Keyboard Shortcuts?

×
  • Next step
  • Previous step
  • Skip this slide
  • Previous slide
  • mShow slide thumbnails
  • nShow notes
  • hShow handout latex source
  • NShow talk notes latex source

Click here and press the right key for the next slide (or swipe left)

also ...

Press the left key to go backwards (or swipe right)

Press n to toggle whether notes are shown (or add '?notes' to the url before the #)

Press m or double tap to slide thumbnails (menu)

Press ? at any time to show the keyboard shortcuts

Origins of Mind : 03

A-tasks

Children fail

because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs

Children fail A-tasks because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs.

non-A-tasks

Children pass

by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs

Children pass non-A-tasks by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs.

dogma

the

of mindreading

The dogma of mindreading (momentary version): any individual has at most one model of minds and actions at any one point in time.
There is also a developmental version of the dogma: the developmental dogma is that there is either just one model or else a family of models where one of the models, the best and most sophisticated model, contains all of the states that are contained in any of the models.
 

Minimal Theory of Mind

 
\section{Minimal Theory of Mind}
 
\section{Minimal Theory of Mind}

What models of minds and actions

underpin which mental state tracking processes?

What is a model of minds and actions?
An agent’s \emph{field} is a set of objects related to the agent by proximity, orientation and other factors.
First approximation: an agent \emph{encounters} an object just if it is in her field.
A \emph{goal} is an outcome to which one or more actions are, or might be, directed.
%(Not to be confused with a \emph{goal-state}, which is an intention or other state of an agent linking an action to a particular goal to which it is directed.)
\textbf{Principle 1}: one can’t goal-directedly act on an object unless one has encountered it.
Applications: subordinate chimps retrieve food when a dominant is not informed of its location \citep{Hare:2001ph}; when observed scrub-jays prefer to cache in shady, distant and occluded locations \citep{Dally:2004xf,Clayton:2007fh}.
First approximation: an agent \emph{registers} an object at a location just if she most recently encountered the object at that location.
A registration is \emph{correct} just if the object is at the location it is registered at.
\textbf{Principle 2}: correct registration is a condition of successful action.
Applications: 12-month-olds point to inform depending on their informants’ goals and ignorance \citep{Liszkowski:2008al}; chimps retrieve food when a dominant is misinformed about its location \citep{Hare:2001ph}; scrub-jays observed caching food by a competitor later re-cache in private \citep{Clayton:2007fh,Emery:2007ze}.
\textbf{Principle 3}: when an agent performs a goal-directed action and the goal specifies an object, the agent will act as if the object were actually in the location she registers it at.
Applications: some false belief tasks \citep{Onishi:2005hm,Southgate:2007js,Buttelmann:2009gy}.
Work through minimal theory of mind with Onishi & Baillargeon ...
The question for this section was ...

What models of minds and actions

underpin which mental state tracking processes?

Fact:

Minimal theory of mind specifics a model of minds and actions,

one which could in principle explain nonhuman apes, jays or other animals track mental states.

Conjecture:

Nonhuman mindreading processes are characterised by a minimal model of minds and actions.

Evidence?

We need to modify the question slightly ...
Two questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

 

Signature Limits

 
\section{Signature Limits}
 
\section{Signature Limits}
Automatic belief-tracking in adults and belief-tracking in infants are both subject to signature limits associated with minimal theory of mind (\citealp{wang:2015_limits,Low:2012_identity,low:2014_quack,mozuraitis:2015_privileged}; contrast \citealp{scott:2015_infants}).
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.25\textwidth]{fig/signature_limits_table.png}
\end{center}
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{fig/low_2012_fig.png}
\end{center}

signature limits generate predictions

Hypothesis:

Infants’ belief-tracking abilities rely on minimal models of the mental.

