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Can Theory of Mind be prior to Language?

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Navneet Chopra discusses the interrelation between language acquisition and theory of mind

Image courtesy of interviewee. July 30, 2024

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This video discusses the relationship between theory of mind (the ability to understand one's own and others' mental states) and language development in children. It presents two primary perspectives: one that suggests language precedes theory of mind, and another that posits theory of mind comes first, which then facilitates language development.

The dominant view, supported by many developmental psychologists, is that language acquisition enables children to pass theory of mind tests, such as the false belief test, typically around ages three to four. However, the author expresses disagreement with this perspective, referencing Noam Chomsky's theory that language shapes thought itself.

The author presents several studies that challenge the prevailing view. For instance, they discuss cases like a patient with severely impaired language who still passed advanced theory of mind tests, suggesting that understanding others' mental states can exist independently of language proficiency.

Neuroscience findings related to disorders such as Williams syndrome and autism further complicate the idea that language and theory of mind are distinct modules. These studies indicate that cognitive abilities, including social cognition and language, are interlinked.

The author proposes a more interactive model of cognition where theory of mind and language mutually influence each other, suggesting that a basic understanding of others' minds develops early and leads to language learning, which then refines and expands theory of mind capacities. This video cyclical relationship calls into question the notion of modularity in cognitive processes.

In conclusion, the author's stance is that elementary theory of mind is foundational for language development, and that language subsequently enhances the complexity of one's theory of mind.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Theory of mind is our ability

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to understand our own mental state

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and to explain our behavior,

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and also to explain the behavior of others

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and predict the behavior of others.

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So this is also called mind reading ability.

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But, and then another issue is of language.

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Uh, we know humans have, unique ability of using

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language,

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to communicate our intentions, thoughts, emotion.

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So one big question is, which one comes prior?

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Does theory of mind comes prior, which leads to development

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of language, or language comes prior, which enables one to,

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develop the ability to understand the minds of others.

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So the, these were two alternatives.

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Now, when I explored this question,

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many developmental psychologists, they were of the opinion

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that, that, it's language which comes first.

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And once we are, I mean, once infants

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or young children, they become, a competent in language.

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Then they are able to pass a test of theory mind,

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which is called false belief test.

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So that was a benchmark of having developed a theory

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of mind ability, which usually kids pass a,

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a pass at the age of three or four years of age.

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So that was a dominant view that you acquire language,

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which enables you to pass that theory of mind test.

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But my position was different that it is other way around.

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And largely this position,

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I think is based on Chomsky view of language.

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Because Chomsky believes language is not merely

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for communication of thought.

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Language enables the thought itself.

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Language helps in constitution of thought itself,

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and by the thought he means propositional thought.

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So that was a dominant view in linguistics in,

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psycholinguistics.

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So I guess that there was influence even in,

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developmental psychology

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and some psychologists, they produced researches,

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which corroborated this view apparently.

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But, when I tried to dig deeply, I found

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that there are some problems in those studies.

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And, so like there were studies

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by Esington and Jenkins, and also by DERs

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and DERs, they showed that there is a correlation.

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If you have developed language,

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then you can easily pass this false belief test.

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Just benchmark of theory of mine.

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But I explored, it more deeply

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and, I found there were certain shortcomings,

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and I cannot go to the details of those nitty gries,

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but one major study I can talk about, that is by Ian,

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so

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Explored, that there is a, there was a,

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there was a case of a patient who has met with an accident

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as a result of which he has very,

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I mean his language is, not at all good.

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He has, no grammar.

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But despite of this situation, he can easily

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pass the false belief tests, which are test of theory

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of mind, even of advanced level of theory of mind,

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the meta level of theory of mind.

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So that study goes against this dominant view that you need

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to have language to be able to have theory of mind

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where we have a case where a patient is not having language

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and still he's able to understand the minds of others.

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So I think that goes in a big way against

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this, dominant view.

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Then there was also a case,

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neural neural studies from neural studies.

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There was a case of Williams syndrome.

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It was a disorder in which it was

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assumed that the patient is, having,

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good language

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and not having general cognition intact.

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So he is having bad general cognition

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and still he's having good language.

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So that was presented as a case,

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which is corroborating Chomsky view that look

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as Chomsky says, we have language as a module,

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which is not part of the general cognitive system,

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and here the general cognition is damaged

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and still the person is having language ability intact.

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So that was presented as a case which was corroborating.

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Apparently, apparently it was corroborating Chomsky theory,

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but with the subsequent studies, it was revealed

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that this is not the case.

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Uh, the language, the general cognition was actually not

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so bad, and language ability was also not so good.

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So language is not really intact.

