The Status of Language in the Development of a Theory of Mind The study of the development of 'theory of mind' skills in children became popular when the false-belief task was invented in the 1980's, providing cognitive scientists with the focus of a clear experimental paradigm. This tested the ability of the young child to attribute false beliefs to others in order to explain their actions. Researchers then began to investigate the developmental stages through which children acquire these theory of mind abilities. This essay will examine the nature of this acquisition process, studying two opposing views of theory of mind development in the young child; whether it can be explained by the modular nature of the cognitive process, where the ability is innate but must be triggered by input from the child's environment, or whether it exists as a developing theory, a set of causal principles progressively formulated by the child through observation and hypothesis formation. We also consider the role played by the language faculty, particularly the question of whether the acquisition of a natural language is causally necessary for the development of a theory of mind in the young child. A 'theory of mind' refers to the cognitive ability to interpret, predict and explain the behaviour of others in terms of their underlying mental states. This theory is universal among all normal humans, and becomes accessible during childhood. It is also metarepresentational. It demands that we not only employ propositional attitudes, but also that we employ them about propositional attitudes; we have beliefs about the beliefs of ourselves and oth... ... middle of paper ... ...ties and Neurath's boat' In P. Carruthers and P. Smith (eds) Theories of Theories of Mind. Cambridge, CUP. pp.293-329 [15] Chomsky, N. (1995) The Minimalist Program. Cambridge MA: MIT Press [16] Carruthers - cognitive functions of the language faculty [17] Baron-Cohen, S. (1995) Mindblindness. Cambridge MA: MIT Press [18] Happe, F (1995) 'The role of age and verbal ability in the ToM performance of subjects with autism'. Child Development, 66:843-855 [19] Smith, N.V and Tsimpli, I.-M. (1995) The Mind of a Savant: Language Learning and Modularity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell [20] Papafragou, A (2002) 'Mindreading and verbal communication'. Mind & Language 17:55-67 [21] Papafragou, A. (1998) 'The acquisition of modality: Implications for theories of semantic representation'. Mind & Language 13:370-399
According to Korsgaard, the human mind is “essentially reflective” (92). By this, she means that we are capable of examining and evaluating the various perceptions and desires which make up the content of our mind. This ablility gives rise to a problem she terms the “normative problem,” since we can critically question whether the perceptions and desires we experience are reasons, or whether they dictate how we should act. This is a problem because if the mind continues to reflect and can grasp no reason, “it cannot commit itself or go forward” (93). She also thinks that “because of the reflective character of the mind ... we must act ... under the idea of freedom” (94). Desires and perceptions appear to us, but which of them influences our actions is a matter of which we choose to act on. The notion of “freedom” as well as that of “reasons” are essential for explaining how we make decisions when we reflect on our options for how to act (96). Korsgaard defines a reason as a “reflective success,” or an agent 's affirmation of some
... know to be true. It is at this age that a child develops the ability to make a split between peoples minds and the world, and can think about people’s minds and manipulate the world around it so they can come to believe certain things about it. Children younger than the age of four have a hard time understanding that they themselves, as well as other people, act in order to achieve some type of goal, which makes it hard for them to take the perspectives of others. My hypothesis about a theory of mind not beginning to develop in children until about four or five years of age was correct and was supported by the false-belief tests that I performed on three different children as well as evidence found by Charlie Lewis and Amanda Osborne, and Heinz Wimmer and Josef Perner (1983) in their study’s with the false-belief task and children’s acquisition of a theory of mind.
The concept of ‘theory of mind’ is a complex one with various considerations. It can basically be defined as, ‘The ability to understand or ‘read’ the mind of another individual; the ability to ‘put oneself in the place of another’,’ (Smith and Stevens 2002). Essentially, ‘theory of mind’ is concerned with the ideal that a person can comprehend what another person in the same situation may be thinking, or the way in which they may be feeling, without the necessity for direct contact and communication to establish that information. The paramount dilemma for psychologists researching this area of evolutionary psychology, is the difficulty in ensuring that it genuinely is the mind of another individual that a person is responding to, rather than their overt behaviour, bearing in mind the impossibility of looking directly into another’s mind.
