Graduation Year

2022

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Neuroscience

Reader 1

Michael Spezio

Reader 2

Thomas Borowski

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Abstract

The term Theory of Mind (ToM) was initially introduced into the cognitive science literature by Premack and Woodruff in their 1978 paper, “Does the Chimpanzee have a Theory of Mind?”. They define Theory of Mind as individuals imputing mental states to themselves and others to make predictions about the behavior of others. Premack and Woodruff also explain how in employing a Theory of Mind, meaning that an individual has a system of imputations about the knowledge, beliefs, inferences, and problem-solving abilities of another individual, there are likely to be inaccuracies in these theories, meaning that the existence of a Theory of Mind does not require accuracy of that theory. ToM processes have been associated with networks that involve the rTPJ. Interactivity and uncertainty are two key elements for tasks that will invoke ToM. These are features of the Interactive Tiger Task, a multi-agent task under conditions of uncertainty and partial observation, with both cooperative and competitive conditions. To characterize the performance of the participants with respect to the performance of an optimal agent, I-POMDPs were used to model the task. The modeling shows differences in the treatment of evidence between conditions, pointing to the idea that there may also be differences between conditions in the perception of the other participant and engagement in ToM during prediction and choice.

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