Revisiting Theory of Mind

I found this video and much of what we have learned in this class to be interesting and thought provoking, but my original viewpoint on theory of mind remains the same. 

Ute Frith discusses in this video that theory of mind is not a theory at all, but an automatic ability to attribute mental states.  That being said, it is risky to presume that anything occurs “automatically.”  Virtually everything we do is learned.  Take eating for example.  Food is a primary reinforcer, meaning that it functions as a reinforcer without any prior pairing.  This being said when a baby is born, he/she still needs to learn to eat, and some learn to eat more quickly than others.  What maintains this behavior in the future is its consequence (reinforcer), food.  This is the case with every behavior humans (and other organisms) engage in; everything we do is a result of our learning history of reinforcement.

Ute Frith also discusses in this video the differences between human behavior and the behavior of other animals.  These differences in behavior are not a result of different brain make-ups, so to speak, but again they are the result of different histories of reinforcement which likely come down to the one key difference between humans and other animals – a complex form of communication.  It is also likely that this is the key difference between individuals with autism and typically developing individuals.  As discussed in the video some of the “hallmarks” of autism are poor emotion processing, face processing, eye gaze control, imitation, use of gesture and language, and recognition of thoughts and feelings.  Ute Frith suggests that a lack of theory of mind might explain these deficits, but it may be more parsimonious to suggest that these deficits are due to individual histories of reinforcement, which would explain why there are differing levels of deficiencies in different individuals with autism, and also why these skills can be taught.

In assessing individuals with autism, I still think it is very important to look only at individual skills and then to teach and reinforce those found to be acquisition deficits.  Some of these skills, such as identifying internal emotions and/or the emotions of others can be very difficult to teach, but they can be taught provided the child has the prerequisite skills necessary to acquire them.  This is one of the reasons appropriate assessment is so important, by looking at an ABLLs assessment, for example, I can determine if the child can select pictures depicting emotions, attend to the reactions of others and whether he or she has the language ability to support identifying the emotion of a peer.  By teaching and reinforcing each skill individually a practitioner can further develop the necessary prerequisites for higher level social skills.

On a quest to find a behavioral explanation for theory of mind earlier in the semester I came across this article by Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, Louise McHugh, & Dermot Barnes-Holmes (2004) from The Behavior Analyst Today:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6884/is_1_5/ai_n28246892/

One thing that I liked about this article is that it breaks down Theory of Mind into 5 levels:

1.       People can see different things.

2.       People can see the same things differently.

3.       Seeing leads to knowing.

4.       Actions can be predicted on the basis of knowledge.

5.       People can have false beliefs.

Now, although the terms “knowledge” and “beliefs” are hypothetical constructs that are just as mentalistic as a theory of mind and many behavior analysts may get hung up on these constructs, by objectively defining them in context, behavior analytic literature may one day get us closer to developing an assessment that can be appropriately used in measuring progress and developing appropriate programming to teach individuals with autism to effectively take the perspective of another individual.