Metarepresentation

Abstract: One of the major developments of the second year of human life is the emergence of the ability to pretend. A child's knowledge of a real situation is apparently contradicted and distorted by pretense. If, as generally assumed, the child is just beginning to construct a system for internally representing such knowledge, why is this system of representation not undermined by its use in both comprehending and producing pretense? In this article I present a theoretical analysis of the representational mechanism underlying this ability. This mechanism extends the power of the infant's existing capacity for (primary) representation, creating a capacity for metarepresentation. It is this, developing toward the end of infancy, that underlies the child's new abilities to pretend and to understand pretense in others. There is a striking isomorphism between the three fundamental forms of pretend play and three crucial logical properties of mental state expressions in language. This isomorphism points to a common underlying form of internal representation that is here called metarepresentation. A performance model, the decoupler, is outlined embodying ideas about how an infant might compute the complex function postulated to underlie pretend play. This model also reveals pretense as an early manifestation of the ability to understand mental states. Aspects of later preschool development, both normal and abnormal, are discussed in the light of the new model. This theory begins the task of characterizing the specific innate basis of our commonsense "theory of mind."

Abstract: A model of writing in cognitive development, Understanding the Representational Mind synthesizes the burgeoning literature on the child's theory of mind to provide an integrated account of children's understanding of representational and mental processes, which is crucial in their acquisition of our commonsense psychology. Perrier describes experimental work on children's acquisition of a theory of mind and representation, offers a theoretical account of this acquisition, and gives examples of how the increased sophistication in children's theory of mind improves their understanding of social interaction and how, in the case of autistic children, an impairment results in social ineptitude. He analyzes the concepts of representation and metarepresentation as they appear in current discussion in the philosophy of cognitive science and explains how the unfolding of mental representation enables infants to comprehend change over time, engage in pretence, and use representational systems like pictures and language. Perrier goes on to show that around age four children become able to understand the representational nature of pictures and language and to distinguish appearance from reality. Introducing basic distinctions in philosophy of mind for characterizing the mental, Perrier discusses differences in how commonsense and cognitive psychology view the mind. Tracing the onset of a commonsense psychology in the social and emotional awareness of early infancy, he reveals how the child begins to take a cognitive, representational view of the mind with repercussions for children's episodic memory, self control, and their ability to engage in deception. Perrier concludes by describing the observed developmental changes as a case of theory change And contrasts his thesis with competing proposals.

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction: an introduction to the debate early understanding of mind - the normal case social development in autism - historical and clinical perspectives Part 2 The theory-of-mind hypothesis of autism - the cognitive approach: from attention-goal psychology to belief-desire psychology - the development of a theory of mind and its dysfunction what autism teaches us about metarepresentation the theory-of-mind deficit in autism - rethinking the metarepresentation theory what language reveals about the understanding of minds in children with autism the theory-of-mind deficit in autism - evidence from deception Part 3 The theory-of-minds hypothesis of autism - critical perspectives: the theory-of-mind and joint-attention deficits in autism understanding persons - the role of affect pretending and planning narrative language in autism and the theory-of-mind hypothesis - a wider perspective theories of mind and the problem of autism the complexity of social behaviour in autism the development of individuals with autism - implications for the theory-of-mind hypothesis Part 4 Wider perspectives: the role of imitation in understanding persons and developing a theory of mind evolving a theory of mind - the nature of non-verbal mentalism in other primates the comparative study of early communication and theories of mind - ontogeny, phylogeny and pathology autism and the theory of mind - some philosophical perspectives desire and fantasy - a psychoanalytic perspective on the theory of mind and autism the theory-of-mind deficit in autism - some questions for teaching and diagnosis the place of this book in autism research