Talk:Theory of mind

message: I see that there is a connection mentioned to ADHD in the introduction, but it is not discussed in the entry. 
Alliwalk (talk) 22:13, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Connection to ADHD

message: The article on Dystopia is linked at the bottom of this one, but these two topics have very little, if anything, in common.  Should the link be removed, perhaps? DiabloMan8890 20:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Confusing "Social Disorder" with "Disordered Society" ? --195.137.93.171 (talk) 22:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Connection to Dystopia

message: Can someone explain what the cartoon image is supposed to mean? I don't see how it is related to Theory of Mind. -- Kimiko 12:04, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Cartoon image 

message: ok, i dont know if anyone will know but im currently doing some coursework and was wondering if anyone could answer a question for me, based on the mind?
I read that certain cognitive deficits, including lack of ToM, are common to PDDs and schizophrenia. Apokrif 11:18, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  ToM and schizophrenia 

message: This article needs work. In particular, it says nothing about 'theory of mind' as a vast area in philosophy - perhaps it shouldn't be covered here at all, so for now I've added a disambig link at the start. Ben Finn 21:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We should be content with that disambig link.  In philosophy, "theory of mind" is just a description of a wide and general area of interest.  In psychology, "theory of mind" is a proper name for a particular body of literature.  Nevertheless, this article does indeed need work.  It especially needs more information about criticisms of the theory (of which there are plenty).  KSchutte 18:34, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

text: KSchutte, do you mind providing those links?  I found this article several months ago, while reading about animal intelligence, and found it to be a very intriguing subject.  In the process, I actually became friends with an autistic woman who seems to lack this theory of mind, yet is very aware of her lack thereof.  Particularly of interest to me is the recent study about the neurons in the brain that are allegedly devoted to developing theory of mind in individuals. Raphael 19:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Needs work

message: I guess this should be added to the Non-Human Theory of Mind section:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19426091.700-the-scheming-minds-of-crows.html
Sry, for not having a better link.
13 Sept 2007  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.124.3.108 (talk) 13:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nicky Clayton, who features in the New Scientist article, cited above, was the interviewee in a [v programme] in the the BBC Radio 4 Series "The Life Scientific" November 2011. See also http://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/ccl/    Vernon White . . . Talk  20:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  also, see below under "Western scrub jays and food pilfering" Vernon White . . . Talk  20:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Crows know what other Crows know

message: Somebody needs to post up about this.
I dont know enough about it.
194.83.93.11 (talk) 12:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theory of 'nasty' minds 

message: Here are some sources about theory of mind published in Social Neuroscience that might be used to improve this article (which I find to be a bit dated):
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
Eubulides (talk) 16:08, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social Neuroscience papers 

message: I've replaced the first paragraph of the "Brain Mechanisms" section with four paragraphs that are far more informative and comprehensive.  Further comments/questions on this edit are welcome.
I also removed the sentence "They [mPFC and TPJ] are involved in many other functions, drawing on executive attention" from the subsequent paragraph.  The extent to which mPFC and TPJ are selectively involved in social cognitive processes is a very contentious matter, and we by no means know that they are involved in "many other functions."  Also, "executive attention" is an unclear term.  mPFC is seemingly NOT involved in working memory or attentional reorienting, insofar as it deactivates during such tasks, although the TPJ may be involved in the latter.
I've also added a section on neuroimaging studies of theory of mind impairment in autism.
Bdeen (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to "Brain Mechanisms" section 

message: This section is a bit muddled, what is currently described in this section is actually another false-belief study. Appearance reality tests are those which evaluate a childs capability of discerning when the appearance of an object is concurrent with what the object actually is. An example of this would be Flavell, Flavell and Green's (1983) study.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.146.251 (talk) 16:21, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  appearance-reality tests 

message: ... and the categories below. This is Psychology - you want philosophy of mind, not Theory of Mind ?
In a nutshell, it says "I know what you know".
--195.137.93.171 (talk) 00:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I think it's relevant to philosophy too.  At any rate, this should be a decision for WikiProject Philosophy to make. Looie496 (talk) 02:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove from WikiProject Philosophy ? 

