9.94.Saxe.ppt - MIT

Going beyond the information given:

Understanding other minds

Rebecca Saxe

BCS

QuickTime™ and aH.263 decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

What do you see?

Watch and then write.

Do the words you used indicate:

- Gender?

- Goals or desires? (e.g. wants, tries)

- Emotions? (e.g. happy, afraid)

- Personality traits? (e.g. bully)

Going beyond the information given


A hand reaching for a bottle

His intention: to drink the liquid

He believes the liquid is poison

He wants to die

Etc.

He believes Juliet is dead

A “biological” motionWhat we see:

What we understand:

For understanding other minds:

(a domain of mostly invisible entities!)

FICTION

False Beliefs


Unobservable Beliefs (& False Beliefs):

- Not much it feels like to be “believing”

e.g. that today is Wednesday

that drought destroys crops

that your grandmother is older than me

that I have a liver




Unobservable Beliefs (& False Beliefs):

- Not much it feels like to be “believing”

- Especially true for false beliefs:



So where does the concept of “belief” come from?

Which of your current beliefs are false?

Going beyond the information givenSo where does the concept of “belief” come from?

“Theory of Mind”

DESIRES

ACTIONS

--- The World ---

BELIEFS

What evidence?

- certain kinds of failed prediction



Sally

Anne

Where will Sally look for her ball?

3 years old:

“In the box.”



Sally

Anne

Where will Sally look for her ball?

5 years old:

“In the basket.”



ACTIONS

DESIRES

--- The World ---

BELIEFS

Three year olds:

Perfect copy of real world

Five year olds:

“Representation” of real world

FRAME-WORK Theory

Sally will look for her ball…

Romeo will kill himself…

People vote for Bush…



ACTIONS

DESIRES

--- The World ---

BELIEFS

What evidence?


- “self-explanation”- How people talk

-Talking about past events

- Gossips about absent people


“Theory of Mind”Adam Gopnik: Of course Luke didn't have to be told whom they were looking at down there, and why; we both could see it plain as day. They were watching the Rookie, pitching his way out of another pinch.

Yet I began to wonder: What picture did he summon up when, night after night, he heard the words Polo Grounds, full count, all the way to the backstop? [...]

He had never been to a baseball game, never seen a bat or a glove, never been inside a ballpark or even watched a ball game on television. [...] No one Luke knew played baseball, no one talked about it; the words and situations were pure language, pure abstract lore. [...]

But now I said "Polo Grounds" or "full count" and the words called up in my son a powerful reaction.


“Theory of Mind”Deaf children:

- of non-signer vs native-signer parents

Theory of Mind

OR

1. Meta-representation

2. Inhibit reality, respond to belief

3. Falseness Photograph

Camera


“Theory of Mind”Deaf children:

- of non-signer vs native-signer parents

- NOT delayed on false photograph tasks



ACTIONS

DESIRES

--- The World ---

BELIEFS

What evidence?


- “self-explanation”- How people talk

- A special neural mechanism just for understanding minds?


“Theory of Mind”Healthy brains:

False Belief storiesSusie parked her sportscar in the driveway. In the middle of the night. Nathan moved her car into the garage to make room for his minivan. Susie woke up early in the morning.

She expects to see in the drivea sportscar a minivan

False Photo storiesA volcano erupted on this Caribbean island three months ago. Barren lava rock is all that remains. Satellite photographs show the island as it was before the eruption. In the photos the island is

covered inrock

vegetation


“Theory of Mind”Healthy brains:

False Belief stories False Photo stories

In 90% of individual subjects:

-0.8

-0.4

0

0.4

0.8

1.2

-4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28

BeliefPhoto

Right temporo-parietal junction

Standard Photograph Map

Control

Autistic


“Theory of Mind”Autistic children:-> Suggests that “Theory of Mind” is not just about general intelligence

-> A disanalogy from scientific theories?



ACTIONS

DESIRES

--- The World ---

BELIEFS

An intuitive Theory?

- control and predict the world

- generate explanations, satisfy need for knowledge

- domain specific?

- special neural mechanism?


ACTIONS

DESIRES

--- The World ---

BELIEFS


Non-Theory alternative?

