We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with oth- ers and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The develop- mental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition.

/pdf/understanding-and-sharing-intentions-the-origins-of-cultural-4ndpnm3ov3.pdf

Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition

Research on theory of mind increasingly encompasses apparently contradictory findings. In particular, in initial studies, older preschoolers consistently passed false-belief tasks—a so-called “definitive” test of mentalstate understanding—whereas younger children systematically erred. More recent studies, however, have found evidence of false-belief understanding in 3-year-olds or have demonstrated conditions that improve children’s performance. A meta-analysis was conducted ( N � 178 separate studies) to address the empirical inconsistencies and theoretical controversies. When organized into a systematic set of factors that vary across studies, false-belief results cluster systematically with the exception of only a few outliers. A combined model that included age, country of origin, and four task factors (e.g., whether the task objects were transformed in order to deceive the protagonist or not) yielded a multiple R of .74 and an R 2 of .55; thus, the model accounts for 55% of the variance in false-belief performance. Moreover, false-belief performance showed a consistent developmental pattern, even across various countries and various task manipulations: preschoolers went from below-chance performance to above-chance performance. The findings are inconsistent with early competence proposals that claim that developmental changes are due to tasks artifacts, and thus disappear in simpler, revised false-belief tasks; and are, instead, consistent with theoretical accounts that propose that understanding of belief, and, relatedly, understanding of mind, exhibit genuine conceptual change in the preschool years.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1132444.pdf

Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: The truth about false belief.

I. the origin of species by means of natural selection

"Weak central coherence" refers to the detail-focused processing style proposed to characterise autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The original suggestion of a core deficit in central processing resulting in failure to extract global form/meaning, has been challenged in three ways. First, it may represent an outcome of superiority in local processing. Second, it may be a processing bias, rather than deficit. Third, weak coherence may occur alongside, rather than explain, deficits in social cognition. A review of over 50 empirical studies of coherence suggests robust findings of local bias in ASD, with mixed findings regarding weak global processing. Local bias appears not to be a mere side-effect of executive dysfunction, and may be independent of theory of mind deficits. Possible computational and neural models are discussed.

http://www.curriculumconnection4sped.com/uploads/1/2/6/4/12648571/firth_central_coherence.pdf

The Weak Coherence Account: Detail-Focused Cognitive Style in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

At around 1 year of age, human infants display a number of new behaviors that seem to indicate a newly emerging understanding of other persons as intentional beings whose attention to outside objects may be shared, followed into, and directed in various ways. These behaviors have mostly been studied separately. In the current study, we investigated the most important of these behaviors together as they emerged in a single group of 24 infants between 9 and 15 months of age. At each of seven monthly visits, we measured joint attentional engagement, gaze and point following, imitation of two different kinds of actions on objects, imperative and declarative gestures, and comprehension and production of language. We also measured several nonsocial-cognitive skills as a point of comparison. We report two studies. The focus of the first study was the initial emergence of infants' social-cognitive skills and how these skills are related to one another developmentally. We found a reliable pattern of emergence: Infants progressed from sharing to following to directing others' attention and behavior. The nonsocial skills did not emerge predictably in this developmental sequence. Furthermore, correlational analyses showed that the ages of emergence of all pairs of the social-cognitive skills or their components were inter-related. The focus of the second study was the social interaction of infants and their mothers, especially with regard to their skills of joint attentional engagement (including mothers' use of language to follow into or direct infants' attention) and how these skills related to infants' early communicative competence. Our measures of communicative competence included not only language production, as in previous studies, but also language comprehension and gesture production. It was found that two measures--the amount of time infants spent in joint engagement with their mothers and the degree to which mothers used language that followed into their infant's focus of attention--predicted infants' earliest skills of gestural and linguistic communication. Results of the two studies are discussed in terms of their implications for theories of social-cognitive development, for theories of language development, and for theories of the process by means of which human children become fully participating members of the cultural activities and processes into which they are born.

