Browsing by Subject "Philosophy of mind in children"
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Item Children's beliefs about what it means to have a mind(2004) Davis, Debra Lee; Woolley, JacquelineChildren’s understanding of the mind and mental states has been studied extensively by Theory of Mind researchers. Important aspects of understanding the mind involve general beliefs about what the mind is, what it can do, and what sort of entities have minds. In two studies I investigated the types of attributes children and adults believe an object or entity must have in order to claim that the object or entity has a mind. In Study 1, children and adults were asked about physical, mental and emotional characteristics of a number of entities, including intelligent artifacts (e.g., robots and computers), social entities (e.g., people and animals) and inanimate objects (e.g., flowers). They were also asked whether each of these entities is alive, and whether each has a mind, brain and heart. Adults were asked the same questions in the form of a questionnaire. Similarities and differences between how social entities, intelligent artifacts and inanimate objects are conceptualized were evaluated. Specifically, patterns of responses were analyzed to determine which characteristics are most strongly vi associated with having a mind and a brain. The presence of a mind was most strongly associated with emotion, physical states, intentional behavior, advanced mental states, senses and sensations. The brain was most strongly associated with senses, sensations, physical states, intentional behavior, basic mental acts and advanced mental acts. In Study 2, children were presented with twelve unfamiliar “people, animals or things,” each of which was presented as having between one and three mind-related characteristics (cognitive, emotional, and interactive). For example, they may have been told that a mippit can think (cognitive) and feel happy (emotional). Children were asked whether each entity is alive, and whether each has a mind, brain and heart. Patterns of responses were analyzed to determine which attributes are most strongly associated with having a mind and a brain. It was found that children consider cognition, emotion and interaction as indicators of the presence of a mind and brain.Item Children's understanding of the normativity of belief(2002-05) Koenig, Melissa Ann; Echols, Catharine H.; Woolley, Jacqueline D.The variety of accounts of theory of mind development, arising from distinct theoretical perspectives, have focused on children’s causal-explanatory views on the mind and have not developed accounts of children’s normative judgments of the mental domain. This account proposes a new way of thinking about the findings of various domains in this field and gives particular attention to prior work on false belief, origins or sources of belief and the distinctions between fantastical and epistemic states. Children's understanding of epistemic justification and their appreciation of the normative significance of others' reasons for belief was investigated in 2 experiments. Three-, 4- and 5-year-olds were presented with the opportunity to direct praise, criticism and advice to others who have different kinds of evidence for what they believe. Experiment 1 determined that children of all age groups appropriately judged looking, reliable testimony and inductive inference as better reasons for belief than pretense, guessing and desiring, however, 3-year-olds did not perform as well as 4- and 5-year-olds. In Experiment 2, children of all age groups consistently praised justified true believers and had difficulty evaluating justified false, unjustified true and unjustified false believers.