During the preschool years, children across all cultures that have been tested seem to come to an explicit understanding of the fact that mental states are related to but ultimately separate from the reality that they are meant to represent. This understanding is sometimes called a representational theory of mind (RTM). I hypothesized that the neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) would be associated with RTM development in preschoolers. I selected DA because several lines of work now suggest that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is critical for RTM and its development. In both animals and humans DA has been shown to play a crucial role in the development of frontal regions. In the first study, I recorded the spontaneous eyeblink rates (EBR) of 60 preschool aged children (range: 48-62 months) who were also given tasks that assessed their RTM and response-conflict executive functioning (RC-EF) skill. In both animal and human models EBR increases with available DA, and thus EBR can be used as an indirect measure of DA functioning. Regression analyses showed that EBR predicted unique variance in RTM and one Stroop-like measure of RC-EF performance after controlling for the effects of age and language ability. In the second study, I also administered a battery of RTM and RC-EF tasks to 79 preschool aged children (range: 42- 54 months). I recorded their spontaneous EBR in addition to collecting genetic material which was processed for allelic variations of DA turnover, transport, and receptor genes. Polymorphisms of catechol-O-methyl transferase gene (COMT) and the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) were associated with children’s RTM performance. These findings provide preliminary evidence that DA functioning is associated with RTM development in the preschool years. Results suggest that there may be a selective effect of DA on RTM ability. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-08 12:45:24.627

This study was conducted to explore the ability and propensity to verbally deceive others in children with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We also explored the relationships among lie-telling ability, false belief understanding as measured using a standard battery of false belief tasks, and verbal mental age as measured using a standardized test of language ability. To explore antisocial lie-telling ability, we used a modified temptation resistance paradigm in which children were tempted to commit a transgression in the experimenter’s absence and given the opportunity to tell a lie about their transgression and to exercise semantic leakage control (SLC)—that is, to maintain consistency between the lie and subsequent statements that they make. To explore prosocial lie-telling ability, we used a modified undesirable gift paradigm in which children were awarded an unattractive prize for winning a game and given the opportunity to lie about liking the prize that the experimenter gave them. We found that children with ASD, like typically developing children, can and do tell antisocial lies to conceal a transgression, and prosocial lies in politeness settings. However, children with ASD were less able than typically developing children to exercise SLC. Furthermore, we found that, unlike in typically developing children, lie-telling ability in children with ASD was not related to their false belief understanding. The pattern of relations among lie-telling ability, false belief understanding, and verbal mental age are discussed with respect to possible contentions regarding the underlying processes by which children with ASD tell lies and succeed on false belief tasks. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-25 23:03:37.259

Objective: Primarily, to determine if affective Theory of Mind (ToM) decoding differs between patients with bipolar disorder who are experiencing mania, euthymia, or depression. Secondarily, to determine if a bias in ToM in patients experiencing different affective episodes is related to a positive, negative, or neutral valence of the target. Finally, to determine if mental state decoding is related to the severity of depressive, manic, or anxious symptoms Methods: A prospective, cross-sectional, study of ToM in patients with bipolar disorder experiencing mania (n = 14), depression (n = 25), or euthymia (n = 20), using the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task” (Eyes Task) and the Animal Task developed to control for nonsocial response demands of the Eyes Task. Measures of depressive and anxious symptoms were taken using self-report scales. Interview measures of depressive and manic symptoms were also conducted. A review of patient records was conducted to collect information regarding medications, and course of illness variables. Results: Patients experiencing mania were significantly impaired in mental state decoding compared to euthymic and depressed patients with bipolar disorder. No significant difference was observed between the depressed and euthymic groups. These relationships were maintained when controlling for age of illness onset and Animal Task accuracy. No effect of valence was found. Manic symptom severity was negatively correlated to Animal Task accuracy but no other relationships between Eyes and Animal Tasks and the severity of manic, depressive, or anxious symptoms were found. Group differences in Eyes Task performance were not due to differences in demographics, axis I comorbidities, history of psychosis, or course of illness measures. Limitations: The sample was too small to assess differences between acutely and chronically ill patients. There was no assessment of neurocognition or intelligence using tasks previously validated with manic patients. Conclusions: Patients with bipolar disorder experiencing mania were significantly impaired in mental state decoding compared to patients who were depressed or euthymic. The deficit in ToM decoding in manic patients independent of indicators of illness severity may be indicative of qualitative differences in interpersonal dysfunction between mania, depression, and euthymia in patients with bipolar disorder. / Thesis (Master, Neuroscience Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-02-10 13:18:17.667

Despite the shift from dualism to materialism, philosophy of mind and cognitive science still face the challenge of explaining the interaction of the physical and the mental. The language of thought hypothesis, combined with advances in computing offers a promising explanation of the aforementioned interaction by capitalizing on the parallels between the syntax and semantics of language. Unfortunately, the language of thought hypothesis is vulnerable to arguments and objections that stem from syntactic ambiguity, semantic poverty, and semantic causation, all of which stand in the way of creating a working theory of mind. I will claim that these problems can be avoided by incorporating feedback to regulate the semantic content in chains of thoughts. The regulation of semantic content would allow the operations performed by the psychological machinery responsible for the process of thinking to be causally sensitive to the semantic content of thoughts. The causal influence of the feedback would be heuristic, rather than algorithmic, avoiding the explanatory pitfalls traditionally encountered in attempts to integrate semantic content into strict, syntax manipulating mechanisms. The inclusion of consciousness feedback also answers a solipsistic worry, the syntactic zombie, as well as fitting more closely with our experience of cognition.