message: An IP editor has just made major changes to several sections of the article, with an edit summary saying "ToM Spring 2009".  Changes on such a scale are always difficult to follow, but on scanning through the revisions, most of them look like improvements to me, so I'm not going to revert at this time.  In future, though, please discuss before making such major changes to an article, or they are likely to be reverted just for the sake of stability.  It would also be very helpful for editors who make such major contributions to register an account, so that it is possible to contact them for discussion. Looie496 (talk) 19:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massive changes 

message: The article mentions that some schizophrenics has impairments in their theory of mind.  I strongly suspect that those are actually people with autism spectrum disorders which has been misdiagnosed as  schizophrenics.  Also, I don't think schizoid personality disorder exists, people with that diagnosis actually has Asperger syndrome.  And yes, I am an Aspie myself.
2009-08-18  Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.
:The article needs to go with what the literature says, but for what it's worth, I have personally seen people with definite paranoid schizophrenia who had great difficulty understanding what other people were thinking, and constantly attributed the wrong motives to their actions -- this is a major feature of what we call "paranoia". Looie496 (talk) 17:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That isn't quite true -- people with paranoid schizophrenia imagine themselves persecuted by real people as well as imaginary people.  That's actually one of the biggest problems with the disorder. Looie496 (talk) 18:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schizophrenia? 

message: This really should be titled "Animal Theory of Mind."  It very much reads like an Ethology article, almost like something written by Povinelli (or someone who's read too much Povinelli).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.33.35.132 (talk) 03:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the article is about humans, so I don't get where you're coming from. Looie496 (talk) 05:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: New Title: Animal ToM

message: I've created a new article (stub) for Yale's Ami Klin, a fairly high-profile autism/Asperger's researcher. As this is rather out of my field, I'm looking for any assistance in expanding the article. Thanks. - SummerPhD (talk) 21:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: New article in need of attention

message: The scrub jay is a food cacher. Here is a quote from an abstract from an article that I think needs to be included on this page:
When observed by potential pilferers at the time of caching, experienced jays that
have been thieves themselves, take further protective action. Once the potential pilferers have left, they
move caches those birds have seen, re-hiding them in new places. Naive birds that had no thieving
experience do not do so.By focusing on the counter strategies of the cacher when previously observed by
a potential pilferer, these results raise the intriguing possibility that re-caching is based on a form of
mental attribution, namely the simulation of another bird’s viewpoint.
 
Clayton, N.S., Dally, J.M. & Emery, N.J. (2007). Social cognition by food-caching corvids: the western scrub-jay as a natural psychologist. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 362, 507–522. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1992
Another paper:
Emery, N.J., Dally, J.M., Clayton, N.S. (2004). Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) use cognitive strategies to protect their caches from thieving conspecifics. Animal Cognition, 7, 37–44. doi: 10.1007/s10071-003-0178-7
I'd do it myself but I am not very confident in my skills. But it really seems to imply the jays have some ToM.
71.48.77.37 (talk) 23:43, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I am dubious about the interpretation here, I agree with you that a discussion of these facts and arguments belongs in the article.  The only way to gain confidence in your skills is to use them -- why not give it a shot?  It would be nice, though, to also point out the counterarguments advanced in papers such as .  Regards, Looie496 (talk) 17:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  See also, above at "Crows know what other Crows know".  Vernon White . . . Talk  20:18, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Western scrub jays and food pilfering

message: There is an interesting paper on ToM in children who were born deaf or have become deaf before the acquisition of language. They fail in the false-belief task very much like autistic children.
The paper also implies that this is due to having hearing parents who (according to other research) are likely not to converse about imaginary or unobservable topics. This was not significantly tested though - only two out of 26 subjects had deaf parents (both passed successfully).
Candida C. Peterson, Michael Siegal (1995). Deafness, Conversation and Theory of Mind, 
DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1995.tb01303.x
Yamitai (talk) 02:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  ToM in deaf children 

message: There are stories of Chimps lying-to or misleading their captors.
For example, Lucy_Temerlin was reported to have lied when caught defecating in the wrong place, blaming it on one of her trainers (as heard on This American Life).
An Orangutan named Fu Manchu hid a piece of metal used to pick a lock and escape from his cage in the Nebraska Zoo (as heard on Radiolab http://mediasearch.wnyc.org/m/28543257/shorts-fu-manchu.htm).
Isn't this deceipt an indication that they understand that their captors have a different perspective?
Deproduction (talk) 21:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there a reliable source discussing this? - SummerPhD (talk) 00:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: you don't find  This American Life and Radiolab to be reliable?  I inserted the reference to wnyc. The info on Lucy_Temerlin is visible everywhere, as it was a well-documented experiment. I saw a documentary on PBS (I didn't catch the title) that said that even the smartest chimps cant comprehend that another chimp/being would have a different perspective. That statement was called into question in my mind, first while reading about Lucy, and again while hearing the radiolab story about Fu Manchu http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/jan/25/fu-manchu/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deproduction (talk • contribs) 02:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-human theory of mind 