Is there any alternative hypothesis?

“Cells that read minds”?

"Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by thinking."

An alternative hypothesis:A class of cells in monkey MOTOR cortex:

GraspMotor prep.

Response during OBSERVATION:

… same action specificity!

Intensity

Time

A common code for own and other’s actions...

Hand muscle

Watching someone else’s hand moving

Arm muscle

Arm moving

Muscle response

An alternative hypothesis:

“Feeling” someone else’s feelings...

1. Being touched:

2. A video of someone else being touched

Brain response:


“Feeling” someone else’s pain...

Own pain:

Significant other’s pain:


An alternative hypothesis:Do we use “mirror neurones,” instead of an intuitive theory, to understand other minds?

Let’s take a break


Four arguments against:

- A specific thought experiment

- An argument from neuroscience

- An argument from error

- An argument from success


What would a mirror

neuron do?

ACTIONTHOUGHTS

Thought experiment:


An argument from neuroscience:

A group of brain regions involved in “Theory of Mind”

Anatomically and functionally distinct from the “Mirror system”

Your friend Louis is getting very high grades in high school. He is taking AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, and AP Biochemistry.

After he graduates Louis wants to study medicine and his ambition is to become a neurosurgeon.

While you are having a drink together, he tells you that he just received a letter informing him that he was accepted to a premed program at a prestigious university.

* Will Louis have positive or negative feelings with regards to his acceptance?

positive / negative

Background

Mental State

Outcome

Feeling Question

(see Terwogt and Rieffe 2003).

A recent experiment:

Your friend Louis is getting very high grades in high school. He is taking AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, and AP Biochemistry.


While you are having a drink together, he tells you that he just received a letter informing him that he was accepted to a premed program at a prestigious university.

* Will Louis have positive or negative feelings with regards to his acceptance?

positive / negative

Background

Mental State

Outcome

Feeling Question

Scan Details

N = 12 naïve native English speaking, American middle class;

3T scanner, whole brain coverage, slices = 4mm, TR =2

+ Localiser

Story details- matched for word length- counterbalanced both whether the character feels positive or negative, and the side of the correct response. - counterbalanced versions of each story

6.3 s

6.3 s

7.4 s

(Saxe & Wexler, 2005).

4 s


Delayed:

Immediate:Time

Background:Mental state info

delayed 6 s

-0.4

0

0.4

0.8

1.2

1.6

-4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28

immediatedelayed

RTPJ response delayed 6 s?In individual

subject RTPJ ROIs (p<0.05

corrected)

P < 0.01, paired-samples t-test

(Saxe & Wexler, 2005).


Your friend Louis/Jason is getting very high grades in high school. He is taking AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, and AP Biochemistry.


Your friend Louis/Jason comes from a very rich family. There is an unbroken tradition in his family that the sons don’t work for a living. They live on the inheritance and do whatever they like.

“Normal”

“Familiar”

“Foreign”2 x 2 design:Validated by a survey after the scan




Your friend Louis/Jason is getting very high grades in high school. He is taking AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, and AP Biochemistry.


Jason never wants to work in his life. He’d much rather live on his parents’ money, and not bother with college or job.

Your friend Louis/Jason comes from a very rich family. There is an unbroken tradition in his family that the sons don’t work for a living. They live on the inheritance and do whatever they like.

Your friend Andrew/Paul, from high school, lives in Philadelphia. He and his wife have always had an excellent relationship. They almost never fight.

Paul once confided in you that he would find it fun if his wife, outside of their marriage, started a relationship with another man.

Andrew once confided in you that he really hates the idea that his wife might have an affair. Monogamy is very important to him.

Your friend Andrew/Paul, from high school, and his wife have become involved with a cult. Within their cult, extramarital relationships are accepted and occur often.

“Unusual”

“Normal”

“Familiar”

“Foreign”2 x 2 design:Validated by a survey after the scan




Familiar - Normal

Familiar - UnusualForeign- Normal

Foreign-Unusual

Familiar - NormalForeign - Unusual

Familiar - UnusualForeign- Normal

RTPJ recruitment: predictions during Mental State

1. LIKE ME - NOT LIKE ME

Other minds are represented relative to subject’s own mind.