Prediction:

Infants’ belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

There is some evidence that this prediction is correct. Jason Low and his collegaues set out to test it. They have now published three different papers showing such limits; and Hannes Rakoczy and others have more work in progress on this. Collapsing several experiements using different approaches, the basic pattern of their findings is this ...
Take non-automatic responses first; in this case, communicative responses. When you do a false-belief-identity task, you see the pattern you also find for false-belief-locations tasks. But things look different when you measure non-automatic responses ...
The non-automatic responses all show the signature limit of minimal models of the mental. This is evidence for the hypothesis that Some automatic belief-tracking systems rely on minimal models of the mental.
I also hear that quite a few scientists have pilot data that speaks against this signature limit.
One particular task for future research will be to examine whether other automatic responses to scenarios involving false beliefs about identity, such as response times and movement trajectories, are also subject to this signature limit.
Windows light up, you will look in anticipation

Low et al, 2014 figure 2

Another experiment got similar results (rabbits quack): this graph is nice because it illustrates how you can dissociate the proactive gaze from the verbal response (make it uniformly good, or uniformly bad)
Just say that you can do this with other stimuli and paradigms, and we have done this with infants and would like to do it with adults.
These findings complicate the picture: is helping driven by automatic processes only? If not, why do we predict that the signature limit of minimal theory of mind is found in this case too?

signature limits generate predictions

Hypothesis:

Infants’ belief-tracking abilities rely on minimal models of the mental.

Prediction:

Infants’ belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Look at the three year olds. What might make us think that three year old’s responses are a consequence of the same system that underpin’s adults’ automatic responses? One compelling consideration is that three year old’s responses manifest to the same signature limit as adults’.

reidentifying systems:

same signature limit -> same process

Scott et al (2015, figure 2b)

Scott and colleagues \citep{scott:2015_infants} provided other evidence suggesting that infants’ mindreading may be relatively sophisticated. Specifically, 17-month-olds watched a thief attempt to steal a preferred object (a rattling toy) when its owner was momentarily absent by substituting it with a less-preferred object (a non-rattling toy). Infants looked longer when the thief substituted the preferred object with a non-visually-matching silent toy compared to when the thief substituted it with a visually-matching silent toy. The authors postulated that infants can ascribe to the thief an intention to implant in the owner a false-belief about the identity of the substituted toy. The authors further suggested that infants make such ascriptions only when the substitution involves a visually-matching toy and the owner will not test whether the toy rattles on her return.
However, Scott et al.’s \citep{scott:2015_infants} explanations also require postulating that infants take the thief to be strikingly inept; despite having opportunity simply to pilfer from a closed box known to contain at least three rattling toys, the thief engages in elaborate deception which will be uncovered whenever the substituted toy is next shaken and the thief, as sole suspect, easily identified. A further difficulty is that factors unrelated to the thief’s mental states vary between conditions, such as the frequencies with which toys visually matching one present during the final phase of the test trial have rattled. These considerations jointly indicate that further evidence would be needed to support the claim that humans’ early mindreading capacity enables them to ascribe intentions concerning false beliefs involving numerical identity.
It has to be said that not everyone is convinced ..
Objection:

‘the theoretical arguments offered [...] are [...] unconvincing, and [...] the data can be explained in other terms’

(\citealp{carruthers:2015_two}; see also \citealp{carruthers:2015_mindreading}).

Carruthers (2015)

What is my response? Yes, the data can be explained in other terms, at least post hoc; and certainly there is as yet insufficient data for certainty. What about the theoretical arguments? Partners in crime defence ... theoretical arguments for multiple systems for belief are the same as the theoretical arguments for physical cognition or number cognition (but that’s a different talk).

signature limits generate predictions

Hypothesis:

Infants’ belief-tracking abilities rely on minimal models of the mental.

Prediction:

Infants’ belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Two questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

So the method of signature limits allows us to answer the question, How do observations about tracking support conclusions about models?
This is important because it means we can answer questions about models of mind without relying merely on philosophical methods like informal observation and guess work.
But what about our other question
It is important that conjectures about models cannot answer this question. We need to switch from models to processes.

1. models [done]

2. processes

 

Automatic Mindreading in Adults

 
\section{Automatic Mindreading in Adults}
 
\section{Automatic Mindreading in Adults}
Is mindreading automatic? (More carefully: Does belief tracking in human adults depend only on processes which are automatic?)
A process is \emph{automatic} to the degree that whether it occurs is independent of its relevance to the particulars of the subject's task, motives and aims.
There is evidence that some mindreading in human adults is entirely a consequence of relatively automatic processes \citep{kovacs_social_2010,Schneider:2011fk,Wel:2013uq}, and that not all mindreading in human adults is \citep{apperly:2008_back,apperly_why_2010,Wel:2013uq}.
\citet{qureshi:2010_executive} found that automatic and nonautomatic mindreading processes are differently influenced by cognitive load, and \citet{todd:2016_dissociating} provided evidence that adding time pressure affects nonautomatic but not automatic mindreading processes.
A process involves \emph{belief-tracking} if how processes of this type unfold typically and nonaccidentally depends on facts about beliefs. So belief tracking can, but need not, involve representing beliefs.