message: Can someone add information about who originally developed Theory of Mind - I think it might be William James ? 81.141.30.252 (talk) 18:28, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: "Theory of mind" does not refer to a scientific or scholarly theory about what minds are. ToM is one of the patterns of behavior that is typically exhibited by the minds of normal humans: When a fly is buzzing around me, i see a fancy wind-up toy that either rests or zooms; if you lean your spear against a tree on seeing me, i say to myself, "OK, she's in no rush for a fight; what is it that she's weighing in her mind?", bcz we she and i each entertain, implicitly and perhaps explicitly, a "theory" abt what the other is thinking, and how that should affect our respective behaviors.   So, my having theory of mind means that i can ask myself, e.g., whether you have a sense of humor and i have none, leading to the conclusion that you made a joke & the proverbial pole jes' kep' me fum gittin' it. But just in case you were serious, this is addressed to anyone else who's not sure: perhaps you have made a joke that is rather meta, but perhaps you've just learned that Theory of Mind developed by evolution, before anyone asked themselves whether psychologists should consider theorizing about what Mind is... (and in that case someone probably needs to make the accompanying article clearer).--Jerzy•t 02:27, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whos theory of mind ? 

message: The entire Brain Mechanisms section might have been plagiarized, the literal section can be found on at least a wordpress blog (http://asiaaudiovisualra09puspitasani.wordpress.com/idea-brain-mind/brain-mechanisms/), where it might have had its origins, not completely sure - the section at least appears as if it came straight from someone's thesis, rather than being written for an encyclopedia. I will attempt to insert the section into Eudora (a plagiarism detection system), and see what it spits out - hopefully tomorrow. 94.214.196.189 (talk) 02:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no doubt that the sections match, but there is good reason to believe that the Wikipedia version came first.  It was added January 2009 by .  The version on the blog matches the final version that Bdeen created rather than the initial version, and also lacks the references that are in the Wikipedia version.  Note also that Bdeen left a note about his edits in the section of this talk page titled Edits to "Brain Mechanisms" section, above.  Also there is no way of being sure that Bdeen is not the same person as Puspitasani, in which case this would not be plagiarism in either direction. Looie496 (talk) 05:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plagiarism? 

message: In this section, there is the following text:
"In order to make tasks more accessible for other animals, young children, and autistic individuals, theory of mind research has begun employing non-verbal paradigms. One category of tasks uses a preferential looking paradigm, with looking time as the dependent variable. For instance, Woodward[full citation needed] found that 9-month-old infants preferred looking at behaviors performed by a human hand over those made by an inanimate hand-like object."
It is not at all clear to me how preferentially looking at a human hand over an inanimate hand-like object relates to ToM theory. Please explain! Lova Falk talk 16:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section "Other tasks" 

message: I think it would be more scholarly to use TM as an abbreviation, not ToM. Also, this abbreviation should come at the very beginning of the article in brackets after the first words. Iain (talk) 19:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, as far as I remember, all articles/books I have read use ToM. Lova Falk talk 18:51, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abbreviation (ToM) 

message: Back when I studued philosophy, Theory of Mind was the philosophical study of how conscious thoughts arise in the human brain. What is that discipline called these days? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:58, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  That was then, this is now 

message: Evidence that theories of "theory of mind" differ across cultures. For instance, "Euro-American modern secular" model sees minds as separate containers with clear boundaries between other minds and the external environment. "Euro-American modern supernaturalist" follows the former with certain exceptions in which the mind is more permeable. And my favorite, the "mind control" model, found throughout Asia, in Thailand in particular, in which boundaries between minds and their environment are much more blurred - uncontrolled emotions can sort-of "leak" out of uncontrolled minds in the form of ghosts. 
So far, researchers have identified six different models. I think it's relevant and important given the urgent need to study psychological phenomenon outside of W.E.I.R.D. cultures. But - I figured I'd check here first since I'm a newb. Also would like advice regarding where to place such a section if it's relevant/reliable enough (was thinking it might flow nicely before or after "Non-human"?). 
Source: Towards an Anthropological Theory of Mind. Is it reliable enough? I thought so, but again, I'm a noob. Hope somebodies watching this! Tangelopixi (talk) 08:47, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Article talk pages are for discussing improvements to the article, not for general discussion of the topic. - SummerPhD (talk) 12:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural Variation - Where to Place 

message: Under the guise of a character interview, Profoundly Gifted Magazine Interviews Charles Wallace Murry... talks about "theory of other minds" being usefully bifurcated into a theory of like minds and a theory of alien minds, and I am working on that in a revamped author bio for my site.
The question is significant, and one psychology Ph.D. said "I would research this if I were free to do academic research now [she was working in counseling]."
24.15.85.69 (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me just point out that anything that goes into a Wikipedia article must be derived from reputable published sources.  That fictional "interview" does not count. Looie496 (talk) 13:29, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we look at a bifurcating to include a theory of alien minds? 

message: Theory Of Mind (As Pure Act) or 'general theory of mind', the first systematic treatise by the chair of philosophy at Rome and the epistemological ontology he championed for the Italian Fascist revolution to contrast the materialist communist philosophy. Can we link that somehow to this page, since, though forgotten in the English speaking world (mostly because it's follow-up, his nigh-eight-hundred pg. magnum opus 'System of Logic' was never translated into English, due to stigma and it's late coming and lack of interest (alas, we have Heidegger, Gentile was not offensive enough to garner morbid curiosity due to how "liberal" and "left" many would be loathe to admit he *actually* (pun intended) was. It's a seminal work in world philosophy and the explosive core to the short lived Fascist movement which did influence history enough that his main English representative work should be alluded to in at least a disambig. Just don't know how would be appropriate here. 66.96.79.217 (talk) 22:52, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Habent sua fata libelli]] 

message: In Other Tasks, section 4.3 of the article, the "false-photograph" task is mentioned. However, both of the references , 43 Zaitchik, D. (1990). "When representations conflict with reality: the preschooler's problem with false beliefs and "false" photographs". Cognition. 35 (1): 41–68. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(90)90036-J. PMID 2340712 and 44 Leslie, A.; Thaiss, L. (1992). "Domain specificity in conceptual development". Cognition. 43 (3): 225–51. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(92)90013-8. PMID 1643814, actually serve to contrast a child's ability to complete false photograph tasks versus false belief tasks.
In a false-photograph experiment, children are not representing others' minds. Instead, they must maintain representations of the objects in the photograph. On the other hand, in a false belief experiment, children need theory of mind because they must represent others' beliefs and thoughts. 
Should we revise the information on "false photograph" task? Or remove it entirely? Jlhan (talk) 10:04, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  False Photograph Task Does Not Test for Theory of Mind 

message: # not to understand the theory of mind, being intellectually less than 4 years of age, and claiming that the supposedly precosmic cosmogonous bearer of personhood has the same beneficial intentions towards our own various personhoods
# to claim that the universe is the atheistic toy of the theist god (the universe itself doesn't have intentions in Christianity, instead god controls is; in animism it has intentions, and in physics it doesn't have intentions but exhibits probabilistic ethology [behavioral patterns])  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.4.218.168 (talk) 11:13, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theism 

message: For a final project in a graduate evolutionary psychology class. Tangelopixi (talk) 03:15, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request to elaborate Evolution of TOM section and create new Cultural Variation section 

message: First section claims that genetic-based eating disorders can cause ToM deficits. I couldnt find this in the linked citations, could someone point it out? 98.10.36.202 (talk) 23:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genetic based eating disorder connection 

message: The idea that neurodivergent people lack empathy is considered to be wrong and rooted in the fact that neurotypical people are misunderstanding and misnaming autistic behavior. The article also implies that empathy is inherent to being neurotypical, which is just simply incorrect. 147.134.61.128 (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outdated ableist ideas about autism and neurodiversity in this article 

message: The article doesn't mention psychopathy or sociopathy anywhere, and yet theory of mind is an important aspect of it. Some sources:
* Theory of mind and mentalizing ability in antisocial personality disorders with and without psychopathy (2004)
* Theory of Mind in the psychopath (2008)   
* Psychopathic traits and theory of mind task performance: A Systematic review and meta-analysis]
* Theory of mind and psychopathy: can psychopathic individuals read the 'language of the eyes'? (2003)
* The role of the orbitofrontal cortex in affective theory of mind deficits in criminal offenders with psychopathic tendencies (2009)
* How Psychopaths See the World (2018).
More: 
Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 10:34, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fails to include psychopathy 

message: Does it make sense to include the perfomance of large language models on theory of mind tests? See for example Testing theory of mind in large language models and humans Limpaldu (talk) 13:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  ToM in LLMs