Advanced theory of mind understanding

我提出的项目属于一个跨学科的研究领域，称为心理理论（ToM），它借鉴了认知心理学，哲学（心灵和语言），语言学和神经科学。发展心理理论研究考察了儿童认识到人们有愿望，信仰和意图的能力，因此人们可以在这些心理结构的基础上得到最好的理解和预测。虽然我们对6岁之前的心理理论发展有很多了解，但对这种理解如何在幼儿期之后发展的了解相对较少（Dumontheil，April，& Blakemore，2010）。 我的研究计划的长期目标是扩展我们目前对心理理论的理解，将其作为认知发展的一个持续方面。我的短期目标是：（a）设计发展范式，衡量6至10岁儿童在信仰，欲望和意图的背景下对他人（和他们自己）心理表征的考虑;（B）使用这些范式来评估认知因素（例如，语言，工作记忆，抑制控制和认知灵活性）可以在这个年龄范围内差异预测心理理论能力;和（c）确定哪些认知技能预测高级心理理论性能随着时间的推移。 从我计划的实验结果，使我们能够更好地了解：（a）最适合调查先进的心理理论的任务类型;（B）的认知技能的范围，儿童的心理理论理解的发展;（c）什么认知因素在这种发展中发挥因果作用。总之，从拟议的实验的结果将使我们能够理解儿童的能力，以更广泛的，具体的，和深度比我们目前能够参加的代表和他人的精神生活。重要的是，这个多部分的项目将使我能够确定预测早期心理理论的因素类型（如错误信念）和预测后期发展心理理论的因素是否相同。

My proposed project fits within an interdisciplinary research area known as Theory of Mind (ToM), which draws from cognitive psychology, philosophy (of mind and of language), linguistics, and neuroscience. Developmental ToM research examines children's growing ability to recognize that people have desires, beliefs, and intentions, and consequently that people can be best understood and predicted on the basis of these mental constructs. Although we know a great deal about ToM development up to the age of 6, relatively little is known about how this understanding progresses beyond early childhood (Dumontheil, Apperly, & Blakemore, 2010). The long-term objective of my research plan is to extend our current understanding of ToM as an ongoing aspect of cognitive development. My short-term goals are to: (a) design developmental paradigms that measure 6- to 10-year-olds' consideration of other's (and their own) mental representations in the contexts of beliefs, desires and intentions; (b) use these paradigms to assess the extent to which cognitive factors (e.g., language, working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility) may differentially predict ToM ability across this age range; and (c) to determine which cognitive skills predict advanced ToM performance across time. The findings from my planned experiments enable us to be better informed about: (a) the type of task that is best suited for inquiry into advanced ToM; (b) the range of cognitive skills that underlie children's developing ToM understanding; and (c) what cognitive factors play a causal role in this development. In sum, the results from the proposed experiments will enable us to understand children's ability to attend to the representations and mental lives of others with more breadth, specificity, and depth than we are currently able. Importantly, this multi-part project will allow me to determine whether the types of factors that predict early ToM (such as false belief) and the very same ones that predict later developing ToM.