|
Ian Apperly |
|
Research on "theory of mind" in adults Much of my current work looks at adults' perspective-taking and social reasoning. We frequently need to take account of what other people think, want or know in order to make sense of what they do and say. I am interested in how we do this, and particularly the cognitive basis of reasoning about mental states such as knowledge, desires, intentions and beliefs. We already know a lot about how and when these abilities develop, and how they vary across species, but we know amazingly little about how adults do this kind of social reasoning. I am looking at this in two related ways. The cognitive psychology of theory of mind. "Theory of mind" is a neglected topic in the cognitive psychology of typical adults, so that most of what we know is extrapolated from what we know about "theory of mind" in children, and in clinical populations or brain damaged patients. For several years I have begun developing new techniques for studying how adults reason about beliefs and other mental states, based upon reaction time methods commonly used in cognitive psychology. Much of this work suggests that theory of mind is demanding of general cognitive resources such as memory and executive function. For example, we find evidence that belief inferences are not automatic, and inferring beliefs may require effortful cognitive control. We also have evidence that just holding in mind what someone else thinks carries a detectable cost when we know that what they think is factually incorrect.
Such findings are problematic for the idea that inferences about beliefs, desires and intentions are made quickly and effortlessly as we engage in social interaction and communication. Thus, in we have also begun to look at whether adults can in fact make quick and efficient inferences about what other people know and think in at least some restricted circumstances (such as when they have direct visual access to a scene). We suspect that these cognitively efficient abilities may use rather different functional and neural processes from those that sustain the cognitively demanding abilities we have studied so far.
We have also begun to use eyetracking methods to investigate on-line mindreading inferences. One project with Heather Ferguson, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is recording adults’ eye movements in order to study on-line inference and use of information about other people’s perspectives during laboratory tasks and realistic social interaction. Another project with Steven Frisson, Boaz Keysar and Jessica Wang will record eye movements to investigate development and cross-cultural differences in online mindreading during communication.
The cognitive neuroscience of theory of mind. I have been involved in collaborative research with several colleagues (especially Dana Samson and Glyn Humphreys) that examines perspective-taking and social reasoning in patients with acquired brain damage. (An introduction to this work can be found here). We have found that damage to different brain regions can lead to quite different functional impairments, which gives us clues both about the functional architecture of "theory of mind" and how this is implemented in the brain. In work with Joe McCleery, Jon Brock and others we have begun combining new cognitive methods for investigating theory of mind with EEG and MEG recording. The first paper arising from this work can be found here. This project has recently been funded with a one year grant from the ESRC, with Kayleigh Day joining us as a research associate. In work at the Birmingham University Imaging Centre, with Charlotte Hartwright and Peter Hansen, we are seeking complementary evidence from the use of functional imaging to study "theory of mind" processes in the intact brain. The first paper arising from this work can be found here.
|