No description available.

The intent of this thesis is to present James W. Cornman and Keith Lehrer's critical review of the classical body-mind problem and to present a persona defense of the theory known as dualistic interactionism. In establishing dualistic interactionism between a person's body and mind, evidence can be given to demonstrate an overarching relationship between the mental and physical. Furthermore, in establishing such a theory it is possible to show that a person can learn to exert voluntary control over biological states. And in establishing voluntary control over bodily events and states, volition, a cognitive process, clearly can be seen to be a control dimension in human behavior and of the human psyche.

The main objective of this thesis is to indicate an approach through which ontological dualism of mind and body may be collapsed - to show that (and how) the intuitive resistance to ontological monism is confused. A minor objective, much less extensively argued for, is to indicate that once we can accept that there is no logical obstacle to the view that we are purely physical, then human mentality poses no logical obstacle to the scientific accommodation of human beings - to physicalism. It is argued that we already have, in Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument, a very powerful argument suggesting that ontological dualism is logically unsound. The assessment of Wittgenstein's impact on ontological dualism occupies the first major section of the thesis (Part 2). But it is found that the logical force of Wittgenstein's argument, though successfully applicable against ontological dualism, does not prescribe the sort of monistic account we should adopt. For there are two alternatives which satisfy Wittgenstein's argument, which is essentially an argument banishing necessarily "private" mental events. One alternative involves abandoning the view that we can be introspectively aware of mental events (essentially a behaviourist approach). The other alternative is to retain the possibility of introspective awareness of mental events, while maintaining that the latter are only contingently "private" (an approach with which the mind-brain identity theory may be aligned). The first alternative is summarily rejected as being too counter-intuitive; and the remainder of the thesis explores the viability of the second alternative. But the latter alternative is also counter-intuitive: the dualist and the unconvinced materialist resist the suggestion that the mental events of which we may be introspectively aware could be neural events occurring in the brain or central nervous system. In Part 5 the mind-brain identity theory is discussed. The strategy underlying this approach, as generally conceived, is found not only to be unstable and ambivalent - straddling two rather different views - but also to be marked by a reluctance to engage sympathetically with the dualist's resistance. In Part 4 an attempt is made to examine and undermine this resistance. It is found that this resistance is set in a context involving a confused form of realism; and the confusion is traced to a familiarly mistaken notion of perception, in which mental perceptual events are taken to mediate between a "mental subject" and the "external world". The attempt to expose the confusions involved here, and to present a more satisfactory realism in a monistic setting, is supported by a formallinguistic treatment of the relevant aspects of perception. In this formal account, which requires some elementary set-theoretical notions (in particular the notion of isomorphism), a designatory role is defined for perceptual events taken as syntactic entities in a certain sort of formal language. Through this formal treatment it is shown that for a rich enough (purely) physical structure there would be a "subjective dualism": essentially a symptom of the fact that for a physical structure to "perceive" a physical event, there would have to occur in it an unperceived (physical) event. And it is suggested that the dualist's resistance is based on a confusion in which what he takes to be a justification for ontological dualism can only be taken as a justification for "subjective dualism". As a result of these considerations a modified form of the mind-brain identity theory is advocated, in which mental events for whose occurrence we can have introspective evidence are construed as unperceived (but not imperceptible) physical events which (it is hypothesised in the case of human beings) have neurophysiological descriptions. In Part 5 this view is considered in a more general context. Also in this section there is an argument for a view hinted at earlier in the thesis, maintaining that the peculiarities of "mental discourse" pose no serious problem for physicalism. Finally, two problems connected with the notions of the "unity" and "simplicity" of mind are briefly mentioned, and an indication is given as to how they may be handled by the present account.

