Does the Experimental Scientist Have a ‘Theory of Mind’?

Matthew K Belmonte

Review of General Psychology 12(2):192-204 (June 2008).

ABSTRACT

The concept of a ‘theory of mind’ was widely used in developmental and evolutionary psychology and neuroscience in the wake of Premack and Woodruffs 1978 paper ‘Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind’ and Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith’s 1985 follow-up ‘Does the Autistic Child Have a “Theory of Mind?”’ The subsequent confluence of cognitive science and narrative theory brought ‘theory of mind’ to literary critics. Only a very small set of people, however, have read both the neuro-psychological and the literary texts on ‘theory of mind’; as a result of this lack of interdisciplinary expertise, the term has acquired subtly differing senses in the literary and neuroscientific communities. Because of this terminological slippage, neuroscientists and literary critics who argue in terms of ‘theory of mind’ may believe that they are speaking with each other when they actually are speaking past each other. If proponents of cognitive literary theory are to realise the interdisciplinary fusion to which we aspire, then we must ensure that we speak in the same idiom.

To receive a password that will enable you to download a reprint, enter your email address here:

DOWNLOAD REPRINT (requires password)

CITED IN PUBLICATIONS BY OTHERS:

  1. Hunter JC. The plus ultra of empirical research. Review of General Psychology 12(2):100-104 (June 2008).
  2. Silverman C. Fieldwork on another planet: social science perspectives on the autism spectrum. BioSocieties 3(3):325-341 (September 2008).

CITED IN MY OTHER PUBLICATIONS:

  1. Belmonte MK. What’s the story behind ‘theory of mind’ and autism? Journal of Consciousness Studies 16(6-8):118-139 (June-August 2009).