Development of representational theory of mind: Concepts of mental states, awareness of thinking, and self-permanence.

Abstract

In a recent monograph, my students, colleagues, and I reported on a comprehensive set of tests of the theory of Perceptual Access Reasoning (PAR), a new theory of the development of representational theory of mind (ToM). The central tenet of the theory is that young children acquire a hitherto undetected non-representational ToM (i.e., PAR), the use of which allows them to pass standard false belief tasks without understanding false beliefs. Thus, PAR theory capitalizes on an unrecognized flaw in all standard false belief tasks. In what follows, I present an overview of PAR theory, the tests that we have conducted of the theory, and logical arguments for how PAR explains the classic findings in the ToM literature. Next, I evaluate two recent alternate accounts that have been offered by critics, and I discuss some of the issues raised by three invited commentaries on the monograph. Finally, I consider the question, "What is the development of representational ToM the development of?" Insights from philosophy of mind point to the primacy of children's understanding of mental states in themselves, leading to a new concept of self-permanence that can provide the basis for a unified theory of the development of children's understanding of the mental and physical worlds. As a final thought, I consider how PAR was able to hide in plain sight for so long.