Theory of Mind and Deaf Signers
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http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=4&hid=8&sid=bea825b0-2349-4c92-afbd-6a9cf5226de8%40SRCSM1
This paper is a scientific look at the Nicaraguan Sign Language phenomena, which is, of course, the one we've referenced a few times in class. It looks at the development and abilities of children and adults who were exposed to formal sign language at different ages and how they score on various tests. One of them is the theory of mind test, which aims to determine how well an individual understands the difference between their own mind and the minds of others. In young children for example, they sometimes don't have very marked theory of mind abilities, thinking that what's in their heads is the same as what's in mommy and daddy's head as well. As might be expected, native or early-exposure signers do better with these sorts of things than signers who were exposed to sign language later in life. (For an example of one test in theory of mind, look here).
As the article asks, "By what process do deaf children build a ToM [Theory of Mind] in the absence of formal language exposure? What ToM abilities are robust enough to develop in situations of late language exposure?" These questions seem very interesting, and fairly central and applicable to our class. I'm not sure exactly, but there seem to be a couple ways that children can build ToM. If they are raised in a typical environment with language, they probably build ToM by learning through verbal interaction with their parents and siblings that what exists in their mind is not the same as what exists in others' minds. Verbs like "think, dream, imagine, wonder" are indicators of theory of mind, and when children begin to use these, I suspect that their scores on ToM tests would also go up. For children not raised in a normally lingual environment have to figure out ToM through introspection to their own thoughts, and observations about the world around them (visual ones, since most of these "language-less" children are deaf children raised without formal sign language.) However, one can imagine how difficult this would be, especially since sometimes people behave one way but are actually thinking something different. In a world without explanations and language, a child might not always realize through facial expression alone, for example, that somebody is doing something unwillingly.
There's also the question of whether or not ToM tests are sensitive enough to the range of expression in late-sign-learners, because as one might imagine, individual people and families have come up with a huge variety of expressive gestures and signs. From the article I learned that some use facial expression to indicate something like "confusion" in another person by expressing a confused look on the face. Can ToM tests be sensitive to expressions like this which may indeed indicate underlying ToM ability that's not explicitly shown in what formal sign language these people do know. Alternatively, there might be certain conditioned responses such as laughing when somebody falls over that are just conditioned responses to a stimulus without a real underlying mental understanding of other people's mental states. As the article notes, "Gesture and facial expression could equally sometimes be over-interpreted."
A small aside which I may explore further later (by reading the original study): "They
came to this situation at different ages spanning
development before, during and after those maturational
points at which the critical period for language
acquisition is said to be in effect (exposure before
6 years for native abilities and not later than
10 years for near native abilities – e.g., Newport,
Bavelier, & Neville, 2001; Senghas & Coppola, 2001)." This would be an example that Lera has countered in class, showing a steady decline in language acquisition abilities with age rather than sharply defined windows around particular ages.
The article goes on to assert that it may be true that there are "critical periods" (more on that later) for acquisition of ToM ability.
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2 comments:
Very nice post, the relationship between language and ToM has been carefully studied in recent years, and there is evidence for a causal relationship between them, at least partially. In fact, you have intuited correctly that children who are exposed to more mental state words (think, dream...) in parent speech develop ToM skills earlier. However, this issue is fairly complicated, as ToM is not really a singular skill or idea but a complex suite of skills and behaviors whose roots can be seen even in the behavior of young infants. Then there are people with autism, who may develop fine language skills (though they are often delayed) but continuously fail ToM tasks into adulthood. If you are interested in this topic i can point you in the direction of a TON of research!
You should be applauded for starting with those ‘“language-less” deaf children’. The article of faith that “all humans have language”, is demonstrably false. People consider Nicaragua important because children created language there, but to me it seems equally important that other children have not done this, in spite of having the same genetic endowment! In Nicaragua alone Judy Kegl has recorded over 400 such alingual persons. Far from living in a world “without explanations” though, innumerable accounts describe alingual persons who actively participate in society. The best description of this is Susan Schaller’s book; and I like R. Nieminen describing a deaf, languageless orphan boy who emerged each morning from his hidden home in the jungle, to make a living selling newspapers to tourists. Both these authors incidentally remark on the math skills of their alingual subjects. Chomsky asks “what does a person know when they know a language”--but this is meaningless unless compared with a person who doesn’t know a language. For me, any investigation into innateness has to start with such a comparison.
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