belief-tracking is sometimes but not always automatic

A process is \emph{automatic} to the degree that whether it occurs is independent of its relevance to the particulars of the subject's task, motives and aims.
Or, more carefully, does belief tracking in human adults depend only on processes which are automatic?
There is now a variety of evidence that belief-tracking is sometimes and not always automatic in adults. Let me give you just one experiment here to illustrate.

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

Kovacs et al, 2010

belief-tracking is sometimes but not always automatic

Schneider et al (2014, figure 1)

[skip this slide]
One way to show that mindreading is automatic is to give subjects a task which does not require tracking beliefs and then to compare their performance in two scenarios: a scenario where someone else has a false belief, and a scenario in which someone else has a true belief. If mindreading occurs automatically, performance should not vary between the two scenarios because others’ beliefs are always irrelevant to the subjects’ task and motivations.

Schneider et al (2014, figure 3)

[skip this slide]
\citet{Schneider:2011fk} did just this. They showed their participants a series of videos and instructed them to detect when a figure waved or, in a second experiment, to discriminate between high and low tones as quickly as possible. Performing these tasks did not require tracking anyone’s beliefs, and the participants did not report mindreading when asked afterwards.
on experiment 1: ‘Participants never reported belief tracking when questioned in an open format after the experiment (“What do you think this experiment was about?”). Furthermore, this verbal debriefing about the experiment’s purpose never triggered participants to indicate that they followed the actor’s belief state’ \citep[p.~2]{Schneider:2011fk}
Nevertheless, participants’ eye movements indicated that they were tracking the beliefs of a person who happened to be in the videos.
In a further study, \citet{schneider:2014_task} raised the stakes by giving participants a task that would be harder to perform if they were tracking another’s beliefs. So now tracking another’s beliefs is not only irrelevant to performing the tasks: it may actually hinder performance. Despite this, they found evidence in adults’ looking times that they were tracking another’s false beliefs. This indicates that ‘subjects … track the mental states of others even when they have instructions to complete a task that is incongruent with this operation’ \citep[p.~46]{schneider:2014_task} and so provides evidence for automaticity.% \footnote{% % quote is necessary to qualify in the light of their interpretation; difference between looking at end (task-dependent) and at an earlier phase (task-independent)? %\citet[p.~46]{schneider:2014_task}: ‘we have demonstrated here that subjects implicitly track the mental states of others even when they have instructions to complete a task that is incongruent with this operation. These results provide support for the hypothesis that there exists a ToM mechanism that can operate implicitly to extract belief like states of others (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009) that is immune to top-down task settings.’ It is hard to completely rule out the possibility that belief tracking is merely spontaneous rather than automatic. I take the fact that belief tracking occurs despite plausibly making subjects’ tasks harder to perform to indicate automaticity over spontaneity. If non-automatic belief tracking typically involves awareness of belief tracking, then the fact that subjects did not mention belief tracking when asked after the experiment about its purpose and what they were doing in it further supports the claim that belief tracking was automatic. }
Further evidence that mindreading can occur in adults even when counterproductive has been provided by \citet{kovacs_social_2010}, who showed that another’s irrelevant beliefs about the location of an object can affect how quickly people can detect the object’s presence, and by \citet{Wel:2013uq}, who showed that the same can influence the paths people take to reach an object. Taken together, this is compelling evidence that mindreading in adult humans sometimes involves automatic processes only.
‘Participants never reported belief tracking when questioned in an open format after the experiment (“What do you think this experiment was about?”). Furthermore, this verbal debriefing about the experiment’s purpose never triggered participants to indicate that they followed the actor’s belief state’ \citep[p.~2]{Schneider:2011fk}

belief-tracking is sometimes but not always automatic

This is what you as subject see. Actually you can't see this so well, let me make it bigger.
This is what you as subject see. There is are two balls moving around, two barriers, and a protagonist who is looking on. Your task is very simple (this is the 'implicit condition'): you are told to track one of these objects at the start, and at the end you're going to have to use a mouse to move a pointer to its location.
This is how the experiment progresses.
You can see that the protagonist leaves in the third phase. This is the version of the sequence in which the protagonist has a true belief.
This is the version of the sequence in which the protagonist has a false belief. (Because the balls swap locations while she's not absent.') OK, so there's a simple manipulation: whether the protagonist has true or false beliefs, and this is task-irrelevant: all you have to do is move the mouse to where one of the balls is. Why is this interesting?

