Pretense and Representation The Origins
Pretense and Representation: The Origins of “Theory of Mind” Leslie, A. M. (1987). Pretense and representation: The origins of” theory of mind.". Psychological review, 94(4), 412.
Early accounts for pretend play: Piaget: Pretend play is an extreme form of assimilation—counterfactual situation is assimilated to the real, creating a symbol Fischer: Behaviorist account—arises from coordination of two or more sensorimotor systems (don’t really understand)
Vygotsky: Pretend play arises from unsatisfied desires, allows abstract thought, “sever thought… from object” (much like formal operations) Fein: Involves transformations—attending to some features of objects or roles, allowing others to be flexible.
“double knowledge” means acting according to a belief you know to be false (McCune Nicolich 1981) Maybe it’s just functional play: children demonstrating knowledge of how to use their toys. (Huttenlocher and Higgins 1978)
Formal def of pretense, emerging between 18 and 24 months.
- Object substitution -> deviant reference -> believe
- Attribution of pretend properties -> deviant truth -> expect
- Imaginary objects -> deviant existence -> want
Primary representation is being able to construct a “sober” model of the world that corresponds to external reality Pretense requires coordinating two primary representations (one “sober” and the other imaginative) so that “this banana” can be imbued with magical properties Representational abuse: There must be some mechanism for keeping “pretend” reality distinct from “sober” or primary reality QUESTION: So what happens when our world is re-enchanted by tech?
Social Pretense: 18-24-month-olds can participate in social pretense games So awareness of other possible mappings to primary representation
Decoupling: Normally, primary representation is transparent: we don’t see the difference between our representation of a thing and “the thing itself.” Decoupling allows primary representation to stand distinct as a representation—to realize that one has a subjective point of view.
QUESTION: Is the metarepresentation a subclass of the primary representation? (If the primary representation gets updated or corrupted, does this transfer to the metarepresentation as well? CONNECTION: Gramsci would probably argue against the primacy of primary representation as well; all our realities are shared games of pretend.
Timeline 12 months shared reference, joint attention
24 months intentional gestural and vocal communication 36 months language of mental states (I know…) 3-4 years reasoning about false beliefs
Childhood autism: severe impairment in imaginative play
Proposal: “According to Vygotsky (1967), the further away one gets from reality, the more psychologically challenging it is to create and manipulate the fantasy world.” (Dore and Lillard 2015). Is this true? Make a study parallel to the one Dan likes about mental rotation. Alternative: Do we use our own cognitive processes as models for ToM? Are we slower to predict how those more different from ourselves will react?