Factive theory of mind

Abstract

Research on theory of mind has primarily focused on demonstrating and understanding the ability to represent others’ non-factive mental states, e.g., others’ beliefs in the false belief task. The motivation behind this focus has been that the representation of false beliefs are the best way to unequivocally demonstrate a genuine capacity for theory of mind, since they ensure that subjects’ responses cannot depend on their own representation of the world. Here, argue that the false belief requirement confuses the ability to represent a particular kind of (non-factive) content with the more general capacity to represent another agent’s understanding of the world. We then provide a way of correcting this error. We first offer a simple and theoretically motivated account on which tracking another agent’s understanding of the world and keeping that representation separate from one’s own are the essential features of a capacity for theory of mind. This account provides a straightforward way of understanding when factive representations, e.g., representations of what others know, provide evidence for a theory of mind capacity. We then develop a new test, the ‘diverse-knowledge task’, which shows how these criteria can be operationalized in an experimental paradigm. Finally, we turn to a number of existing examples from theory of mind research and illustrate (1) how to decide when a behavior does not demonstrate theory of mind, (2) why some existing research falls short of demonstrating the capacity for theory of mind (even when it focuses on false beliefs), and (3) where we’ve missed good evidence for theory of mind in a number of surprising places.