畆癣慩獡-Investigating Theory of Mind in autismFulvia Castell.ppt

 Investigating Theory of Mind in autism Fulvia Castelli California Institute of Technology 2006 Plan of the talk The concept of Theory of Mind Sherlock Holmes Investigating Theory of Mind “Off-line”language-based paradigms “On-line” non language-based paradigm A research model A Multi-layered Theory of Mind ability Theory of Mind tasks The Animation task: mental states attribution The Valley Task: intended goal-attribution ToM Sherlock Holmes In “A scandal in Bohemia”, Sherlock Holmes has been instructed by his client to find a photograph that a lady has safely concealed in her house. SH cunning plan is to make the lady think that her living room is on fire by tossing in a smoke rocket and raising a fire alarm. What happens afterwards is exactly what SH had predicted: the lady fears that the fire would destroy the photograph, and wants to secure it. She opens the secret hiding place, and doing so she revealed it to SH. Sherlock Holmes solved the case by attributing the correct mental states to the lady and predicting her actions The concept of Intentionality Intentionality is the feature that sets completely apart mental states from physical states: Mental states ( beliefs, desires, intentions, thoughts, hopes, remembrances) point towards objects or states of affairs that do not exists “here and now”, that can be true or false, or even paradoxical. Some examples: “John believes that drinking water is safe, and that drinking H2O is poisonous” John has contrasting beliefs that point towards the same object “John believes that the French Monarchy has a king” John has a false belief pointing towards a non-existing state of affair The “classic” ToM Paradigm (False Belief): the Sally-Ann task (Baron-Cohen et al, 1985) Reading Sally’s mind: “When she is back, where will she look for her marble?” False belief test 4 years old typically developing children pass FB test 3 years old typically developing children do not pass FB test