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Language level is goes down with the subsequent studies,

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and general cognitive ability also goes little up.

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So that goes in tune that if you have

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bad journal cognition, then you don't have

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a good understanding of minds of other,

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and then you don't have good languages.

05:20.785 --> 05:25.045
So this, William syndrome is also, kind of,

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discarded by the, by the subsequent studies in,

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and then also case of autism.

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We know about autism that,

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there are two central characteristics in this problem,

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that the subject is not having good social cognition,

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and the subject is not having good language ability.

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So apart from the third characteristic

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of being repetitive activities involvement,

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now these two things, I think, they come in correlation.

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And, so that also gives an indication that if you

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Have, bad theory of mind,

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then you also end up having bad language.

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Apart from this, there were some,

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aphasia studies which were presented in favor

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of Chomsky theory, like, broca aphasia and RN aphasia.

06:14.355 --> 06:17.795
Now, bca broca aphasia means,

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you are not able to

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produce a well-formed sentence, but you can understand,

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and in vernique it is reversed.

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You cannot understand,

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but you can produce a sentence,

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properly in well articulated form.

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So again, it was presented, that okay,

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they are well localized areas.

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Here is bro, and here is, so they were presented as case

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of localization of, language production

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and language comprehension.

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Again, with the subsequent studies, it was found

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that it is not the case.

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There are many more regions of brain which are involved.

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Almost the whole brain gets lit up when a subject

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understands s and 10.

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It's not merely confined to, it's not.

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Similarly broker origin with later studies, with the advent,

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with the discovery of mirror neuron theory,

07:08.385 --> 07:11.845
it was found this broker origin is rather part

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of the comprehension system.

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As so broca is not merely part of the production

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of language, but it is also part

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of the comprehension of language.

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So these were all revealing studies,

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and, they make that case that, theory

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of mind ability or minding abilities, part

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of the general cognition

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and language is also not a separate module as Chomsky,

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assume rather it is part of the journal cognitive ability.

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There was a huge debate between, Chomsky

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and pge because we know PGE has a father

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of developmental psychology,

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and, in eighties they had a huge debate.

07:53.065 --> 07:57.715
And, well, things have been controversial,

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but slowly people are coming up to come up with the idea

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of more of interactive nature of cognition

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rather than believing in modular system of cognition.

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Uh, which to me seems like very simplistic way

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of looking at human mind.

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I mean, that seems to be dependent upon

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as if we are looking at a car and having engine, a module

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or a box for engine.

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Then another box for module for carburetor, another box

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for air filter, and so on.

08:28.365 --> 08:31.665
So similarly, these modelist theory of mind, they propose

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that we have separate modules to process language,

08:34.645 --> 08:38.065
to process social cognition, to process, blah, blah, blah,

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different, different like perception.

08:40.965 --> 08:43.265
So, so later studies are telling us

08:43.265 --> 08:45.305
that things are much more interactive.

08:45.975 --> 08:50.565
So brain regions, they interact, they talk to each other

08:50.705 --> 08:54.735
and give rise to our cognitive abilities. And this

08:54.735 --> 08:57.475
Thing has been much more corroborated with the advent

08:57.475 --> 09:00.635
of embodied cognition, which says

09:00.635 --> 09:03.515
that your concepts are not actually,

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abstract in the sense,

09:06.065 --> 09:09.035
that they are grounded in your sensory motor cortex.

09:09.295 --> 09:12.195
So if you talk about chair or say lemon

09:12.495 --> 09:16.835
or fruit vegetables, they are grounded in the simulation

09:17.495 --> 09:20.235
in your sensory motor experiences.

09:21.095 --> 09:25.075
Uh, so in that sense, they are embodied.

09:25.735 --> 09:28.515
One thing is that false belief test is a fairly advanced

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test, which measures theory

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of mind at a fairly advanced level.

09:33.915 --> 09:36.945
There are some studies again, which shows

09:36.975 --> 09:41.425
that even infants of 15 month old, another 10 month old,

09:41.855 --> 09:45.505
they are able to pass the false belief test in

09:45.505 --> 09:46.585
the nonverbal form.

09:47.255 --> 09:49.385
That means young infants

09:49.605 --> 09:52.305
before acquiring language, they, they're already able

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to have my ability.

09:55.045 --> 09:58.785
Now, that ability is a very, in the elementary form

09:58.845 --> 10:01.145
of it's elementary form of theory of mind.

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It's not yet as, as developed to pass the false belief test,

10:05.505 --> 10:07.145
but it is in the,

10:07.225 --> 10:09.065
I mean false blue test in the linguistic form.

