Editing Theory of mind (section)

===Theory of mind in adults===
Adults have theory of mind concepts that they developed as children (concepts such as belief, desire, knowledge, and intention). They use these concepts to meet the diverse demands of social life, ranging from snap decisions about how to trick an opponent in a competitive game, to keeping up with who knows what in a fast-moving conversation, to judging the guilt or innocence of the accused in a court of law.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mindreaders: the cognitive basis of "theory of mind"|first=Ian|last=Apperly|date=2011|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-203-83392-6|location=Hove|oclc=705929873}}</ref>

Boaz Keysar, Dale Barr, and colleagues found that adults often failed to ''use'' their theory of mind abilities to interpret a speaker's message, and acted as if unaware that the speaker lacked critical knowledge about a task. In one study, a confederate instructed adult participants to rearrange objects, some of which were not visible to the confederate, as part of a communication game. Only objects that were visible to both the confederate and the participant were part of the game. Despite knowing that the confederate could not see some of the objects, a third of the participants still tried to move those objects.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Keysar|first1=Boaz|last2=Lin|first2=Shuhong|last3=Barr|first3=Dale J|date=2003-08-01|title=Limits on theory of mind use in adults|journal=Cognition|volume=89|issue=1|pages=25–41|doi=10.1016/S0010-0277(03)00064-7|pmid=12893123|s2cid=8523033|issn=0010-0277}}</ref> Other studies show that adults are prone to [[egocentric bias]]es, with which they are influenced by their own beliefs, knowledge, or preferences when judging those of other people, or that they neglect other people's perspectives entirely.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Royzman|first1=Edward B.|last2=Cassidy|first2=Kimberly Wright|last3=Baron|first3=Jonathan|date=2003|title="I know, you know": Epistemic egocentrism in children and adults.|journal=Review of General Psychology|language=en|volume=7|issue=1|pages=38–65|doi=10.1037/1089-2680.7.1.38|s2cid=197665718|issn=1089-2680}}</ref> There is also evidence that adults with greater memory, [[Inhibitory control|inhibitory capacity]], and motivation are more likely to use their theory of mind abilities.<ref>{{Unbulleted list citebundle 
|1={{Cite journal|last=Brown-Schmidt|first=Sarah|date=2009-10-01|title=The role of executive function in perspective taking during online language comprehension|journal=Psychonomic Bulletin & Review|language=en|volume=16|issue=5|pages=893–900|doi=10.3758/PBR.16.5.893|pmid=19815795|issn=1531-5320|doi-access=free}}
|2={{Cite journal|last1=Epley|first1=Nicholas|last2=Keysar|first2=Boaz|last3=Van Boven|first3=Leaf|last4=Gilovich|first4=Thomas|date=2004|title=Perspective Taking as Egocentric Anchoring and Adjustment |journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|language=en |volume=87|issue=3|pages=327–339|doi=10.1037/0022-3514.87.3.327|pmid=15382983|issn=1939-1315|citeseerx=10.1.1.315.8009|s2cid=18087684 }} }}</ref>

In contrast, evidence about indirect effects of thinking about other people's mental states suggests that adults may sometimes use their theory of mind automatically. Agnes Kovacs and colleagues measured the time it took adults to detect the presence of a ball as it was revealed from behind an occluder. They found that adults' speed of response was influenced by whether another person (the "agent") in the scene thought there was a ball behind the occluder, even though adults were not asked to pay attention to what the agent thought.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kovacs|first1=Agnes|last2=Teglas|first2=Erno|last3=Endress|first3=Ansgar Denis|date=2010-12-24|title=The Social Sense: Susceptibility to Others' Beliefs in Human Infants and Adults|journal=Science|language=en|volume=330|issue=6012|pages=1830–1834|doi=10.1126/science.1190792|issn=0036-8075|pmid=21205671|bibcode=2010Sci...330.1830K|s2cid=2908352}}</ref>

Dana Samson and colleagues measured the time it took adults to judge the number of dots on the wall of a room. They found that adults responded more slowly when another person standing in the room happened to see fewer dots than they did, even when they had never been asked to pay attention to what the person could see.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Samson|first1=Dana|last2=Apperly|first2=Ian A.|last3=Braithwaite|first3=Jason J.|last4=Andrews|first4=Benjamin J.|last5=Bodley Scott|first5=Sarah E.|date=2010|title=Seeing it their way: Evidence for rapid and involuntary computation of what other people see|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance|volume=36|issue=5|pages=1255–1266|doi=10.1037/a0018729|pmid=20731512|issn=1939-1277}}</ref> It has been questioned whether these "altercentric biases" truly reflect automatic processing of what another person is thinking or seeing or, instead, reflect attention and memory effects cued by the other person, but not involving any representation of what they think or see.<ref name="Heyes-2014">{{Cite journal|last=Heyes|first=Celia|title=Submentalizing: I Am Not Really Reading Your Mind|journal=Current Perspectives on Psychological Science|volume=9|issue=2|pages=131–143|doi=10.1177/1745691613518076|pmid=26173251|year=2014|s2cid=206778161}}</ref>

Different theories seek to explain such results. If theory of mind is automatic, this would help explain how people keep up with the theory of mind demands of competitive games and fast-moving conversations. It might also explain evidence that human infants and some non-human species sometimes appear capable of theory of mind, despite their limited resources for memory and cognitive control.<ref name="Hare-2001" /> If theory of mind is effortful and not automatic, on the other hand, this explains why it feels effortful to decide whether a defendant is guilty or whether a negotiator is bluffing. Economy of effort would help explain why people sometimes neglect to use their theory of mind.

Ian Apperly and [[Stephen Butterfill]] suggested that people have "two systems" for theory of mind,<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Apperly|first1=Ian A.|last2=Butterfill|first2=Stephen A.|date=2009|title=Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states?|journal=Psychological Review|volume=116|issue=4|pages=953–970|doi=10.1037/a0016923|pmid=19839692|issn=1939-1471|citeseerx=10.1.1.377.3254}}</ref> in common with "two systems" accounts in many other areas of psychology.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Thinking, fast and slow|last=Kahneman|first=Daniel|isbn=978-0-374-27563-1|edition=1st|location=New York|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|oclc=706020998|date=2011-10-25}}</ref> In this account, "system 1" is cognitively efficient and enables theory of mind for a limited but useful set of circumstances. "System 2" is cognitively effortful, but enables much more flexible theory of mind abilities. Philosopher [[Peter Carruthers (philosopher)|Peter Carruthers]] disagrees, arguing that the same core theory of mind abilities can be used in both simple and complex ways.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carruthers|first=Peter|date=2017-03-01|title=Mindreading in adults: evaluating two-systems views|journal=Synthese|language=en|volume=194|issue=3|pages=673–688|doi=10.1007/s11229-015-0792-3|s2cid=6049635|issn=1573-0964}}</ref> The account has been criticized by Celia Heyes who suggests that "system 1" theory of mind abilities do not require representation of mental states of other people, and so are better thought of as "sub-mentalizing".<ref name="Heyes-2014" />