How can we
Automatic belief-tracking in adults and
belief-tracking in infants are both subject to signature limits
associated with minimal theory of mind
(\citealp{wang:2015_limits,Low:2012_identity,low:2014_quack,mozuraitis:2015_privileged};
contrast \citealp{scott:2015_infants}).
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\includegraphics[width=0.25\textwidth]{fig/signature_limits_table.png}
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\includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{fig/low_2012_fig.png}
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There is some evidence that this prediction is correct.
Jason Low and his colleagues set out to test it.
They have now published three
different papers showing such limits; and Hannes Rakoczy and others
have more work in progress on this.
Collapsing several experiments using different approaches,
the basic pattern of their findings is this ...
Take non-automatic responses first; in this case, communicative responses.
When you do a false-belief-identity task, you see the pattern you also
find for false-belief-locations tasks.
But things look different when you measure non-automatic responses ...
The non-automatic responses all show the signature limit of minimal
models of the mental.
This is evidence for the hypothesis that
Some automatic belief-tracking systems rely on minimal models of the mental.
I also hear that quite a few scientists have pilot data that speaks
against this signature limit.
One particular task for future research will be to examine whether other
automatic responses to scenarios involving false beliefs about identity,
such as response times and movement trajectories, are also subject
to this signature limit.
Just say that you can do this with other stimuli and paradigms, and we
have done this with infants and would like to do it with adults.
These findings complicate the picture: is helping driven by automatic processes only?
If not, why do we predict that the signature limit of minimal theory of mind
is found in this case too?