10:09.485 --> 10:12.785
So they check this ability, false belief

10:12.785 --> 10:15.425
through the false belief test in the nonverbal form,

10:15.845 --> 10:18.425
and they found that infants do have this ability.

10:19.045 --> 10:22.435
So, I propose in this paper

10:22.465 --> 10:26.005
that probably the relation is much more interconnected.

10:26.585 --> 10:29.605
Uh, it starts with the proto theory of mind

10:30.795 --> 10:32.595
starting at the age of 10 months,

10:33.365 --> 10:36.145
and then it leads to semantics in language.

10:36.525 --> 10:40.465
And once you have some proto language, some words

10:40.605 --> 10:44.665
or concepts, then that helps in freezing the ideas

10:44.725 --> 10:46.545
or thoughts or understanding of the world.

10:46.765 --> 10:49.265
And that helps in development of theory

10:49.285 --> 10:50.825
of mind at a higher level.

10:51.245 --> 10:54.625
So there is probably a cyclic relation between,

10:55.115 --> 10:56.585
elementary theory of mind

10:56.585 --> 10:58.745
and elementary language, which is helping

10:58.925 --> 11:00.425
to develop theory of mind further.

11:00.565 --> 11:03.145
And then theory of mind goes into development of language.

11:03.325 --> 11:05.905
So that kind of cyclic relation I proposed.

11:07.785 --> 11:09.805
So that was the result of it.

11:09.825 --> 11:13.205
And that is corroborated by other scholars like Andy Clark.

11:13.875 --> 11:17.245
They admit that language is helping

11:19.135 --> 11:20.595
in augmentation of thought.

11:21.435 --> 11:24.695
So that is not a, controversial point.

11:24.755 --> 11:28.695
The, the, the central question is which,

11:29.185 --> 11:32.375
which is the, how the story starts,

11:32.465 --> 11:34.895
which is the prior thing, whether it is language

11:34.915 --> 11:35.975
or it is theory of mind.

11:36.075 --> 11:38.975
And my conclusion is it starts with theory of mind,

11:39.245 --> 11:41.055
with a very elementary form of theory of mind,

11:41.055 --> 11:43.255
and which leads to language

11:43.275 --> 11:45.935
and then language helps in development, further development

11:45.935 --> 11:48.415
of theory articulation.

11:48.795 --> 11:49.815
So that was my.

00:00 - Theory of mind is our ability to understand our own mental state and to explain our behavior, and also to explain the behavior of others and predict the behavior of others. So this is also called mind reading ability.

00:18 - But, and then another issue is of language. we know humans have, unique ability of using language, to communicate our intentions, thoughts, emotion. So one big question is, which one comes prior? Does theory of mind comes prior, which leads to development of language, or language comes prior, which enables one to, develop the ability to understand the minds of others. So the, these were two alternatives. Now, when I explored this question,

00:56 - many developmental psychologists, they were of the opinion that, that, it's language which comes first. And once we are, I mean, once infants or young children, they become, a competent in language. Then they are able to pass a test of theory mind, which is called false belief test. So that was a benchmark of having developed a theory of mind ability, which usually kids pass a, a pass at the age of three or four years of age. So that was a dominant view that you acquire language,

01:32 - which enables you to pass that theory of mind test. But my position was different that it is other way around. And largely this position, I think is based on Chomsky view of language. Because Chomsky believes language is not merely for communication of thought. Language enables the thought itself. Language helps in constitution of thought itself, and by the thought he means propositional thought. So that was a dominant view in linguistics in,

02:03 - psycholinguistics. So I guess that there was influence even in, developmental psychology and some psychologists, they produced researches, which corroborated this view apparently. But, when I tried to dig deeply, I found that there are some problems in those studies. And, so like there were studies by Esington and Jenkins, and also by DERs and DERs, they showed that there is a correlation.

02:33 - If you have developed language, then you can easily pass this false belief test. Just benchmark of theory of mine. But I explored, it more deeply and, I found there were certain shortcomings, and I cannot go to the details of those nitty gries, but one major study I can talk about, that is by Ian, so Explored, that there is a, there was a, there was a case of a patient who has met with an accident

03:07 - as a result of which he has very, I mean his language is, not at all good. He has, no grammar. But despite of this situation, he can easily pass the false belief tests, which are test of theory of mind, even of advanced level of theory of mind, the meta level of theory of mind. So that study goes against this dominant view that you need to have language to be able to have theory of mind where we have a case where a patient is not having language

03:41 - and still he's able to understand the minds of others. So I think that goes in a big way against this, dominant view. Then there was also a case, neural neural studies from neural studies. There was a case of Williams syndrome. It was a disorder in which it was assumed that the patient is, having, good language and not having general cognition intact.

