A computational account of social reasoning : towards a more realistic model of theory of mind
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This thesis develops and tests a unified framework for computational models of how people use their theory of mind (ToM) to reason about others. I begin by using the framework to highlight the core formalization of how people choose actions based upon their beliefs and desires, a formalization common to previous models of social reasoning. I then discuss how the compositional nature of this framework allows it to incorporate more sophisticated models of people's mental states. The framework makes quantitative predictions about how people using these models of ToM should learn and reason about others. In the remainder of this thesis I use the framework to develop a more realistic model of people's ToM. I first examine a set of extensions to the current models of ToM---how people reason about others' attributes like how knowledgeable, reliable, and confident they are. I find that this elaborated model captures how changes in a person's attributes affects how others learn from them and the inferences they make about them. I then examine a core assumption made by previous accounts of ToM---that people form beliefs independent of their desires. I show that people think that others wishfully think, letting their desires affect their beliefs. Incorporating this wishful thinking into the model highlights the profound impact the details of a person's ToM has on their social reasoning. If a person thinks that others wishfully think, then the other's desires should have an impact on how the person learns from them. Indeed, people followed the pattern predicted by the model. They learned more from someone who bets against their desires. Finally, I conclude by describing both the challenges to the framework and how its extensibility can allow future models to overcome these limitations and provide increasingly realistic models of mind.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2015 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Hawthorne-Madell, Daniel J |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Psychology. |
| Primary advisor | Goodman, Noah |
| Thesis advisor | Goodman, Noah |
| Thesis advisor | Frank, Michael C, (Professor of human biology) |
| Thesis advisor | Monin, Benoît, 1972- |
| Advisor | Frank, Michael C, (Professor of human biology) |
| Advisor | Monin, Benoît, 1972- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Daniel J. Hawthorne-Madell. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Psychology. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2015. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2015 by Daniel Joseph Hawthorne
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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