The effect of social role on theory of mind reasoning

Rutherford, M. D.

doi:10.1348/000712604322779488

Cited by 36 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Behavioral evidence for SWM comes from studies showing that as social cognitive load increases, mentalizing performance decreases (Kinderman et al, 1998; Rutherford, 2004; Apperly et al, 2007), a behavioral profile consistent with working memory research which suggests that working memory is a limited capacity system (see; Miyake and Shah, 1999 for a review). For example, adults show increased errors on mentalizing tasks as a function of the number of embedded beliefs maintained (i.e., “Bob thinks that John knew that Mary wanted to go to the shop”; Kinderman et al, 1998).…”

Section: What Is Social Working Memory?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Working Memory: Neurocognitive Networks and Directions for Future Research

Meyer¹,

Lieberman²

2012

Front. Psychology

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Navigating the social world requires the ability to maintain and manipulate information about people’s beliefs, traits, and mental states. We characterize this capacity as social working memory (SWM). To date, very little research has explored this phenomenon, in part because of the assumption that general working memory systems would support working memory for social information. Various lines of research, however, suggest that social cognitive processing relies on a neurocognitive network (i.e., the “mentalizing network”) that is functionally distinct from, and considered antagonistic with, the canonical working memory network. Here, we review evidence suggesting that demanding social cognition requires SWM and that both the mentalizing and canonical working memory neurocognitive networks support SWM. The neural data run counter to the common finding of parametric decreases in mentalizing regions as a function of working memory demand and suggest that the mentalizing network can support demanding cognition, when it is demanding social cognition. Implications for individual differences in social cognition and pathologies of social cognition are discussed.

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Section: What Is Social Working Memory?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Working Memory: Neurocognitive Networks and Directions for Future Research

Meyer¹,

Lieberman²

2012

Front. Psychology

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“…Rutherford (2004) used the classical false belief task to evaluate whether social status can indeed affect mindreading. Subjects first participated in a general quiz game, but unbeknownst to them some received an easy version and the others, a difficult version, leading to two groups, the Winners and the Losers.…”

Section: To Appear In Quaterly Journal Of Experimental Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Frames of Reference in Social Cognition

Vignemont

2008

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Abstract:How is mindreading affected by social context? It is often implicitly assumed that there is one single way to understand others, whatever the situation or the identity of the person. In contrast, I emphasize the duality of functions of mindreading (social interaction and social observation), as well as the duality of social frames of reference (egocentric and allocentric). I argue in favour of a functional distinction between knowledge-oriented mindreading and interaction-oriented mindreading. They both aim at understanding other people"s behaviour. But they do so using different strategies.However, to say that mindreading has two functions does not suffice to show that there are two kinds of mindreading. One and the same ability could accomplish different functions. Unfortunately, there has been almost no experimental data on a possible dissociation between two kinds of mindreading abilities. Nonetheless, I discuss a few results that point towards a dual ability. To appear in Quaterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 3What would be more relevant to Uta Frith"s work and personality than to focus on the social dimension of cognition? I will not detail here how she has been able to create a real family atmosphere within her group and within the ICN, or how enjoyable it is to work with her. I will rather highlight some of the ideas that we had developed together in previous papers about social frames of reference (Frith and de Vignemont, 2005;de Vignemont and Frith, 2007). We suggested that there is more than one way to understand others and that it depends on the frame of reference of our social understanding. Here I will develop and refine the hypothesis of a dual mindreading ability. Social observation and social interactionThe problem of other minds -or how I can understand others -has often been understood in such a way that there seems to be only one unique valid answer. The context should not matter, nor should the identity of the person one tries to understand.You could be conversing with someone, or seeing her converse with someone else; it could be your mother or a stranger in the street: the problem would stay the same, and the solution too. The literature in cognitive psychology for more than twenty years now has indeed provided a rather unilateral view of mindreading and social cognition. It is often assumed that there is one single way to understand the other, although people disagree on its nature. It is also often assumed that it is accomplished by a unique brain structure dedicated to the representation of mental states, like the temporo-parietal junction for instance (Saxe, 2006). Although Saxe agrees that social cognition involves more than that, she views mindreading per se as a unique ability realised by a unique brain structure. I will call this assumption the Single Perspective view. (1932), he made a distinction between two fundamental kinds of relationship with the other: social interaction and social observation. These two kinds of relationship are both oriented toward others. ...

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“…The relative absence of ToM in many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), associated with deficits presumably attributable to differences in brain structure, supports this notion, implying that 'mind reading', in an absolute sense, is available in an all-or-none fashion (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985). Modular theories are complicated by the observation, especially among adults, that ToM skills vary along a continuum (e.g., Rutherford, 2004). While these variations may be accounted for by suggesting that the ToM module is informed by, and informs, other cognitive structures that are themselves variable between and within individuals, and that may thus be flawed or misinformed, the way in which any such module actually works remains an interesting source of conjecture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for deploying theory of mind in adults: theory vs simulation isnoteither/or

Ball

Besozzi

Ball

et al. 2013

The Irish Journal of Psychology

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Finding measures of theory of mind (ToM) that are robustly related to contemporary measures of personality, we developed 10 scenarios reflecting either folk theory or simulation approaches to ToM deployment. Participants responded to scenarios in one of three formats: (1) by endorsing different descriptions representing possible thought processes of a scenario's protagonist, (2) by guessing whether protagonists had used folk theory or simulation strategy, or (3) by rating the protagonist's use of both strategies using Likert scales. Persons who used the second two rating formats received descriptions of the concepts of folk theory and simulation. Females and those rating possible thought processes, specifically format (1), had significantly greater tendency to endorse folk theory models than did males or those who simply selected theory or simulation (2). Moreover, participants who had more siblings or who fell late in family birth order were more inclined to select folk theory strategies. Individually, six of ten simple-choice scenarios (2) discriminated between theory and simulation strategies. Those scenarios that favoured folk theory had significantly more words and involved power differentials between protagonists and others, while those favouring simulation had fewer words and parity in the depicted relationships. Across all scenarios, the Likert data (3) suggested that participants rated protagonists as using both strategies equally.

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The effect of social role on theory of mind reasoning

Cited by 36 publications

References 28 publications

Social Working Memory: Neurocognitive Networks and Directions for Future Research

Social Working Memory: Neurocognitive Networks and Directions for Future Research

Frames of Reference in Social Cognition

Strategies for deploying theory of mind in adults: theory vs simulation isnoteither/or

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