No description available.

Mindreading is the capacity to attribute psychological states to others and to use those attributions to explain, predict, and understand others’ behaviors. In the past thirty years, mindreading has become the topic of substantial interdisciplinary research and theorizing, with philosophers, psychologists and, more recently, neuroscientists, all contributing to the debate about the nature of the neuropsychological mechanisms that constitute the capacity for mindreading. In this thesis I push this debate forward by using recent results from developmental psychology as the basis for critiques of two prominent views of mindreading. First, I argue that the developmental studies provide evidence of infant mindreading and therefore expose a flaw in José Bermúdez’s view that certain forms of mindreading require language possession. Second, I argue that the evidence of infant mindreading can also be used to undermine Alvin Goldman’s version of Simulation Theory.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:56:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Simone Ferreira da Silva Domingues.pdf: 360013 bytes, checksum: 0703f8f0b3a1fa8e49c0990d69836f02 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-04-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / There are evidences that the conversation and explanation about mind studies influence the capacity to comprehend one s mind which arises as the success in false belief tasks. However, there are still few studies about the theory of mind that may test the hypothesis of precedence concerning linguistic abilities related to the ability of assignment of mind states by applying intervention procedures. The experimental research presented herein is aimed at checking the effects of intervention over the assignment ability of children s mental states of belief. The investigation was done in three phases: pre-test, intervention and post-test. The intervention was based upon the explanation of false belief tasks followed by demonstrations using as aids gestures and objects aside from the explanatatory speech. Forty-four male and female children took part in this research. Their age vary from 3.5 to 4.7 years old and they attend a day care center for low income families in the east area of São Paulo. The attained results were possible through conversation with these children when they could talk about the events which involve mind actions, along with demonstrations and handling the material. Such results indicated that children from the experimental group (GE) partially benefited themselves from the interventional procedure, except in just one task, and it was observed a significant difference in the performance of the experimental group (GE) when compared to the performance of the control group (GC). The activities favored the occurrence of the attribution ability of mind states of belief and the effects remained in the experimental group (GE) after three weeks. The qualitative analysis concerning the behavior of the children from the experimental group during the playful situations applied as interventional procedure show a clear relation between implied participation and afterward advances in the false belief tasks. Therefore, under the intervention, when the children paid more attention and used more answers related to behavior explanations, they presented better results in the false belief tasks. On the other hand, children in whom intervention had no effect shared the lack of attention and did not give any answers related to behavior explanations. These results support the hypothesis pointing to the existence of a relation between the ability of assignment of mind states and the development of language. ABSTRACT There are evidences that the conversation and explanation about mind studies influence the capacity to comprehend one s mind which arises as the success in false belief tasks. However, there are still few studies about the theory of mind that may test the hypothesis of precedence concerning linguistic abilities related to the ability of assignment of mind states by applying intervention procedures. The experimental research presented herein is aimed at checking the effects of intervention over the assignment ability of children s mental states of belief. The investigation was done in three phases: pre-test, intervention and post-test. The intervention was based upon the explanation of false belief tasks followed by demonstrations using as aids gestures and objects aside from the explanatatory speech. Forty-four male and female children took part in this research. Their age vary from 3.5 to 4.7 years old and they attend a day care center for low income families in the east area of São Paulo. The attained results were possible through conversation with these children when they could talk about the events which involve mind actions, along with demonstrations and handling the material. Such results indicated that children from the experimental group (GE) partially benefited themselves from the interventional procedure, except in just one task, and it was observed a significant difference in the performance of the experimental group (GE) when compared to the performance of the control group (GC). The activities favored the occurrence of the attribution ability of mind states of belief and the effects remained in the experimental group (GE) after three weeks. The qualitative analysis concerning the behavior of the children from the experimental group during the playful situations applied as interventional procedure show a clear relation between implied participation and afterward advances in the false belief tasks. Therefore, under the intervention, when the children paid more attention and used more answers related to behavior explanations, they presented better results in the false belief tasks. On the other hand, children in whom intervention had no effect shared the lack of attention and did not give any answers related to behavior explanations. These results support the hypothesis pointing to the existence of a relation between the ability of assignment of mind states and the development of language / Há evidências de que a conversação e a explanação sobre estados mentais têm influência sobre a capacidade de compreensão da mente do outro, manifestada sob a forma de sucesso em tarefas de falsa crença. No entanto, ainda são escassos estudos na área da teoria da mente que testem hipóteses de precedência de habilidades lingüísticas em relação à habilidade de atribuição de estados mentais, utilizando procedimentos de intervenção. A presente pesquisa, do tipo experimental, teve por objetivo verificar os efeitos de uma intervenção sobre a habilidade de atribuição de estados mentais de crença e foi desenvolvida em três fases: pré-teste, intervenção, pós-teste. A intervenção foi baseada na explicação de tarefas de falsa crença e acompanhada por demonstrações com a ajuda de gestos e de objetos, além da fala explicativa. Participaram da pesquisa 44 crianças de ambos os sexos, com idade variando de 3,5 a 4,7 anos, que freqüentavam uma creche situada na zona leste da cidade de São Paulo, que atende crianças provenientes de famílias de baixa renda. Os resultados obtidos através das conversações realizadas com as crianças para falar sobre eventos que implicam ações mentais, juntamente com demonstrações e manipulação do material, indicaram que as crianças do grupo experimental (GE) se beneficiaram, parcialmente, com o procedimento de intervenção e, à exceção de uma única tarefa, foi observada uma diferença significativa no desempenho do grupo experimental (GE) em relação ao desempenho do grupo controle (GC). As atividades favoreceram o surgimento da habilidade de atribuição de estados mentais de crença e os efeitos se mantiveram no grupo experimental (GE), após três semanas. As análises qualitativas do comportamento das crianças do grupo experimental, durante as situações lúdicas utilizadas como procedimento de intervenção, mostraram uma clara relação entre participação implicada e posteriores avanços nas tarefas de falsa crença. Assim, quando na intervenção as crianças demonstravam mais atenção e usavam mais respostas de explicação de conduta, elas apresentavam melhores resultados nas tarefas de falsa crença. Em contrapartida, crianças para as quais a intervenção não teve efeito, tinham em comum a falta de atenção e não deram respostas de explicação de conduta. Esses resultados dão sustentação às hipóteses que apontam para a existência de uma relação entre a habilidade de atribuição de estados mentais e desenvolvimento da linguagem