Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-06T06:18:30.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Beyond knowledge versus belief: The contents of mental-state representations and their underlying computations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

Mika Asaba
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA. masaba@stanford.edu; chuey@stanford.edu; hyo@stanford.eduhttps://sll.stanford.edu
Aaron Chuey
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA. masaba@stanford.edu; chuey@stanford.edu; hyo@stanford.eduhttps://sll.stanford.edu
Hyowon Gweon
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94305, USA. masaba@stanford.edu; chuey@stanford.edu; hyo@stanford.eduhttps://sll.stanford.edu

Abstract

Moving beyond distinguishing knowledge and beliefs, we propose two lines of inquiry for the next generation of theory of mind (ToM) research: (1) characterizing the contents of different mental-state representations and (2) formalizing the computations that generate such contents. Studying how children reason about what others think of the self provides an illuminating window into the richness and flexibility of human social cognition.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asaba, M., & Gweon, H. (2018). Look, I can do it! Young children forego opportunities to teach others to demonstrate their own competence. In Kalish, C., Rau, M., Zhu, J., & Rogers, T. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 40th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 106111). Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Asaba, M., & Gweon, H. (2021). Young children rationally revise and maintain what others think of them. PsyArxiv. Preprint doi: 10.31234/osf.io/yxhv5.Google Scholar
Baker, C. L., Jara-Ettinger, J., Saxe, R., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2017). Rational quantitative attribution of beliefs, desires and percepts in human mentalizing. Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 110. doi: 10.1038/s41562-017-0064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dörrenberg, S., Rakoczy, H., & Liszkowski, U. (2018). How (not) to measure infant theory of mind: Testing the replicability and validity of four non-verbal measures. Cognitive Development, 46, 1230. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.01.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jara-Ettinger, J., Schulz, L. E., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2020). The naïve utility calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding. Cognitive Psychology, 123, 101334. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Onishi, K. H., & Baillargeon, R. (2005). Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs? Science, 308(5719), 255258. doi: 10.1126/science.1107621.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Powell, L. J., Hobbs, K., Bardis, A., Carey, S., & Saxe, R. (2018). Replications of implicit theory of mind tasks with varying representational demands. Cognitive Development, 46, 4050. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.10.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surian, L., Caldi, S., & Sperber, D. (2007). Attribution of beliefs by 13-month-old infants. Psychological Science, 18(7), 580586. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01943.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed