Automatic Mindreading in Adults

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Automatic Mindreading in Adults

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Is adult humans’ belief-tracking automatic?

A process is _automatic_ to the degree that whether it occurs is independent of its relevance to the particulars of the subject's task, motives and aims.

Sometimes it is not

(Apperly, Back, Samson, & France, 2008; Apperly et al., 2010; Wel, Sebanz, & Knoblich, 2014)

and sometimes it is

(Kovács, Téglás, & Endress, 2010; Schneider, Bayliss, Becker, & Dux, 2012; Wel et al., 2014; Edwards & Low, 2017; Edwards & Low, 2019)

Automaticity should really be a matter of degree. But we lack experiments involving process dissociation or other methods that would help us.

How could belief-tracking ever be automatic?

other domains : more automaticity is a consequence of simpler models

- physical cognition (Kozhevnikov & Hegarty, 2001)

- reasoning (Gilovich, Griffin, & Kahneman, 2002)

- mindreading ???

signature limits generate predictions

Hypothesis:

Some automatic belief-tracking systems rely on minimal models of the mental.

Hypothesis:

Infants’ belief-tracking abilities rely on minimal models of the mental.

Prediction:

Automatic belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Prediction:

Infants’ belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Here’s what the participants (P) see. They’re looking at a video of an agent (A). The person can see two balls. The subject can also see two balls.

You’re told that at the end of each clip, you will see either the red ball or the blue ball. You have to press a key corresponding to which ball you see. Ignore the agent. He’s completely irrelevant to the task.

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Key finding is P-A- vs P-A+

automatic prediction

Edwards & Low 2019 tests both predictions simultaneously.

(Long history that I’m not mentioning.)

Kovacs-like but with two balls, red and blue, always one goes. Beliefs concern which belief remains

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 4 (part)

Key finding is P-A- vs P-A+

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 2

Kovacs-like identity starring the robota

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 1

Edwards and Low, 2019 figure 4 (part)

signature limits generate predictions

Hypothesis:

Some automatic belief-tracking systems rely on minimal models of the mental.

Hypothesis:

Infants’ belief-tracking abilities rely on minimal models of the mental.

Prediction:

Automatic belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Prediction:

Infants’ belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Prediction confirmed

How could belief-tracking ever be automatic?

other domains : more automaticity is a consequence of simpler models

- physical cognition (Kozhevnikov & Hegarty, 2001)

- reasoning (Gilovich et al., 2002)

- mindreading ??? (Edwards & Low, 2017; Edwards & Low, 2019)[stop ??? from removing a line]

So we answered this questino. But that is not all ...

challenge

Explain the emergence in development
of mindreading.

Two questions: > 1. How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? > 2. Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

We were trying to explain the dissociations. Are we any closer now? Yes! ...

signature limits generate predictions

Hypothesis:

Some automatic belief-tracking systems rely on minimal models of the mental.

Hypothesis:

Infants’ belief-tracking abilities rely on minimal models of the mental.

Prediction:

Automatic belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Prediction:

Infants’ belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

reidentifying processes:

same signature limit -> same process

The model of minds and actions underpinning automatic mindreading process does not significantly change over development.

By contrast, the model of minds and actions underpinning nonautomatic mindreading process does significantly change over development. In the first three or four years of life, nonautomatic mindreading processes involve relatively crude models of minds and actions, models which do not enable belief tracking. What changes over development is typically just that the model underpinning nonautomatic mindreading becomes gradually more sophisticated and eventually comes to enable belief tracking.

Conjecture: \item Automatic and nonautomatic mindreading processes both occur from the first year of life onwards. \item The model of minds and actions underpinning automatic mindreading process does not significantly change over development. \item In the first three or four years of life, nonautomatic mindreading processes involve relatively crude models of minds and actions, models which do not enable belief tracking. \item What changes over development is typically just that the model underpinning nonautomatic mindreading becomes gradually more sophisticated and eventually comes to enable belief tracking.

Low et al, 2014 figure 2

There is what Low et al’s results are really showing us.

	non-A : location	non-A : identity	A-task : location	A-task : identity
response dominated by	automatic	automatic	nonauto	nonauto
infants, chimps	pass	fail	fail	fail
ordinary adults	pass	fail	pass	pass

challenge

Explain the emergence in development
of mindreading.

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

appendix

motor mindreading

Why do others’ false beliefs ever influence reaction times?

Inspiration: Action anticipation can influence reaction times.

NB: In this experiment, participants had to imitate a reach-to-grasp movement which was modelled for them before the go-stimulus (the mug) appeared.

WHat is measured? Movement initiation times. (NB not response times.)

Costantini et al, 2010 figure 1b

Anticipation associated with other people’s action possibilities can also influence your movement initiation times.

Costantini et al, 2011 figures 3,4

Why do others’ false beliefs ever influence reaction times?

Maybe it’s because others’ false beliefs influence whether you anticipate them performing certain actions, and those anticipations in turn influence your reaction times.

Prediction: constraining others’ action possibilities will reduce task-irrelevant effects of their false beliefs on your reaction times.

Outcomes such as reaching for and grasping of a cup can be represented motorically.

As a body of research on mirror neurons and motor simulation more generally demonstrates, motor representations of outcomes can generate expectations concerning another agent’s behaviour.

These expectations are plausibly compared with the behavior that is actually observed.

And we conjecture that the result of this comparison modulates the strength of the motor representation of the outcome.

Within limits, this modulation will ensures that an outcome represented motorically is likely to be a goal of the observed action.

In this way, motor representations enable goal tracking.

So far we have nothing about belief-tracking. Where could that come in?

In principle, we might imagine that the belief-tracking process results in a second, independent behavioural expectation.

While we cannot rule this possibility out, it seems to add theoretical complexity.

After all, belief-tracking depend so on goal-tracking in this way: you can only track another’s mental states by tracking their actions. We therefore need the goal-tracking process to provide input to the belief-tracking process.

But if the goal-tracking process ignores the belief-tracking process, then false beliefs would cause it to make systematic errors about the goals of actions. Since these errors would feed into the belief-tracking process, it would seem that this process too should go wrong whenever there is a false belief. But then there would be no point in tracking beliefs at all.

Our proposal is therefore different: the belief-tracking process influences the process by which the behavioural expectation is generated.

The representation of registration means that behavioural expectation is generated as if things were as they are registered as being, rather than as they actually are.

Put colourfully, another’s registration can change the world as seen by your motor system.

This picture has a radical implication about the nature of the automatic belief-tracking processes.

It implies that those belief-tracking processes must interface directly with motor processes.

This requires, in turn, that automatic belief-tracking represents objects and outcomes in the same format as the motor representations do.

Motor processes and belief-tracking must share a common representational format.

Although lots of details are not specified by the picture, its is does make readily testable predictions ...

Prediction: limiting motor processes will interfere with fast belief-tracking.

For one thing, it implies that limits on what can be represented motorically are also limits on automatic belief-tracking.

(Low, Edwards, & Butterfill, 2020, p. figure 1)

(Low et al., 2020, p. figure 2)

(Low et al., 2020, p. figure 3)

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Automatic Mindreading in Adults

Automatic Mindreading in Adults

[email protected]

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