For each of us there is one body which is special, different from all other bodies: the body one conceives of and experiences as one's own. The principal aim of this thesis is to understand what this conception and experience amounts to, and why it matters. I address three main topics: (1) body awareness, body ownership, and the immunity to errors of misidentification of judgements which refer to a body as 'my body' or 'mine'; (2) spatial perception and the knowledge of location we take it to afford; (3) the conceptual problem of other minds and the nature of the basic emotions. Through consideration of these topics, I propose that the conception and experience one has of a body as one's own is as of a recognisably human body. This is so in two ways. I argue that what makes a body one's own is that one is aware of it 'from the inside'. Given this, one can also experience a body as one's own through the outer senses. So the first way that the conception and experience one has of a body as one's own is as of a recognisably human body is that it is human in physical appearance, like the bodies of others. I also argue that the basic emotions are bodily states that one can be aware of from the inside, and in this sense feel or experience. This solves the conceptual problem of other minds. For it makes it possible to understand how the very same type of psychological state one can feel or experience oneself, one can also observe in others. It also provides the second way that the conception and experience one has of a body as one's own is as of a recognisably human body: one experiences one's own body, as much as the bodies of others, as subject to the basic emotions, and so as human in psychology. I conclude by suggesting that this account of one's conception and experience of a body as one's own and as recognisably human points to a perceptual-demonstrative model of self-consciousness and self-reference: in basic cases, T means 'this human'.

Over the past 25 years, there has been tremendous interest in the development of children’s ability to reason about others’ mental states, or “theory of mind”. Much research has explored children's understanding of situational cues that lead to knowledge, but only recently has research begun to assess children's understanding of person-specific differences in knowledge. A number of studies (Birch, Vauthier & Bloom, 2008; Jaswal & Neely, 2006; Koenig, Clément & Harris, 2004) have recently demonstrated that at least by age 3 children pay attention to others' history of accuracy and use it as a cue when deciding from whom to learn. However, the nature and scope of children's interpretations of other's prior accuracy remains unclear. Experiment 1 assessed whether 4- and 5-year-olds interpret prior accuracy as indicative of knowledge, as opposed to two other accounts that do not involve epistemic attributions. This experiment revealed that preschool children can revise their tendency to prefer to learn from a previously accurate informant over an inaccurate one when presented with evidence regarding each informant's current knowledge state. Experiment 2 investigated how broadly a person's history of accuracy influences children's subsequent inferences, and showed that 5-year-olds (but not 4-year-olds) use information about an individual's past accuracy to predict her knowledge in other related domains as well as her propensity for prosocial or antisocial behaviour. Overall, children's performance in these experiments suggests that both 4- and 5-year-olds interpret others' history of accuracy as indicative of knowledge; however, 4-year-olds make a more restricted attribution of knowledge while 5-year-olds make a more stable, trait-like attribution. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for research on theory of mind and more broadly on children's social and cognitive development.

When humans use the mental states (e.g., beliefs, intentions) and the emotional states of others to predict or explain another person�s behaviour, they have demonstrated their theory of mind understanding. Theory of mind is "one of the quintessential abilities that makes us human" (Baron-Cohen, 2000, p. 3). Emotion understanding has been considered by some to be an aspect of theory of mind understanding. There are several theories proposed to explain the development of theory of mind, from changes in representational abilities (Perner, 1991), to having an innate domain specific module (Fodor, 1992; Leslie, 1994), to social linguistic influences (Nelson et al., 2003). One facet of theory of mind understanding, understanding false belief, has been consistently found to develop at around 3 or 4 years of age (e.g., Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Another cognitive ability that develops at the approximately the same time is that of autobiographical memory. Autobiographical memory has been defined as "memory for information and events pertaining to the self" (Howe & Courage, 1993, p. 306). There are also several theories explaining the onset of autobiographical memory. Two similar theories by Perner (1991) and Welch-Ross (1995) proposed that until a child possesses dual representational abilities (or theory of mind), they cannot form autobiographical memories. Nelson (1993) and Fivush (2001) have both proposed that autobiographical memory is developed through shared narratives with more experienced others (e.g., parents). There are several factors that have been found to contribute to theory of mind, emotion understanding, and autobiographical memory. Language abilities have been related to all three cognitive abilities (e.g., Slade & Ruffman, 2005; Dunn & Cutting, 1999; Harley & Reese, 1999). Factors such as maternal talk, gender of the child, and the number of siblings the child has, have all been related to at least two of these abilities. In the current study, I addressed the relation between theory of mind understanding, emotion understanding, and autobiographical memory in three studies. The first study investigated the relations between language, theory of mind, emotion understanding, and mother-child talk about past events in 61 children at three 6- month intervals from 42- to 54- months of age. The second study also investigated these factors and the children�s pretense in 59 children at 48- months of age. In the second study, the mother�s theory of mind and emotion understanding were also measured. In the third study, I investigated the relations between theory of mind, emotion understanding and early memory recall in 73 adults, with an average age of 20 years. One key finding was that, despite theoretical predictions, there was no clear relation between theory of mind understanding and autobiographical memory in either children or adults. Results showed that theory of mind and emotion understanding are related but distinct abilities. The number of siblings, or the gender of the participants were not strongly related to theory of mind, autobiographical memory, or emotion understanding. Language abilities and maternal talk were the strongest factors related to the development of theory of mind, autobiographical memory and emotion understanding.