Submentalizing Cannot Explain Belief-Based Action Anticipation in Apes

Kano, Fumihiro; Krupenye, Christopher; Call, Josep; Tomasello, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.011

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…To conclude, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether infants attribute false beliefs to inanimate agents in the VOE paradigm given that most studies investigating false belief attribution to inanimate agents were conducted using the anticipatory looking task (e.g. Kano et al, 2017;Surian & Geraci, 2012); only a single study used a looking time task (e.g. Tauzin & Gergely, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, one recent study tested apes with a design in which the human agent was replaced with an inanimate agent to test false belief (i.e. moving geometric shape), and the pattern of anticipatory looking initially observed with a human agent was not replicated (Kano, Krupenye, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, ). This was a follow‐up to a previous study reporting that apes anticipated where a person would look for an object after the apes witnessed a change of location in her absence (Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane

Burnside

Severdija

Poulin‐Dubois

2019

Developmental Science

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The mentalistic view of early theory of mind posits that infants possess a robust and sophisticated understanding of false belief that is masked by the demands of traditional explicit tasks. Much of the evidence supporting this mentalistic view comes from infants’ looking time at events that violate their expectations about the beliefs of a human agent. We conducted a replication of the violation‐of‐expectation procedure, except that the human agent was replaced by an inanimate agent. Infants watched a toy crane repeatedly move toward a box containing an object. In the absence of the crane, the object changed location. When the crane returned, 16‐month‐old infants looked longer when it turned toward the object's new location, consistent with the attribution of a false belief to the crane. These results suggest that infants spontaneously attribute false beliefs to inanimate agents. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/qqEPPhd9FDo

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane

Burnside

Severdija

Poulin‐Dubois

2019

Developmental Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…If participants show comparable levels of attention, submentalizing predicts that domain‐general processes will elicit common patterns of anticipatory looking, even in inanimate controls. Krupenye, Kano, et al () implemented Heyes's proposed control, and found no evidence that submentalizing could explain the findings from their false belief test (Kano, Krupenye, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, ). These results suggest that apes' ability to predict the behavior of an agent with a false belief is, at the very least, based on a rich understanding of social cues.…”

Section: Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theory of mind in animals: Current and future directions

Krupenye

Call

2019

WIRES Cognitive Science

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120

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Theory of mind (ToM; a.k.a., mind-reading, mentalizing, mental-state attribution, and perspective-taking) is the ability to ascribe mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to others, and it is central to the unique forms of communication, cooperation, and culture that define our species. As a result, for 40 years, researchers have endeavored to determine whether ToM is itself unique to humans. Investigations in other species (e.g., apes, monkeys, corvids) are essential to understand the mechanistic underpinnings and evolutionary origins of this capacity across taxa, including humans. We review the literature on ToM in nonhuman animals, suggesting that some species share foundational social cognitive mechanisms with humans. We focus principally on innovations of the last decade and pressing directions for future work. Underexplored types of social cognition have been targeted, including ascription of mental states, such as desires and beliefs, that require simultaneously representing one's own and another's conflicting motives or views of the world.Ongoing efforts probe the motivational facets of ToM, how flexibly animals can recruit social cognitive skills across cooperative and competitive settings, and appropriate motivational contexts for comparative inquiry. Finally, novel methodological and empirical approaches have brought new species (e.g., lemurs, dogs) into the lab, implemented critical controls to elucidate underlying mechanisms, and contributed powerful new techniques (e.g., looking-time, eye-tracking) that open the door to unexplored approaches for studying animal minds. These innovations in cognition, motivation, and method promise fruitful progress in the years to come, in understanding the nature and origin of ToM in humans and other species. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Psychology > Comparative Psychology Neuroscience > Cognition K E Y W O R D S animal cognition, comparative psychology, evolutionary psychology, mental state attribution, perspective taking, social cognition, theory of mind

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“…She had proposed that the apes' behavior may have been driven by an association between location and the color of the protagonist's shirt, rather than by a representation of the protagonist's false belief. She does not mention, however, that although they thought her proposal quite unlikely, Kano, Krupenye, Hirata, Call and Tomasello () took up Heyes' challenge and ran a control experiment, with null effects. And of course here (as in the infancy domain) false‐belief is just one kind of mental state that we have evidence apes can represent, in any case.…”

Section: Mindreadingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive instincts versus cognitive gadgets: A fallacy

Roige

Carruthers

2019

Mind & Language

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The main thesis of Heyes' book is that all of the domain‐specific learning mechanisms that make the human mind so different from the minds of other animals are culturally created and culturally acquired gadgets. The only innate differences are some motivational tweaks, enhanced capacities for associative learning, and enhanced executive function abilities. But Heyes' argument depends on contrasting cognitive gadgets with cognitive instincts, which are said to be innately specified. This ignores what has for some years been the mainstream nativist/anti‐empiricist view, which commits only to partially specified learning systems that become elaborated and built through domain‐specific learning.

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Submentalizing Cannot Explain Belief-Based Action Anticipation in Apes

Cited by 22 publications

References 11 publications

Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane

Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane

Theory of mind in animals: Current and future directions

Cognitive instincts versus cognitive gadgets: A fallacy

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