Gheorghiu Eugen Bogdan

MA Cognitive Science
Theory of Mind

Exploring Mindreading (ToM- Theory of Mind) as a cognitive gadget

When someone thinks about Mindreading, it may natively tend to assume some magic
qualities in its profile and to be something that only a mentalist magician could do. Nevertheless,
thinking more closely, we see it as an ability to map another person’s mental space by reading
cues broadcasted by their words, emotions, and body language. It is something that we
constantly do when we interact with others (analyzing, judging, and assuming or figuring out
others' behaviors). Mindreading, also classically known as Theory of mind (ToM), allows oneself
to perceive the unique mental states of others (thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, knowledge,
intentions, desires, emotions). Besides knowing others and anticipating their future actions, this
ability, represents a basis for learning and teaching while also serving the development of social
behavior and skills (Hayes C., 2018).
Regarding its appearance in humans, Evolutionary Psychology viewed mindreading and other
distinctively cognitive mechanisms, as genetically inherited, and thus instinctively present. While
newer views through the eyes of Cognitive Evolutionary Psychology, a field that is studying the
interaction between both culture and genes, has brought some researchers (Hayes C., 2018), to
proposes a theory of cognitive gadgets, which says that distinctively cognitive mechanisms (e.g.
Math, Mindreading, Moral Reasoning, Imitation, Mental mapping, Causal cognition, Social trust,
Mental Time Travel, Language) are not genetically inherited, but in fact, products of development
built in the mind; A product of cultural evolution, developed in the course of childhood and by
means of social interaction. This may mean that mindreading is not something that just a mental
magician can do, it’s something that everybody can do, once they learn how to do it. This is very
important to explore because if cultural information passed down through social interactions
between generations builds all of this human distinctively mechanisms mentioned above, then
culture must rank as a crucial factor of human development as do genetic inherited information
and environmental variables.
Mindreading as cognitive Gadget

In support of a cognitive gadget theory, we can look at cultural variations and how different is
the nature of ToM for children that grow up in different cultural communities with different folk
ideas, that is, some cultures stimulate faster the development of false belief understanding or
the development of certain mental-states concepts before other ones. For this type of
comparison, parallels have been made between Western and non-Western cultures, since not
only language is different between let’s say Chinese and US children, but also information,
experience, and values. For example, it has been found that Chinese culture focuses more on
group commonalities and knowledge acquisition, whereas Western culture tends to be more
cultural driven towards independence and understanding of truth or falsity of belief (Markus &
Kitayama, 1991; Wellman, 2014; Krassner et al.,2016). This, encourages Chinese children
towards a tendency to understand Knowledge Access (KA) before Diverse Belief (DB), while in US
children, DB understanding, precedes KA understanding (Wellman, 2014). Moreover, it is known
that European people are considered responsible for their own behavior and not of others,
whereas in contrast, Japan culture promotes from a preschool age, a responsibility for their
classmate’s actions (Lillard A., 1998). It is hard not to find cultural variations in ToM, since even
looking at religion, and its different views of regarding the perceptual influence of etheric entities
(e.g gods, spirits, ancestors) on one’s mental states or others, changes the quality of a
mindreading outcome. Not to mention the fact that Western folk bases more on
science/scientific culture, which stimulates a psychological view and specific choosing of words
when thinking about other individuals' mental states, especially in terms of meaning attribution.
And while also intention understanding is important in ToM as we know it, some cultures seem
to evaluate actions objectively without taking intention into account. (Lillard A., 1998). Based on
these cultural variations, and other (Lillard A., 1998), it seems safe to assume that mindreading,
or better say ToM understandings are products of social and conceptual background that vary
between communities.

Parallel to this, research that highlights subject-object experience and human interactions
(Piaget 1977/1995 cited in Carpendale, 2004; Chapman, 1991/1999 cited in Carpendale, 2004)
present the idea that concepts about other minds are not only passed on from the social group,
or developed by the child as a theorist (e.g. Theory-Theory), but instead unfold gradually by
constant regular experience while interacting with others and learning more in a step-by-step
manner. For example, this may be because children naturally build knowledge about the physical
world around them, and so, start building knowledge about other people as well. And while
knowledge of the world may crystalize to some degree, children may find themselves in social
interactions where other people emit different beliefs about the world. This may arise as a
contradiction in the child, hence stimulating a change in expectations from other minds and their
beliefs. The child may learn that access to information through seeing or hearing plays a very
important role in self and other belief formation, that is, how they and others acquire knowledge.
Summarizing this argument, we can say that understanding others comes through practical and
regular interactions with others in the world (Carpendale M., Lewis C., 2004).
Other theories

