Theory of Mind

So, the test I'm going to end up doing isn't quite going to address the issue that I mentioned in my first blog. But it's still really interesting, and gets at the more philosophical question, How do we sense emotion? But I'll explain that a little further in a different blog.

The two "subsets" of social cognition that I'm currently looking at are emotion detection and something called Theory of Mind (ToM). Emotion detection is pretty straightforward - a test called the DANVA that tests emotional intelligence that we have here gives you a series of photos and recordings of both adults and chidlren expressing different emotions. Your score depends on the number of emotions that you correctly identify.

ToM is more complicated. In essence, having theory of mind means having the ability to recognize that other people have minds (belief systems, intentions, etc.) separate from your own.

Here's a simple test of ToM:
Person 1 puts chocolate into a refrigerator and leaves the room. Person 2 comes into the room and moves the chocolate into a drawer. When Person 1 comes back into the room, where will he look for the chocolate?

In order to correctly answer the question, the reader has to be able to put himself into the shoes of Person 1 and realize that Person 1 doesn't actually know that the chocolate was moved.

A second-order ToM test would be the question: Where does Person 2 think Person 1 will look for the chocolate? To answer that, you have to understand what Person 2 thinks that Person 1 thinks - it's kind of like ToM once removed.

But that's really basic - a six year old has developed a mature enough ToM to answer that question. So I'm looking for a test that is a little more sensitive.