van der Wel et al (2014, figure 1)

[This is just to show you what the trajectories were like]
Just look at the 'True Belief' lines (the effect can also be found when your belief turns out to be false, but I'm not worried about that here.) Do you see the area under the curve? When you are moving the mouse, the protagonist's false belief is pulling you away from the actual location and towards the location she believes this object to be in!

van der Wel et al (2014, figure 2)

Here's a zoomed in view. We're only interested in the top left box (implicit condition, participant has true belief). To repeat, When you are moving the mouse, the protagonist's false belief is pulling you away from the actual location and towards the location she believes this object to be in!

van der Wel et al (2014, figure 2)

belief-tracking is sometimes but not always automatic

aside: altercentric interference vs procative gaze vs movement trajectories

It’s good that we have both altercentric interference (which indicates that the contents of beliefs are represented) and proactive gaze (which might be taken to indicate an action prediction). Altercentric interference indicates automaticity because it is counterproductive; proactive gaze indicates automaticity because it occurs irrespective of instructions.
Using the same task, van der Wel et al also show that some processes are NOT automatic ...
\citep[p.\ 132]{Wel:2013uq}: ‘In support of a more rule-based and controlled system, we found that response initiation times changed as a function of the congruency of the participant’s and the agent’s belief in the explicit group only. Thus, when participants had to track both beliefs, they slowed down their responses when there was a belief conflict versus when there was not. The observation that this result only occurred for the explicit group provides evidence for a controlled system.’

van der Wel et al (2014, figure 3)

Let me emphasise this because we'll come back to it later:

‘they slowed down their responses when there was a belief conflict versus when there was not’

belief-tracking is sometimes but not always automatic

Back & Apperly (2010, fig 1, part)

This is the data for answers that required a ‘yes’ response.
So does all mindreading in adult humans involve only processes which are automatic? No: it turns out that verbal responses in false belief tasks that are A-tasks are not typically a consequence of automatic belief tracking. To show this, \citet{back:2010_apperly} instructed people to watch videos in which someone acquires a belief, either true or false, and then, after the video, asked them an unexpected question about the protagonist’s belief \citep[see also][]{apperly:2006_belief}. They measured how long people took to answer this question. Starting with the hypothesis that answering a question about belief involves automatic mindreading only, they reasoned that the mindreading necessary to answer a question about belief will have occurred before the question is even asked. Accordingly there should be no delay in answering an unexpected question about belief—or, at least, no more delay than in answering unexpected questions about any other facts that are automatically tracked. But they found that people were slower to answer unexpected questions about belief than predicted. Importantly this was not due to any difficulty with questions about belief as such: when such questions were expected, they were answered just as quickly as other, non-belief questions. It seems that, when asked an unexpected question about another’s belief, people typically need time to work out what the other believes. We must therefore reject the hypothesis that answering a question about belief involves automatic mindreading only.% \footnote{% \citet[ms~p.~9]{carruthers:2015_mindreading} objects (following \citealp{cohen:2009_encoding}) that these experiments are ‘not really about encoding belief but recalling it.’ Note that this objection is already answered by \citet[p.~56]{back:2010_apperly}. }

belief-tracking is sometimes but not always automatic

 

-- can consume attention and working memory

-- can require inhibition

Two questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

How does any of this help us with the question of why there are dissociations? ...

1. models [done]

2. processes

The idea was that if we study processes, we might understand the causes of the dissociations. But we’ve been focussed on ADULTS ...
Recall the method of signature limits ...

reidentifying systems:

same signature limit -> same process

Edwards and Low, 2017 figure 7a

Edwards and Low, 2017 figure 7a

Edwards and Low, 2017 figure 7a

Maymon et al (pilot), figure 4B, used with permission

Here you can see how participants moved in the false belief location condition. There was also a true belief condition.
As you can see, participants mostly started off in the right direction. This is the swerve.
But there is quite a bit of switching, and a number of
The swerve is correlated with the protagonists’ belief state: which direction they swerve in differs between true and false beliefs. The direction of swerve is also correlated with proactive gaze
So same signature limits implies same process

reidentifying systems:

same signature limit -> same process

An infant mindreading occurs is an automatic mindreading process in adults.

signature limits generate predictions

Hypothesis:

Some automatic belief-tracking systems rely on minimal models of the mental.

