Event overview
Lecture by: Dr. Ian Apperly, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham
Title: "Two systems" for theory of mind: Evidence for automatic and non-automatic processes
Abstract:
Theory of mind appears to make contradictory cognitive demands. It needs to be fast enough to sustain on-line social interaction yet flexible enough to allow mental states to be ascribed to any individual with any kind of content. I suggest that this contradiction can be resolved by supposing that two kinds of system are involved in theory of mind: Systems that are fast and efficient but inflexible; and systems that are flexible but slower and more demanding of memory and cognitive control. I will present behavioural evidence from adults to support this distinction. One set of studies provides evidence that explicit belief ascription is non-automatic, and is subject to strategic control. Another set provides evidence that adults automatically compute what another person sees, and that this is resistant to strategic control. I suggest that human adults may share some of these automatic processes with human infants and non-human animals, but that the flexible non-automatic systems may be late-developing and uniquely human.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 13 Nov 2008 | 4:00pm - 5:30pm |
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