title: Specialized mechanisms for theory of mind: are mental representations special because they are mental or because they are representations?
abstract: Does theory of mind depend on a capacity to reason about representations generally or on mechanisms selective for the processing of mental state representations? In four experiments, participants reasoned about beliefs (mental representations) and notes (non-mental, linguistic representations), which according to two prominent theories are closely matched representations because both are represented propositionally. Reaction times were faster and accuracies higher when participants endorsed or rejected statements about false beliefs than about false notes (Experiment 1), even when statements emphasized representational format (Experiment 2), which should have favored the activation of representation concepts. Experiments 3 and 4 ruled out a counterhypothesis that differences in task demands were responsible for the advantage in belief processing. These results demonstrate for the first time that understanding of mental and linguistic representations can be dissociated even though both may carry propositional content, supporting the theory that mechanisms governing theory of mind reasoning are narrowly specialized to process mental states, not representations more broadly. Extending this theory, we discuss whether less efficient processing of non-mental representations may be a by-product of mechanisms specialized for processing mental states.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada; The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7, Canada. Electronic address: acohen42@uwo.ca.
authors.forename: Adam S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada.
authors.forename: Joni Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Sasaki
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
authors.forename: Tamsin C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: German
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Belief reasoning; Domain-specific; Functional specialization; Linguistic representation; Metarepresentation; Theory of mind