Contrary to a cognitive gadget theory, an innate-modular view of ToM, argues that despite
culture variability, the difference in languages and social experiences, there is still an innately
programmed maturation of ToM (Wellman, 2014). Professor Henry M. Wellman, brings together
in his book “Making minds: Theory of mind develops”, developmental data that tested not only
the false belief understanding of preschoolers, but also finer childhood understandings of other
states of mind such as Diverse Desires (DD- different desires about the same thing), Diverse
Beliefs (DB – different beliefs about the same thing), Knowledge Access (KA –knowledge or
ignorance of others), False Belief (FB – believing something different than the truth), and Hidden
Emotion (HE- incongruence between someone’s feelings and exposed emotions). Experiential
testing of related tasks has Interestingly shown that this order (DD>DB>KA>FB>HE) also
represents the development order in approximately 80% of studied children (Wellman, 2014)
Furthermore, this percent has been consistent across many countries; US preschooler’s
(Wellman et al., 2011; Wellman & Liu, 2004; Wellman, Lopez-Duran, LaBounty, & Hamilton,
2008), Australia (Peterson & Wellman, 2009 cited in Wellman, 2014), Germany (Kristen S. et al.,
2006). Moreover, without looking at the sequential development proposal of Tom, and just
focusing on the main element of ToM (false belief understanding), studies known in this field,
indicate that children from different parts of the world pass the false belief task at around the
same age (Callaghan et al., 2005). And while these improvements were tested using the standard
“toddlers” test, where children are explicitly asked to give answers, new research using
spontaneous response tasks that do not draw on language for an answer, present an implicit ToM
from even a preverbal age. (Andreas M., Birgit T., 2013). A sort of automatic mindreading (from
7 months old) that takes into account the beliefs of adults, no matter if the beliefs are irrelevant
to the task. This may mean that false belief understanding at a preverbal is represented by a
universally present psychological adaptation.

Parallel to this, simulation theory (Goldman A., Vittorio G., 1998), refers to mirror neurons as
key elements in ToM. Considered a new class of visuomotor neurons studied in monkeys, these
neurons are found in the premotor cortex and activate both when the monkey does an action or
observes another monkey doing the same action. While the same cortical system may be present
in humans, it has been proposed that its function could be that of Imitation and detecting certain
mental states of the same species. Interestingly to note, is that an observed action doesn’t only
produce an activation of the same neural pattern as the active doing of such action by the
observer, but also muscle fiber facilitation in the same muscle groups as of the observed
individual (without necessary performing the motoric action). Furthermore, human experimental
participants were told a story about 2 individuals that lost the plane by 5 minutes and respectively
30 minutes, and then asked which would they think is more upset, 96% of them replied that the
individual who lost the plane by 5 minutes will be most upset (Josef Perner, Birgit Lang, 1999).
This, consequently means that they placed themselves in the “shoes” of the other persons and
checked mental states in relation to personal knowledge. So, in the eyes of the Simulation Theory,
we don’t need to represent others' mental states, we just mirror their condition, or maybe it
could be that the Mirror Neuron System serves as a precursor to such a process as mindreading.
References:
Andreas Mayer, Birgit Träuble, 2013 - Synchrony in the onset of mental state understanding
across cultures? A study among children in Samoa; Article in International Journal of Behavioral
Development 37(1):21-28, January 2013

Callaghan et al., 2005 - Callaghan T, Rochat P, Lillard A, Claux ML, Odden H, Itakura S, Tapanya
S, Singh S.; May 2005; Synchrony in the onset of mental-state reasoning: evidence from five
cultures; 16(5), 378-384.)
Carpendale M. Jeremy, Lewis C.; 2004 March, Constructing an Understanding of Mind: the
Development of Children's Social Understanding within Social Interaction; Behavioral and Brain
Sciences 27(1):79-96; discussion 96-151 DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X04000032

Goldman Alvin, Vittorio Gallese, 1998 December; Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of
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Wellman & Liu, 2004; 23 March; Scaling of Theory‐of‐Mind
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