Theory of mind - Smarties task and Sally-Anne Task

[narrator] Children at play with
one of their favorite activities.

The water provides plenty of
opportunities for learning and fun.

As they grow up and take part in
activities like these,

one of the things that children
need to be able to do

is represent internally the
complexity of their social worlds.

This involves not just being able to
predict how the world of objects works,

but also how other people are likely
to react in various situations.

Psychologists have recently realized that,
in order to do this,

the young child needs an idea about
how people's minds work—

what they have begun to call
a "theory of mind."

And research over the last decade

has suggested how this seems to
appear quite rapidly

and suddenly between the ages of
three and four years.

The great thing about
theory of mind is that it...

it is a major conceptual tool
that allows us to step

outside of the bounds of
the directly-perceivable

stimulus circumstances,
and allow for

for predicting and explaining
other people's, uh, behavior

in a wide variety of novel ways.

[narrator] Psychologists argue that
we can see the difference between

having and not having a theory of mind
in simple experiments

called "false belief tasks."

First of all, the child has to establish
the fact that their own belief is false.

Then they have to put themselves
inside the mind of another child

in order to predict that child's beliefs.

[man] Now, Elizabeth,
what do you think's inside this box?

- Smarties.
- Have a look inside.

- Can't take the lid off.
- Oh, well, let me have a go, shall I?

You ready?

Say "go."

Go.

What's in there?

What's that?
- Pencils.

- Oh, right. Should we
put them back in the box?

- Yes.
But what are they for?

- Shall we put the lid on?

Now, can you remember
what's inside the box?

- Pencils.

- And what did you think
was in the box?

- Pencils.

- Did you?

Now I'm going to show this box
to Jay in a minute.

What will Jay think is in the box?

- Pencils.

- You think?
Good.

After you've mopped up
the child's tears

because they expected to get sweets,
you, uh, ask them two questions.

One is a reality question to make sure
that they remember what's inside.

So "what is inside the box?"

And then you can ask them
one of two false belief questions.

One is about their own previous belief—
"What did you think was inside the box?"

And the second question is,

"Your friend John is gonna come
and look at the box in a minute.

"What will John think is in the box?"

[Charlie Lewis] Do you like that?

[narrator] Like many children
of this age,

when asked what
another child will think,

Elizabeth simply projects what
she now believes herself

about the tube of sweets.

She doesn't recognize that the
other child exists as an independent,

thinking being.

And presented with
another task of this kind,

she acts in much the same way.

- [Charlie Lewis] ...right now.
- [Elizabeth] She is?

- This is Sally...

and this is Anne.
All right?

Now, Sally comes in with a marble.

Sally puts her marble
into the basket and goes out.

Anne comes and gets the marble,
and she puts the marble in the box.

Here comes Sally! Here comes Sally!

Now, where will Sally
look for the marble?

- [Elizabeth] Oh!
Let's find it.

There you go, Sally!

- You got it for her!
Hooray!

- [narrator] But for
another child, Connor,

the outcome is somewhat different.

- [Charlie Lewis] Sally comes in
to find her marble.

Where will Sally look for her marble?

And where was the
marble in the beginning?

That's it. Good.
Shall we look for the marble now?

Where did you say the marble is?

Have a look.

That's it. Good!

The joy of this procedure

is that you can ask two control
questions to make sure they understand

what the task is about.

You can ask them a memory question,

which is where was the object
at the beginning.

And of course the answer to that
is at location A.

And you can ask them
a second reality question,

which is where is the object now,
which of course is location B.

- [narrator] To be able to work out
where Sally will think the marble is,

Connor has to be able to
simultaneously hold—

or in psychological terms,
mentally represent—

two distinct points of view in his mind.

In the research studies, most
three-year-olds seem unable to do this.

Before the age of
about four, uh,

children do not use the other person's
mental representations

as independent entities.

They do not realize that individuals
can act upon misrepresentation.

- [Charlie Lewis]
This is Sally....

- [narrator] But most four-year-olds get
the answers to these questions right.

But why?

What happens between the ages
of three and four?