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Poor Sally, Mean 'ole Anne, and Monkeys

 


In the study of autism, a meta-theory called the “theory of mind” refers to a “theory” that the typical development of the nervous system enables. This development is said to prompt an intuitive understanding that other people have minds and points of view different from one's own. This hard-wired neurological "theory" typically develops around the time a child is four years old.

Simon Baron-Cohen and Uta Frith are credited with developing the idea, the meta-theory of the theory of minds, based on a story they told children that involved Sally and Anne.

Sally put a ball into a basket and went out for a walk. While she was gone, mean ole Anne took the ball out of the basket and put it into a box. When Sally came back, she wanted to play with the ball. Where, the children are asked, will Sally look for the ball?

Neurotypical children figured out that Sally would look in the basket [picture above!] and be disappointed. They had a “theory of mind.” They were looking at this from Sally’s point of view. Children with Down’s Syndrome, too, often figured this out. Down’s Syndrome need not impede the development of this particular capability. But autistic children consistently had trouble with this, and expected Sally to look in the box, which after all is where the experimenter just told them the ball is!

The Baron-Cohen and Frith publication in 1985 has excited a good deal of continuing debate. And not just because Baron-Cohen’s name sounds like he’s the guy who plays Borat in the movies.

Interestingly, there has been progress in identifying the neurology behind the “theory of mind” in this sense. I've mention this before in this blog, but I'll repeat it today. 

The May 19, 2017 issue of SCIENCE carries a report with the title "A dedicated network for social interactional processing in the primate brain."

It would be difficult to get monkeys to sit still and listen to the above story, so the experimenters use movies. Specifically videos of other monkeys engaged in social interactions. The video viewing monkeys were at this time brain-scanned for neuronal activity.

The researchers found that a subset of the brain of the spectator monkey was active exclusively during monkey-monkey screen interactions, NOT when the "actor monkeys" were dealing with objects. Further, the network activated in monkeys by seeing other monkeys interacting "shares some of its components ... with a possible homolog of the human network involved in the theory of mind."


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