Perner 2010.pdf

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Page 258258 Pernerbehavior rules but also to minimize the behaviorist connotations and emphasizethat they are probably not conscious rules of the animal reflectively thinking: “ah,when he directs his gaze to . . .” etc”5 It also taints Premack and Woodruff’s (1978, p. 526) snappy defence of mentalism:“the ape could only be a mentalist . . . he is not smart enough to be abehaviorist.”6 These S→A CIPs are called “Behavior Rules” because part of the situation S isthe other individual’s behavior, which also needs to be observed for inferringfurther behavior, i.e., the action A.7 One could use “want” here. Two important points about the use of “want” in thiscontext: (1) Although a mental term is used, it is a quasi-“observable” fact of whatP wants, because one is told it in the story. (2) Although we classify “want” as amental state, it is an open question as to whether it is understood by children (oradults in routine cases) in this way. It can also be understood as a goal specification:he is going to get the object. Hence, I express it in this sort of neutral way.8 In the name of simplicity these arrows cover up much of the actual structure ofthe needed inference rules. For instance: IF P does not see an unexpected transfer,THEN he will think O is at the original location where he last saw it. It is notoriouslydifficult to find rules that cover our mentalist competence. Fortunately, thepresently relevant point is just that whatever rule is needed here, it can be adoptedin the formulation of behavior rules (see below).9 The rule underlying this arrow must stipulate something like: IF P wants to get O,THEN P will go to where he thinks O is. With further reasoning: Since he thinks itis in L1, we will arrive at the prediction that he will go to L1.10 Here too, a great simplification. The actual rule underpinning this arrow would besomething like: IF P is going to get O, THEN he will go to where he last saw O.The important general lesson is not the formulation of a specific behavioral rule,but that some rule is necessary for inferring either the future behavior or P’smental states and that the behavior can be inferred from the same observationalbasis as the mental states.11 My concern about this was raised when asked the question by Dan Povinelliduring the “Other Minds” conference at the University of Oregon in Eugene,September 2003.12 One may wonder how Call and Tomasello’s nonverbal false-belief test couldbe solved by behavior rules. Let us find out by following my recipe for applyingPovinelli’s Challenge: We need to first specify mentalist rules for solving thistask, e.g.:NOT FOR DISTRIBUTIONA person, who looks at an object in a box and does not look when this box isexchanged with an identical looking one, will think the object is now in the replacementbox. If the person is to mark the box with the object inside, the person willwant to mark the box where she thinks the object is, i.e., the now-empty replacementbox. The person marks the box on the left, so the object must be in the other box.This is a surprisingly great feat of reasoning for 4- or 5-year-old children, but abehavior rule approach does not make it more complicated. Only the first twosentences have to be reformulated:IF a person (who looks at an object in a box and does not look when this box isexchanged with an identical looking one) is supposed to mark the box with theobject inside, THEN the person will mark the box where the object was when shelooked inside, i.e., the now empty replacement box. ...13 Most impressively, due to sophisticated eye-tracking equipment, one can literallyPerception, attention, and action:International Perspectives on Psychological Science (Volume1). Peter A. Frensch and Ralf Schwarzer (Eds). 2010.Published by Psychology Press on behalf of the International Union of Psychological Science.This proof is for the use of the author only. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden.15:58:17:03:10Page 258
Page 259Anti-cognitivism infiltrates theory of mind 259see just how interested children at this age are in checking on another person’s eyegaze in relation to an ongoing event. Clearly, they keep carefully track of what theother is and is not looking at.14 In fact, I suspect that these studies can be better explained at a lower level than Iattempt in the text. They all show “smart encoding” by the infants, that is, infantsencode what they see (the S and As) in the same way a mentalist would. But onceencoded in that way, the looking times are governed not by what is expected tohappen but how similar the test situations are to what has occurred before whenthe relevant elements for smart encoding were present (see Perner & Ruffman 2005).15 A term familiar from the psychology of consciousness, e.g., implicit and explicitmemory. Perner and Clements (2000) draw extensive parallels to the implicitknowledge of blind-sight patients.16 Clements (1995, Expt. 5) varied belief-inducing situations to check whether theymake a larger difference for the indirect test (looking in expectation) than thedirect test, which would provide some evidence that indirect test performance isbased on behavior rules, in contrast to direct test performance. The interactionbetween situation type and type of test was in the expected direction but too weakto reach statistical significance.17 It remains debatable as to whether behaviorism is or is not mind-blind. It certainlydoesn’t like to talk about it. But presumably the regularities established by learning,which behaviorism tries to capture, reflect the workings of the mind.NOT FOR DISTRIBUTIONReferencesApperly, I. A. (2008, July). How does theory of mind change from children to adults?Paper presented at the XXIX International Congress of Psychology, Berlin.Apperly, I. A., & Butterfill, S. A. (2008). Do humans have two systems to track beliefsand belief-like states? Unpublished manuscript, Department of Psychologty, Universityof Birmingham.Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Sixteen-month-olds showfalse belief understanding in an active helping paradigm. Unpublished manuscript,Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institutefor Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (1999). A nonverbal false belief task: The performance ofchildren and great apes. Child Development, 70(2), 381–395.Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?30 years later. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 187–192.Chandler, M. J., Fritz, A. S., & Hala, S. M. (1989). Small scale deceit: Deception as amarker of 2-, 3- and 4-years-olds’ early theories of mind. Child Development, 60,1263–1227.Clements, W. A. (1995). Implicit theories of mind. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,University of Sussex.Clements, W. A., & Perner, J. (1994). Implicit understanding of belief. CognitiveDevelopment, 9, 377–397.Dienes, Z., & Perner, J. (1999). A theory of implicit and explicit knowledge [Targetarticle]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 735–755.Doherty, M. J., & Perner, J. (1998). Metalinguistic awareness and theory of mind: Justtwo words for the same thing? Cognitive Development, 13, 279–305.Garnham, W. A., & Perner, J. (2001). Actions really do speak louder than words – butonly implicitly: Young children’s understanding of false belief in action. BritishJournal of Developmental Psychology, 19, 413–432.Perception, attention, and action:International Perspectives on Psychological Science (Volume1). Peter A. Frensch and Ralf Schwarzer (Eds). 2010.Published by Psychology Press on behalf of the International Union of Psychological Science.This proof is for the use of the author only. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden.15:58:17:03:10Page 259
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