Social Cognition, joint attention and communicative Competence from 9 to 15 months of age

Background: People with autism experience profound and pervasive difficulties in the social domain. Attempts to teach social behaviours tend to adopt either a behavioural or a ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) approach. The beneficial aspects and limitations of both paradigms are summarized before an examination of how virtual reality technology may offer a way to combine the strengths from both approaches. Methods: This is not an exhaustive review of the literature; rather, the papers are chosen as representative of the current understanding within each broad topic. Web of Science ISI, EMBASE and PsycInfo were searched for relevant articles. Results: Behavioural and ToM approaches to social skills training achieve some success in improving specific skills or understanding. However, the failure to generalize learned behaviours to novel environments, and the unwieldy nature of some behavioural methodologies, means that there is a need for a training package that is easy to administer and successful in promoting learning across contexts. Conclusions: Virtual reality technology may be an ideal tool for allowing participants to practise behaviours in role-play situations, whilst also providing a safe environment for rule learning and repetition of tasks. Role-play within virtual environments could promote the mental simulation of social events, potentially allowing a greater insight into minds. Practice of behaviours, both within and across contexts, could also encourage a more flexible approach to social problem solving. Virtual environments offer a new and exciting perspective on social skills training for people with autistic spectrum disorders.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1365-2788.2002.00425.x

The potential of virtual reality in social skills training for people with autistic spectrum disorders

https://wiki.inf.ed.ac.uk/twiki/pub/ECHOES/InteractiveTasks/RajendranMitchell2007.pdf

Cognitive theories of autism

Six teenagers with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) experienced a Virtual Environment (VE) of a cafe. They also watched three sets of videos of real cafes and buses and judged where they would sit and explained why. Half of the participants received their VE experience between the first and second sets of videos, and half experienced it between the second and third. Ten naive raters independently coded participants' judgments and reasoning. In direct relation to the timing of VE use, there were several instances of significant improvement in judgments and explanations about where to sit, both in a video of a cafe and a bus. The results demonstrate the potential of Virtual Reality for teaching social skills.

Using virtual environments for teaching social understanding to 6 adolescents with autistic spectrum disorders.

P. Mitchell, C. Lewis, Critical Issues in Children's Early Understanding of Mind. Part I: Ontogenesis of an Understanding of Mind. P. Mitchell, Realism and Early Conception of Mind: A Synthesis of Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Issues. A. Whiten, Grades of Mindreading. R.P. Hobson, Perceiving Attitudes, Conceiving Minds. N.H. Freeman, Associations and Dissociations in Theories of Mind. Part II: Attention, Perception and Cognition: The Legacy of Infancy. G. Butterworth, Theory of Mind and the Facts of Embodiment. D.A. Baldwin, L.J. Moses, Early Understanding of Referential Intent and Attentional Focus: Evidence from Language and Emotion. A. Gopnik, V. Slaughter, A. Meltzoff, Changing Your Views: How Understanding Visual Perception Can Lead to a New Theory of the Mind. S. Baron-Cohen, H. Ring, A Model of the Mindreading System: Neuropsychological and Neurobiological Perspectives. Part III: The Role of Pretence. A. Lillard, Making Sense of Pretence. P.L. Harris, Understanding Pretence. J. Perner, S. Baker, D. Hutton, Prelief: The Conceptual Origins of Belief and Pretence. A. Lillard, P. Harris, J. Perner, Commentary: Triangulating Pretence and Belief. Part IV: The Role of Communication. J. Dunn, Changing Minds and Changing Relationships. M. Shatz, Theory of Mind and the Development of Social-linguistic Intelligence in Early Childhood. H.M. Wellman, K. Bartsch, Before Belief: Children's Early Psychological Theory. E.J. Robinson, What People Say, What They Think, and What Is Really the Case: Children's Understanding of Utterances as Sources of Knowledge. Part V: Misrepresentation. B. Sodian, Early Deception and the Conceptual Continuity Claim. M. Chandler, S. Hala, The Role of Personal Involvement in the Assessment of Early False Belief Skills. M. Siegal, C.C. Peterson, Children's Theory of Mind and the Conversational Territory of Cognitive Development. C. Lewis, Episodes, Events and Narratives in the Child's Understanding of Mind.

Peter Mitchell

Papers

The potential of virtual reality in social skills training for people with autistic spectrum disorders

Cognitive theories of autism

Using virtual environments for teaching social understanding to 6 adolescents with autistic spectrum disorders.

Children's Early Understanding of Mind: Origins and Development

Children's early understanding of false belief