Hypothesis:

Infants’ belief-tracking abilities rely on minimal models of the mental.

Prediction:

Automatic belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Prediction:

Infants’ belief-tracking is subject to the signature limits of minimal models.

Two questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

Very clever (thank you!), but the question I asked a moment ago remains: How does any of this help us with the question of why there are dissociations? ...
 

A Dual Process Theory of Mindreading

 
\section{A Dual Process Theory of Mindreading}
 
\section{A Dual Process Theory of Mindreading}

A-tasks

Children fail

because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs

Children fail A-tasks because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs.

non-A-tasks

Children pass

by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs

Children pass non-A-tasks by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs.

dogma

the

of mindreading

The dogma of mindreading (momentary version): any individual has at most one model of minds and actions at any one point in time.
There is also a developmental version of the dogma: the developmental dogma is that there is either just one model or else a family of models where one of the models, the best and most sophisticated model, contains all of the states that are contained in any of the models.
This is the puzzle I wanted to solve ... it forces us to ask two questions
Two questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

We answered the first question ...
The question I’ve been asking remains unanswered: How does any of this help us with the question of why there are dissociations? ...

1. models [done]

2. processes

The idea was that if we study processes, we might understand the causes of the dissociations. But we’ve been focussed on ADULTS ...

implicit / modular
/ ‘system-1’ / ...

innate

informationally encapsulated

domain specific

subject to limited accessibility

speedy

tacit

subpersonal

unconscious

...

An immediate problem is, Which one or several of these features should we appeal to in characterising implicit mindreading? Everyone seems to have their own ideas.
Another reason for doubting providing a list of features is enough has been brought into sharp focus by criticisms of 'two systems' approaches.
\subsection{Objection}

‘it seems doubtful that the often long lists of correlated attributes should come as a package’

\citep[p.\ 759]{adolphs_conceptual_2010}

Adolphs (2010 p. 759)

we wonder whether the dichotomous characteristics … are … perfectly correlated

\citep[p.\ 537]{keren_two_2009}

Keren and Schul (2009, p. 537)

To me, a more pressing problem is that ...
None of these properties can explain why there is an interaction with age with respect to particular measures of belief tracking,
Nor can they explain why there are dissociations in adults between performance on different measures.
For instance, what had domain specificity
or limited accessibility got to do with the fact that adults’ proactive gaze and response times fail to track false beliefs in some contexts? Would the theory be any different if proactive gaze were aligned with verbal responses?

a fresh start

We need to make a fresh start in distinguishing implicit from explicit mindreading ...
Start with a simple causal model.
‘response 1’ is a variable representing which response the subject will give. [Which values it takes will depend on what sort of response it is (e.g. a verbal response, proactive gaze, button press.) We can think of it as taking three values, one for correct belief tracking, one for fact tracking, and one for any other response.]
‘process 1’ and ‘process 2’ are variables which each represent whether a certain kind of mindreading process will occur and, if so, what it’s outcome is.
And the arrows show that the probability that response 1 will have a certain value is influenced by the value of the variables process 1 and process 2 (and by other things not included in the model). So it should be possible to intervene on the value of ‘process 1’ in order to bring about a change in the value of ‘response 1’.
[I’ve used thicker and thinner arrows informally to indicate stronger and weaker dependence. Strictly speaking the width has no meaning and this model doesn’t specify exactly how the values of variables are related, only that they are.]
Of course, much the same is true for ‘response 2’ as well. It’s just that the changing the values of other variables will have different effects on the values of ‘response 1’ and ‘response 2’.
[Limit: this depiction ignores time, which is of course critical.]
We must avoid a false assumption about the relation between types of response and kinds of process ...

