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It is well known that humans are able to represent the mental states of others. This ability is commonly thought to be unique to humans. However, recent studies on the food caching, gift giving, and cooperative behaviours of Corvids and Parrots provide evidence for this ability in birds. Upon examining the empirical evidence, I argue that the best explanation for these behaviours is that birds are able to represent conspecifics as having particular mental states. I further argue that birds are able to do this by simulating the minds of conspecifics.

Theory of mind has been described in philosophical and psychological literature as "folk psychology", and is the tacit understanding that our behaviour is driven by our thoughts, desires and beliefs (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Children are widely considered to have attained theory of mind understanding when they are able to pass the test of false belief understanding devised by Wimmer and Perner (1983), at around 4 years of age. There are many theories as to how a child comes to hold a folk psychology, including innate modularism (Leslie, 1987, 1988, 1994), theory change (Gopnik & Wellman 1992), developing representational understanding (Perner, 1991, 1995, 2000), and experiential understanding developed in a socio-linguisitic context (Nelson, 1996). In addition, theory of mind has been linked to the development of symbolic understanding (Deloache & Smith, 1999; Perner, 1991), pretend play (Leslie, 1987; Taylor & Carlson, 1997; Youngblade & Dunn, 1993), language (Astington & Jenkins, 1999; Nelson, 1996; Olson, 1988) and executive function (e.g. Hughes, 1998a; Kochanska et al., 1996; Reed et al., 1984). The present study sought to bring together these diverse findings and to attempt to provide an integrated account of the emergence of theory of mind understanding during the preschool years. Sixty-four New Zealand children were assessed on their mental state understanding, deceptive abilities, symbolic functioning, language, and executive skills, when they were aged 30, 36, 42 and 48 months of age. There were a number of key findings in the present study. Language was a powerful predictor of false belief performance both within and across time, and was also related to many of the other variables included in the study. Performance on the scale model test of symbolic functioning was related across time to children�s concurrent and later false belief understanding. Scale model performance was also intertwined in a bidirectional relationship with language, and language appeared to play an increasingly important role in mediating the relationship with false belief understanding across time. False belief understanding and scale model performance were also related within and across time to executive function. There was evidence to suggest that the importance of working memory was due to its role in conflict inhibition. Although deception has sometimes been posited to be a precocious manifestation of theory of mind (Chandler, Fritz, & Hala, 1989), in the present study deceptive ability lagged false belief understanding. Furthermore, false belief understanding was related to children�s subsequent (but not earlier) responses to a protagonist�s intention. This supports the hypothesis that false belief understanding allows a qualitative change in the execution of deception, whereby children can move from simple physical strategies to more sophisticated mentalist strategies. Overall, the present study provides some evidence to suggest that symbolic functioning, language, and later theory of mind may form part of a single developing skill set of symbolic representation. In dynamic interaction with social understanding, and supported by cognitive abilities such as executive function, and the socio-linguistic context, it is argued that understanding of one�s own and other minds emerges. Children�s ability to solve the false belief problem at 4 years of age is presented as a milestone on a developmental continuum of social understanding.

It is argued that physical (and not inherently psychical) properties are insufficient to constitute all else. Specifically they cannot constitute an instance (K1) of our knowledge that the number of existing things is at least one. This employs a new version of entry by entailment: Every fact as to the presence of a constituted trope is entailed by facts about the presence of the ontologically basic, where a property is ontologically basic if and only if the fact of its presence is not entailed (even allowing exhaustive definitions of all tropes in terms of their ultimate constituents) by facts about the presence of things non-identical to it. Existence is a mind-independent presence. Things can be present (to mind) as opposed to existing but must be accompanied by the presence of all of their parts and of anything else that their presence might entail. This includes some existing thing in the case that knowledge that something exists is present, since it is analytic that knowledge cannot be of what is not the case. Purely dynamical properties cannot exist apart from instances of some other property kind (on pain of regress as to what moves). Material properties can make a difference to cognitive states only in virtue of differences they can make to dynamical properties. Thus, any cognitive state present in some dynamical and material scenario must be present in an equivalent purely dynamical scenario, which cannot exist. Hence: 1) There can be no knowledge of existence, or thus trope K1, in a purely dynamical scenario. 2) There can thus neither be a trope K1 if only dynamical and material properties (and what they constitute) are present. So because there is a trope K1, there are one or more ontologically basic properties which are not dynamical or material. It is further argued that nothing ontologically basic is per se (directly and non-obscurely) conceivable except as psychicality or a categorical basis of a disposition to change or constancy (respectively, dynamism and materiality). Thus at least one ontologically basic property is either psychical or not per se conceivable. The latter proposition has less merit.

This thesis examines Theory of Mind (ToM) in relation to the areas of language and cognitive development. The thesis explores both popular and alternate theories of ToM and how they account for the important relationships between language and theory of mind. It examines the theories in the context of published ToM findings as well as the findings from three studies conducted by the author. The first study took the form of a pilot study which re-analysed data, collected for the author's honours project, from a small group of children with (n = 10) and without autism (n = 10). In each diagnostic group (autism and no autism) children were divided into two groups, those passing a ToM task and those failing a ToM task. The aim of the study was to investigate whether the underlying language and cognitive skills required to succeed on ToM tasks are the same for children with and without autism. The key finding of the study was that for both the children with and without autism, those who passed the ToM task performed better on all the developmental measures, although only the difference in language ability was statistically significant. The second study expanded on the pilot study, examining the relationship in typically developing 4 and 6-year-old children, between ToM, language, cognitive development, and subtractive reasoning. The study's aim was to examine the developmental structure underlying ToM using factor analysis. The results indicated that for 4-year-old children the most important skill for ToM success was language, but that for 6-year-old children ToM success was more strongly related to subtractive reasoning ability. The findings of the study also raised the question of whether presentation method for ToM tasks impacted on task difficulty. A final study therefore examined the effect of presentation mode 2-dimensional versus 3-dimensional, on the success of typically developing 4-year-old children on the ToM task battery. The findings indicated that tasks presented in cartoon format were more difficult than tasks presented with dolls and props. Reliability and validity of common ToM tasks and new ToM test batteries are discussed. Alternative conceptions of ToM in relation to social interaction are considered. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 2010

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Janet W. Astington.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-199).

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, Discipline of Philosophy, 20045. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.). / Written for the Dept. of English. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/01/14). Includes bibliographical references.