04:13 - So he is having bad general cognition and still he's having good language. So that was presented as a case, which is corroborating Chomsky view that look as Chomsky says, we have language as a module, which is not part of the general cognitive system, and here the general cognition is damaged and still the person is having language ability intact. So that was presented as a case which was corroborating. Apparently, apparently it was corroborating Chomsky theory,

04:45 - but with the subsequent studies, it was revealed that this is not the case. the language, the general cognition was actually not so bad, and language ability was also not so good. So language is not really intact. Language level is goes down with the subsequent studies, and general cognitive ability also goes little up. So that goes in tune that if you have bad journal cognition, then you don't have a good understanding of minds of other,

05:17 - and then you don't have good languages. So this, William syndrome is also, kind of, discarded by the, by the subsequent studies in, and then also case of autism. We know about autism that, there are two central characteristics in this problem, that the subject is not having good social cognition, and the subject is not having good language ability. So apart from the third characteristic of being repetitive activities involvement,

05:50 - now these two things, I think, they come in correlation. And, so that also gives an indication that if you Have, bad theory of mind, then you also end up having bad language. Apart from this, there were some, aphasia studies which were presented in favor of Chomsky theory, like, broca aphasia and RN aphasia. Now, bca broca aphasia means, you are not able to produce a well-formed sentence, but you can understand,

06:25 - and in vernique it is reversed. You cannot understand, but you can produce a sentence, properly in well articulated form. So again, it was presented, that okay, they are well localized areas. Here is bro, and here is, so they were presented as case of localization of, language production and language comprehension. Again, with the subsequent studies, it was found

06:50 - that it is not the case. There are many more regions of brain which are involved. Almost the whole brain gets lit up when a subject understands s and 10. It's not merely confined to, it's not. Similarly broker origin with later studies, with the advent, with the discovery of mirror neuron theory, it was found this broker origin is rather part of the comprehension system. As so broca is not merely part of the production

07:17 - of language, but it is also part of the comprehension of language. So these were all revealing studies, and, they make that case that, theory of mind ability or minding abilities, part of the general cognition and language is also not a separate module as Chomsky, assume rather it is part of the journal cognitive ability. There was a huge debate between, Chomsky and pge because we know PGE has a father

07:48 - of developmental psychology, and, in eighties they had a huge debate. And, well, things have been controversial, but slowly people are coming up to come up with the idea of more of interactive nature of cognition rather than believing in modular system of cognition. which to me seems like very simplistic way of looking at human mind. I mean, that seems to be dependent upon as if we are looking at a car and having engine, a module

08:21 - or a box for engine. Then another box for module for carburetor, another box for air filter, and so on. So similarly, these modelist theory of mind, they propose that we have separate modules to process language, to process social cognition, to process, blah, blah, blah, different, different like perception. So, so later studies are telling us that things are much more interactive. So brain regions, they interact, they talk to each other

08:50 - and give rise to our cognitive abilities. And this Thing has been much more corroborated with the advent of embodied cognition, which says that your concepts are not actually, abstract in the sense, that they are grounded in your sensory motor cortex. So if you talk about chair or say lemon or fruit vegetables, they are grounded in the simulation in your sensory motor experiences. so in that sense, they are embodied.

09:25 - One thing is that false belief test is a fairly advanced test, which measures theory of mind at a fairly advanced level. There are some studies again, which shows that even infants of 15 month old, another 10 month old, they are able to pass the false belief test in the nonverbal form. That means young infants before acquiring language, they, they're already able to have my ability.

09:55 - Now, that ability is a very, in the elementary form of it's elementary form of theory of mind. It's not yet as, as developed to pass the false belief test, but it is in the, I mean false blue test in the linguistic form. So they check this ability, false belief through the false belief test in the nonverbal form, and they found that infants do have this ability. So, I propose in this paper that probably the relation is much more interconnected.

10:26 - it starts with the proto theory of mind starting at the age of 10 months, and then it leads to semantics in language. And once you have some proto language, some words or concepts, then that helps in freezing the ideas or thoughts or understanding of the world. And that helps in development of theory of mind at a higher level. So there is probably a cyclic relation between, elementary theory of mind

10:56 - and elementary language, which is helping to develop theory of mind further. And then theory of mind goes into development of language. So that kind of cyclic relation I proposed. So that was the result of it. And that is corroborated by other scholars like Andy Clark. They admit that language is helping in augmentation of thought. So that is not a, controversial point. The, the, the central question is which,

11:29 - which is the, how the story starts, which is the prior thing, whether it is language or it is theory of mind. And my conclusion is it starts with theory of mind, with a very elementary form of theory of mind, and which leads to language and then language helps in development, further development of theory articulation. So that was my.

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