RTPJ response is correlated with how “like me” the other mind is.

2. TRYING TO MAKE SENSE

Other minds are represented as internally coherent wholes.

RTPJ response reflects interaction of background and mental state


Mental States: (6 - 12 sec)

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

Familiar Foreign

NormalUnusualBackground (0 - 6

sec):

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

Background

FamiliarForeign

• During MS, interaction of Background and Mental State, p<0.01

= TRYING TO MAKE SENSE

RTPJ recruitment:

= No sig. effects

Just for Beliefs and Desires



An argument from error:

Adam Gopnik: "Hey, look, that's the Chief" I announced proudly, opening the old baseball encyclopedia at his bedside. He paused, looked at the picture, looked back at me - peering in, for a moment - and then he got a funny, guilty smile on his face that I had never seen there before.

"Oh," he said, peering intently at the picture. "I thought it was his mother."

"What do you mean?" I said, surprised.

"I mean, I knew it was - but I thought it was. I mean I knew it was a man... but I thought he was the mother," he continued, stumbling a little. "I thought it was his mother."

ACTIONS

DESIRES

--- The World ---

BELIEFS

Three year olds:


Five year olds:

“Representation” of real world



Three year olds:




The “Appearance - Reality” distinction:

It looks like a rock.

It feels and moves like a sponge.

What will it look like to the next child, when he comes in?

Three year olds:




The “Appearance - Reality” distinction

Sources of Knowledge

It is the red or green ball?

It is the hard or soft cat?

Which puppet knows whether

One touches:

One looks:



The “Appearance - Reality” distinction

Sources of Knowledge

Three year olds just bad at mirroring?

Theory-based errors in adults?

Milgram: The “teacher” was led into an adjoining room in which an elaborate electrical control panel was placed. Switches on the control panel were labeled with voltage indicators in increasing order from 15-450 volts. Several switches were also labeled as "Extreme-Intensity Shock," "Danger - severe shock," and the highest voltage switch was labeled "XXX."

The “teacher” was instructed to read a pre-selected, randomly ordered list of word pairs to test the pupil's ability to correctly match words. Whenever the pupil answered incorrectly, the teacher was instructed to throw one of the switches, starting at the lowest voltage and progressing to the higher voltages. About midway through the series of switches, the "pupil" would complain loudly that he wanted to stop, kick the wall, and scream. At the highest levels of shock the pupil would remain silent.



Milgram: 15-450 volts.

How high would you go?

How many people would go to the highest level?

Predictions: only criminals and psychopaths go over 115 volts

Reality: 65% of subjects go to 450 volts



What proportion of the household errands do you do?

What proportion will your partner or roommate claim that he/she does?



0

50

100

% Positive % Negative

What people think

What their partnersexpect them to think

Real minds: Salience

Theory of Mind: Self-serving bias


Theory-based errors in adults

Are we all just “bad” mirrors?

Inaccuracy vs Bias

Example from intuitive physics:

Impetus Theory of Motion






- An argument from success


Argument from success:

Understanding states that one has never experienced: Kelli

When Kelli was 3.5 years old:

Show me the back of your pants.


Argument from success:

Understanding states that one has never experienced: Kelli

When Kelli was 4.5 years old:

Can you hide the car, so Mommy won’t see it?

A congenitally blind adult defines “to notice”:

To see something that comes into your view. But not only to see it, but to perceive it and understand it. You could sit on this rocking chair and not notice the colour of it at all


ACTIONS

DESIRES

--- The World ---

BELIEFS


Non-Theory alternative?

Arguments against feeling instead of thinking:

• Specific counterexample

• Neuroscience

• Error

• Success

Going beyond the information givenTopics to think about:

- Can neuroscientific evidence help us evaluate cognitive theories?

- Will the “Theory of Mind” brain regions be recruited when blind people reason about other people’s visual perception?

-What is the mechanism of Theory change?

- Is there a real change of Theory around 4 years? Note: Adults have similar problems in more complex situations - “the curse of knowledge”.

- Do pre-verbal infants have theories?


One final thought:

“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I don’t think you realise that what you

heard was not what I meant.”~ Daniel Greenspan

9.94.Saxe.ppt - MIT

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