Process 1 -> Response 1

Process 2 -> Response 2

The false assumption is that responses of type R1 are dominated by one mindreading process whereas responses of type R2 are dominated by another mindreading process. But responses types and processes may not be so closely associated, of course.
This is because (a) any response is likely to be a consequence of multiple processes; and, (b), for some response types such as button selection or proactive gaze, changing factors like time pressure could change which mindreading process dominates responses of that type.% \footnote{% In fact variability in the relation between a mindreading process and a response type is a potentially useful source of evidence in support of a dual process theory of mindreading. Changes in the processes determining a response type can be detected where we have situations in which we know, or assume, the two processes yield different answers (cf Todd et al). }
So what does a Dual Process Theory of Mindreading claim? The core claim is just this:

Dual Process Theory of Mindreading (core part)

Two (or more) mindreading processes are distinct:
the conditions which influence whether they occur,
and which outputs they generate,
do not completely overlap.

\textbf{You might say, this is a schematic claim, one totally lacking substance.} You’d be right: and that’s exactly the point.
A key feature of this Dual Process Theory of Mindreading is its \textbf{theoretical modesty}: it involves no a priori committments concerning the particular characteristics of the processes.
First, the conditions under which one or another response type tracks beliefs should vary.
1.a E.g. changing the \textbf{instructions} should reduce the probability that responses of one type will track beliefs without much affecting the probability that responses of the other type will track belief.
Evidence for this includes studies by Schenider et al
1.b Or, e.g., changing the \textbf{content of the belief} to be tracked from location to identity, say, should reduce the probability that responses of one type track beliefs without much affecting the probability that responses of the other type will track beliefs.
Evidence for this includes studies by Low and his collaborators.
1a+b. And, ideally, it should be possible find different conditions that reduce the probability that different responses track beliefs.
Further, the probability that responses of these two types track beliefs should be differently affected by factors such as time pressure and cognitive load. (It isn’t important that either is entirely unaffected; what matters is just that the effects are different.)
As far as I know we don’t yet have direct evidence for this, because few studies have compared what happens to two response types as factors like time pressure or cognitive load are varies. There is, of course, some evidence that responses of some types are less susceptible to cognitive load than others (e.g. \citet{qureshi:2010_executive} on L1 VPT).
So far I’ve been working with a simplifying assumption about the relation between types of response and kinds of process.

Process 1 -> Response 1

Process 2 -> Response 2

I’ve been assuming that responses of type R1 are dominated by one mindreading process whereas responses of type R2 are dominated by another mindreading process. But responses types and processes may not be so closely associated, of course.
This is because (a) any response is likely to be a consequence of multiple processes; and, (b), for some response types such as button selection or proactive gaze, changing factors like time pressure could change which mindreading process dominates responses of that type.
In fact variability in the relation between a mindreading process and a response type is a potentially useful source of evidence in support of a dual process theory of mindreading. Changes in the processes determining a response type can be detected where we have situations in which we know, or assume, the two processes yield different answers (cf Todd et al). For example ...
To illustrate, take the case where we instruct subjects to track the location of a ball. Subjects are asked to press a button to indicate whether a ball is present or absent. We know that button selection will not track beliefs when subjects are not under time pressure. But what happens if we increase time pressure.
It is possible that increasing time pressure will very slightly, but perhaps measurably increase the probability that button presses are dominated by a different mindreading process, one that is less sensitive to instructions. In that case, we would expect to observe slightly more belief tracking in the responses as time pressure is increased.
\citet{todd:2016_dissociating} have recently demonstrated this type of effect for L1-VPT; as far as I know, it has not yet been demonstrated for belief tracking.
So what does a Dual Process Theory of Mindreading claim? The core claim is just this:

Dual Process Theory of Mindreading (core part)

Two (or more) mindreading processes are distinct:
the conditions which influence whether they occur,
and which outputs they generate,
do not completely overlap.

What about development?

The model of minds and actions underpinning automatic mindreading process does not significantly change over development.
By contrast, the model of minds and actions underpinning nonautomatic mindreading process does significantly change over development. In the first three or four years of life, nonautomatic mindreading processes involve relatively crude models of minds and actions, models which do not enable belief tracking. What changes over development is typically just that the model underpinning nonautomatic mindreading becomes gradually more sophisticated and eventually comes to enable belief tracking.
Conjecture: \begin{enumerate} \item Automatic and nonautomatic mindreading processes both occur from the first year of life onwards. \item The model of minds and actions underpinning automatic mindreading process does not significantly change over development. \item In the first three or four years of life, nonautomatic mindreading processes involve relatively crude models of minds and actions, models which do not enable belief tracking. \item What changes over development is typically just that the model underpinning nonautomatic mindreading becomes gradually more sophisticated and eventually comes to enable belief tracking. \end{enumerate}

Low et al, 2014 figure 2

There is what Low et al’s results are really showing us.
Two questions: \begin{enumerate} \item How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing? \item Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks? \end{enumerate}

Q1

How do observations about tracking support conclusions about representing models?

