The Role of Introspection in Children's Developing Theory of Mind. by Christopher Gonzales A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Approved April 2015 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: William Fabricius, Chair Tracy Spinrad Bernard Kobes ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2015 ABSTRACT Understanding sources of knowledge (e.g., seeing leads to knowing) is an important ability in young children’s theory of mind development. The research presented here measured if children were better at reporting their own versus another person’s knowledge states, which would indicate the presence of introspection. Children had to report when the person (self or other) had knowledge or ignorance after looking into one box and not looking into another box. In Study 1 ( N = 66), 3- and 4-year-olds found the other-version of the task harder than the self-version whereas 5-year-olds performed near ceiling on both versions. This effect replicated in Study 2 ( N = 43), which included familiarization trials to make sure children understood the question format. This finding is in support of the presence of introspection in preschool-aged children. In the same studies, children also showed evidence for theorizing about their own and others knowledge states in a guessing task (Study 1) and in true and false belief tasks (Study 2). These findings together indicate both introspection and theorizing are present during young children's theory of mind development. i DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to Josh who put up with me through all this, and to my mother and father who did everything they could to make sure I was here in the first place. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the diligent and patient mentorship of my adviser William Fabricius and without the guidance and recommendations of my committee members Tracy Spinrad and Bernard Kobes. I am indebted to the director of the Child Study Lab Anne Kupfer and the other teachers, staff, and parents of the Child Study Lab preschool and the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College preschool for their invaluable support with participant recruitment and data collection. I would like to thank the numerous research assistants of the Child Study Lab and the research assistants Annelise Pesche, Benjamin Woolley, and Jacquelyn Swift-Honer from the Fabricius Lab for volunteering their time in order to help me complete this project. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 How Theory of Mind Develops ............................................................................. 2 The Role of Introspection in Theory of Mind Development ................................ 4 Self and Other Differences in Understanding Seeing Leads to Knowing ............ 5 The Current Studies .............................................................................................. 10 2 STUDY 1 .................................................................................................................... 10 Method .................................................................................................................. 11 Results and Disucssion ......................................................................................... 15 3 STUDY 2 .................................................................................................................... 18 Method .................................................................................................................. 19 Results and Discussion ......................................................................................... 24 4 GENERAL DISCUSSION ......................................................................................... 27 Limitations and Future Directions ....................................................................... 31 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 32 REFERENCES....... ............................................................................................................... 34 iv APPENDIX Page A STUDY PROCEDURES AND FORMS .................................................................. 47 B CODING PROCEDURES FOR FALSE AND TRUE BELIEF TASKS ............... 57 C IRB APPROVAL MATERIALS .............................................................................. 62 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Proportion of Children in Previous Studies who Understood Seeing Leads to Knowing for Self And Other. ..................................................................................... 37 2. Proportion of Children In Each Response Pattern in the Seeing Leads to Knowing Task for Self and Other in Study 1 and Study 2. ....................................... 38 3. Summary of Multilevel Logistic Regression Analysis for Seeing Leads to Knowing Performance in Study 1 and Study 2 .......................................................... 39 4. Proportion of Children in Each Response Pattern in the Knowing Means getting it Right Task for Self and Other in Study 1 And Study 2.......................................... 40 5. Proportion of Children Using Each Type of Belief Understanding in Study 2 ........ 41 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. A Diagram of Scoring Procedures from Previous Studies ......................................... 42 2. An Illustration of the Procedures for the Self- and Other-Versions of the Seeing Leads to Knowing Task from Study 1 and Study 2 ................................................... 43 3. An Illustration of Procedures for the Self- and Other-versions of the Knowing Means getting it Right task from Study 1 .............................................................................. 44 4. The Predicted Probaility of Passing the Self- and Other-Versions of the Seeing Leads to Knowing Task ......................................................................................................... 45 5. An Illustration of Procedures for the Self- and Other-Versions of the Knowing Means getting it Right Task from Study 2 ................................................................. 46 vii The role of introspection in children’s developing theory of mind . A hallmark of children’s social development is learning how mental states (i.e., beliefs, knowledge, perception, desires, intentions etc.) determine how people view the world and as a result, guide their behavior within it. Specifically, children must develop a theory of mind (ToM). Over the last 30 years, researchers have examined when ToM develops in young children. A main focus has been children’s performance on false belief tasks which children begin to pass around the time they turn four years old (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001); however there has also been considerable examination of precursory abilities such as children’s understanding of perception, desire, and knowledge (Wellman & Liu, 2004). Despite this large body of research, theorists have disagreed about how children’s understanding of these mental states develops. The development of metacognitive abilities such as introspection, an awareness of one’s own mental processes, is one mechanism researchers have explored. The ability to use introspection is generally thought to be relatively late developing, emerging around middle childhood (Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1995). Researchers have ruled out the presence of introspection in some stages of ToM development like the understanding of false belief. Children are no better at reporting their own false beliefs than they are at reporting other’s false beliefs which is evidence against introspection (Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Fabricius & Khalil, 2003). However, evidence has been more inconsistent for earlier stages of ToM development, like the understanding sources of knowledge (i.e., seeing leads to knowing). For example, after having a child or another person look into a box to see what was inside, some researchers found that children were better at reporting their own knowledge than reporting others’ knowledge (Ruffman & 1 Olson, 1989; Wimmer, Hogrefe & Perner, 1989) which is evidence for introspection; although, other investigators have found no difference in performance between self and other (Pillow, 1989; Pratt & Byrant, 1990). The purpose of the present research is two-fold: to investigate the role of introspection in the development of children’s theory of mind, and to resolve the inconsistent findings on children’s understanding of seeing leads to knowing. Doing so informs theories of ToM development. How theory of mind develops There are two competing theories that describe how ToM develops, simulation- theory and theory-theory. Simulation-theorists propose that children use their own mind as a model to learn about and understand the minds of other people. In this view, children first recognize a mental state in themselves, and when reasoning about another person, children imagine themselves in that person’s situation, introspect their own mental state within that situation, and then attribute the mental state back to the other person (Gordon, 1986; Harris, 1992). For example, in order to