The myth about the brain is that, it controls the mind. Also people that the mind is the activity of the brain. However, both statements are untrue. I believe that there is a relationship between the brain and the mind forming a triangle of well- being for an individual. In my opinion, the brain is the passive path of existence because every information from the external environment produce a response either internally or externally without analysis. The brain transfers these information into our consciousness, but the active mind which analyzes the information and pays attention to both the benefits and disadvantages of the information before making choices about whether to listen or not. The brain cannot be defined without involving its
Leslie, A. M. 1987. Pretense and representation: The origins of" theory of mind.” Psychological review, 94 (4), p. 412
Physicalism of the human mind is a doctrine that states that the world is ‘entirely physical’, and can be described in various ways. One way it can be described is that minds, mental properties and mental processes are visibly not physical phenomena. Terms such as “mind,” “thinking,” and “feeling” do not play in the theories of fundamental physics. For example, in this slim sense of “physical,” a lung is not a physical object, inhalation is not a physical property and diffusion is not a physical process; as in the terms “lung,” “inhalation,” and “diffusion” do not have a role in the theories of fundamental physics. Acknowledging that mental phenomena are not physical in this slim sense is not vastly acknowledging. However, certainly there is an open sense of the word “physical” in which a lung, inhalation, and diffusion are certainly physical phenomena. Physicalism of the human mind proclaims that human minds, mental properties and mental processes are physical in this open sense of “physical.” A clear open sense of “physical” is contentious in the philosophy of the mind. A common view is: “An individual item (e.g., object, property-instance, or process) is physical in the broad sense if, and only if, it meets either of two conditions: (1) it’s an item of a kind that can in principle be defined in the distinctive vocabulary of fundamental physics; or (2) it’s a physically realized item of a functional kind.” The first condition is straight forward, but the second condition evidently demands clarification. Accordingly, a “functional” kind of thing is one in which its existence entails in the actuality of “something or other” that encounters a convinced measurement where the structure and functioning of the “something or other” does not matter as long as it encounters the functioning in request. For instance, a lung is a functional kind of object in my sense. Therefore,
Lee, V. and Gupta, P.D. 1995. Children’s Cognitive and Language Development. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers in association with the Open University.
A number of psychological perspectives are evaluated, these perspectives include the behaviourist theory of B.F. Skinner and the the nativist concepts of Noam Chomsky. Following this is a more indepth review of the psychology of cognition and cognitive development, highlighting the contrasting theories of Piaget and Vygotsky and their contributions to the discourse. Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development are explored in relation to language acquisition and Vygotsky’s theories surrounding the Zone of Proximal development, and the practical application of ‘scaffolding’ are examined. A case study is then presented highlighting atypical language development in a child aged three, this includes details of the child’s personality, and the impact his communication difficulties are having in terms of his social skills and depth of social interaction with peers. Delayed language development is then delineated and defined, and interventions to support language development are offered. Finally areas for future professional development are discussed, along with their implications for
Chomsky and Skinner and Theories Of Language Development Many psychologists have studied and researched into how we acquire language. Some have concluded that the ability to learn language is a genetically inherited skill. Others believe that language is learned following birth and is due to environmental factors. This is part of the nature vs. nurture debate.
Blind-sight is when the patient is legally blind but can perform tasks of everyday life as if they were able to see perfectly. Ramachandran believed this syndrome came from damage to the specific part of the visual cortex that corresponded with vision but also function. Therefore:
Psychophysical dualism — the distinction between mind and body — is the counterposition between essentially irreducible elements: the mind and body. Such a dualism implies the main ontological problem of the philosophy of cognitive science and philosophy of mind: the mind-body problem (MBP). The dualism and the referred-to problem has been insistently discussed in the philosophical tradition and several solutions have been proposed. Such solutions are properly philosophical or require a scientific approach. First, I will expound the philosophical solution to the MBP proposed by Descartes, to be followed by an exposition of Ryle's criticisms to the solution. Second, from Ryle's criticism, I will deduce a scientific solution to the MBP related to the neural framework model of mind in cognitive science by means of what I call 'the principle of the embodiment of the mind.' Finally, I shall point out the philosophical difficulties that are to be found in using such a principle.
As stated earlier, there are different components to language which must be taught and used in conjunction with context and social situations (Gee & Hayes, 2011). These include phonetic (sound patterns of words), syntactic (sentence structures), semantic (meanings of words and sentences) and pragmatic (using language in certain contexts) mechanisms (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). Learning these can put meaning and purpose to the language that children learn through their surroundings, including contact with other children and adults, their culture and build upon their cognitive functions. Children in the early years are at a crucial time in their learning, the exposure to language they get from their home environment can set them up for the rest of their educational journey and beyond schooling. McInerney (2014) explores Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development, explaining that language is used as a communication instrument and a way to organize our own thoughts.
Why is one man sad and another man happy? Why is one man fearful and anxious and another full of faith and confidence? Why is one man a great success and other an abject failure? Why is one man healed of so called disease and another isn’t?
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
Language is the basis of human communication. It is a cultural and social interaction, and the way language is used is influenced by the circumstances in which it takes place (Emmitt, 2010, p. 49; Green, 2006, p. 2). Children become aware that there are different types of language, including languages used at home, at childcare and at school, as they observe and participate in various language situations (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014, p. 39). Some of these languages may be unfamiliar, and children will need to learn the different roles and uses of language. The different roles of language in a child’s life are, therefore, part of their growing understanding of how to behave in society and in a particular context. As they experience different types and uses of language, children develop an understanding of how to use language appropriately for any given situation.