Theory of Mind | False Belief Tasks & Understanding Mental States transcript

hello everyone i want to tell you a little story this is sally and this is anne sally has a basket and anne has a box sally has a marble which she then puts in her basket she then leaves the room to go for a walk and takes the marble from the basket and puts it in her box sally returns from her walk and wants to see her marble where will sally look for her marble well if you're five years or younger you're more likely to say in the box however if you're more than five years old you're more likely to say in the basket but why is this this story is an example of a false belief task a test that is used to determine whether an individual can recognize a false belief in another person and also use a test theory of mind theory of mind is one's ability to recognize that other people have different mental states and perspectives from one's own it is your ability to theorize about what is going on in someone else's mind this typically develops during our early childhood so in the sally ann example someone who doesn't have a developed theory of mind will listen to this story and think that sally will think the marble is in the box why well they know that the marble's in the box so shouldn't everyone including sally think the marble is in the box it wouldn't make sense otherwise or so the child thinks and they miss the fact that sally has a false belief and isn't aware of the truth of where the marble really is but those with a developed theory of mind will be able to think about sally's mental state take careful note of the fact that her perspective is different since she did not see anne move the marble and take that into account when asked where sally will look for her marble and therefore say the basket having a developed theory of mind allows you to attribute mental states to other people now this might seem easy to you but other studies have even done this to the nth degree for example what if i asked you where ann thinks sally thinks the marble is or what if i added more people to the room and had them leave and come back at various times throughout the story constantly moving the marble around we could get as complicated as where paul thinks alan thinks and thinks sally thinks the marble is kind of a fun game to play if you want to think about how strong your theory of mind is theory of mind is an important part of what makes human social creatures by understanding others mental states one can socialize in a more efficient manner there is a lot of research out there that highlights the importance of this basic psychological concept and i hope you check out some of the links i provided in my description below do you have a young child at home try this test out and see how they do thanks for watching and i'll see you next time you