of a shovel. In contrast, 4-year-olds tend to pretend they are holding an imaginary shovel when they dig. The younger children need to use a body part to "stand in" for the imagined object while the older children show the function of the object and understand that the viewer will fill in the object by mentally representing it.

Suddendorf's research suggests that children who have a representational theory of mind, as measured by traditional theory-of-mind tasks, have a more mature understanding of pantomime than do children who fail these tasks.

Perhaps one of the most important questions to be asked is "how does the child's acquisition of a representational theory of mind affect their social development?" Our research on sarcasm comprehension suggests that children are developing a more sophisticated awareness of the role of mental life in communication.

Children's ability to understand deception is another example of where an RTM might come into play in everyday life. Relatively little research has been conducted looking at questions such as the relationship between theory of mind and social competence. In one piece of research, it was shown that children who did well on a battery of theory-of-mind tasks were also rated by their teachers (who were unaware of children's performance on these tasks) as more socially competent, that is, rated as being more socially mature and in better control of themselves.

Our lab is engaged in the next step in this research, seeing whether or not children's performance on theory-of-mind tasks in the early preschool years predicts their level of social competence in a play situation with a same-aged peer. Our belief is that the acquisition of a RTM is an integral component of real world social competency and therefore, we should observe differences in social behavior between children who consolidate these skills early and those who do not.

Research on the child's theory of mind is moving forward and shows no signs of slowing. Moving from an initial focus on when children acquire a representational theory of mind, the field has begun to encompass other important and interesting questions such as how children acquire a theory of mind, what differences exist between children's theories, and the developmental consequences of acquiring a theory of mind.

Research has begun to delve into each of these questions and some interesting insights have been generated, but a great deal of further work is still required. Our expectation is that with time and effort, a deeper comprehension of the child's theory of mind and the consequences for their social and cognitive development can be obtained.

Megan Harvey is in the University of Canterbury's Psychology Department.
Thomas Keenan is in the University of Canterbury's Psychology Department.