Q2

Why are there dissociations in nonhuman apes’, human infants’ and human adults’ performance on belief-tracking tasks?

Allows us to understand why there are dissociations. Does not allow us to predict particular dissociations without further elaboration concerning the nature of the processess.

A-tasks

Children fail

because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs

Children fail A-tasks because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs.

non-A-tasks

Children pass

by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs

Children pass non-A-tasks by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs.

dogma

the

of mindreading

The dogma of mindreading (momentary version): any individual has at most one model of minds and actions at any one point in time.
There is also a developmental version of the dogma: the developmental dogma is that there is either just one model or else a family of models where one of the models, the best and most sophisticated model, contains all of the states that are contained in any of the models.
So now we can solve the puzzle.
 

Mindreading: Conclusions

challenge
Explain the emergence in development
of mindreading.
So let me conclude. The challenge we have been addressing was to understand the emergence of mindreading. Initially this seemed straightforward: you learn this from social interaction using language as a tool (compare Gopnik's theory theory). However, the discovery that abilities to track beilefs exist in infants from around 7 months or earlier initially suggested a different picture: one on which mindreading was likely to involve core knowledge. But, as always, things are not so straightforward.

A-tasks

Children fail

because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs

Children fail A-tasks because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs.

non-A-tasks

Children pass

by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs

Children pass non-A-tasks by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs.

dogma

the

of mindreading

The dogma of mindreading (momentary version): any individual has at most one model of minds and actions at any one point in time.
There is also a developmental version of the dogma: the developmental dogma is that there is either just one model or else a family of models where one of the models, the best and most sophisticated model, contains all of the states that are contained in any of the models.
Now we have all the ingredients for a solution.
Finding: infant belief-tracking processes rely on minimal models of the mental. Therefore: infant belief-tracking processes rely on the same processes that underpin automatic belief-tracking in adults.
Non-A-tasks measure responses driven (or dominated) by automatic processes. Therefore: Success on non-A-tasks could be a entirely consequence of automatic belief-tracking processes. Therefore: infants should pass non-A-tasks.
A-tasks measure responses driven (or dominated) by nonautomatic processes. Therefore: Success on A-tasks requires non-automatic belief-tracking processes; it could not be entirely consequence of automatic belief-tracking processes. Therefore: infants should fail A-tasks.
Recall this conjecture from earlier ...

Conjecture

Infants have core knowledge of minds and actions.

Core knowledge is sufficient for success on non-A-tasks.

Infants lack knowledge of minds and actions.

Knowledge is necessary for success on A-tasks.

The first challenge was to say what core knowledge of minds might be ...

core knowledge of minds = the representations underpining automatic belief-tracking, which rely on a minimal model of the mental.

Why think that core konwledge is sufficient for success on non-A-tasks? Because these measure responses driven (or dominated) by automatic processes. (And we equated core knowledge with the representations underpinning automatic belief-tracking in adults.)
Why think that knowledge knowledge is necessary for success on A-tasks? Because these measure responses driven (or dominated) by nonautomatic processes.

evidence

signature limits

A-tasks

Children fail

because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs

Children fail A-tasks because they rely on a model of minds and actions that does not incorporate beliefs.

non-A-tasks

Children pass

by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs

Children pass non-A-tasks by relying on a model of minds and actions that does incorporate beliefs.

dogma

the

of mindreading

The dogma of mindreading (momentary version): any individual has at most one model of minds and actions at any one point in time.
There is also a developmental version of the dogma: the developmental dogma is that there is either just one model or else a family of models where one of the models, the best and most sophisticated model, contains all of the states that are contained in any of the models.
theme A: explain the origins of knowledge of others minds : development as rediscovery. There is a modular capacity ( = core knowledge). But this doesn't lead to adult-like understanding for years, and the acquisition of adult-like understanding hinges on language; may involve completely different model of mental states.
background Layer 1 understanding action understanding minds joint action referential communication communication with words