Exploratory assessment of Theory of Mind--论文代写范文精选

弗里斯的关于精神分裂症症状背后的假设，可能是汤姆的赤字。通过分解的能力来处理自己的心理状态和其他人。同样有趣的是,这些赤字不均匀，不同的结果可以获得不同的理论。下面的paper代写范文进行论述。

Abstract 
  A large body of literature agrees that persons with schizophrenia suffer from a Theory of Mind (ToM) deficit. However, most empirical studies have focused on third-person, egocentric ToM, underestimating other facets of this complex cognitive skill. Aim of this research is to examine the ToM of schizophrenic persons considering its various aspects (first- vs. second-order, first- vs. third-person, egocentric vs. allocentric, beliefs vs. desires vs. positive emotions vs. negative emotions and how each of these mental state types may be dealt with), to determine whether some components are more impaired than others. 

  We developed a Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.) and administered it to 22 persons with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and a matching control group. Th.o.- m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview which allows a multi-component measurement of ToM. Both groups were also administered a few existing ToM tasks and the schizophrenic subjects were administered the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the WAIS-R. The schizophrenic persons performed worse than control at all the ToM measurements; however, these deficits appeared to be differently distributed among different components of ToM. Our conclusion is that ToM deficits are not unitary in schizophrenia, which also testifies to the importance of a complete and articulated investigation of ToM.

 Introduction 
  Theory of Mind (ToM) was initially defined by Premack and Woodruff (1978) as the ability to ascribe mental states to oneself and the others and to use this knowledge to predict and explain the relevant actions and behaviors. Frith (1992, 1994) advanced the hypothesis that underlying the complex symptomatology of schizophrenia may be a deficit of ToM. In Frith’s account, the symptoms of schizophrenia—whether positive, like delirium and hallucinations. or negative, like apathy and anhedonia—are consequences of, or reactions to, a breakdown of the ability to handle the mental states of one’s own and of the others.

  Also interestingly, these deficits are not homogeneous: different results may be obtained when different components or sub-skills of ToM are investigated in persons with schizophrenia. Mazza et al. (2001), for example, found the performance of these subjects at first-order ToM tests (Wimmer & Perner, 1983) to be better than that at second-order ones (Perner & Wimmer, 1985). The difference between the two types of task is that success in the former requires to understand a character’s belief about a state of the world, while success in the latter requires to ascribe nested mental states, that is to understand a character’s belief about the beliefs of another character, which turns out to be more difficult. 

  The distinction between first- and second-order ToM reasoning is not the only important one. Recent theoretical studies argued that ToM has a complex nature that cannot be reduced to an on–off or an all-or-nothing functioning (Tirassa, Bosco, & Colle, 2006a) and pointed to the possibility of decomposing it into different aspects or components. Nichols and Stich (2002) argued that understanding the first- and the third-persons are different activities that are mediated by different processes and recruit knowledge of different types. Because most tests of ToM focus on the third-person, the functioning of the first-person in schizophrenia is substantially less known. However, a study by Gambini, Barbieri, and Scarone (2004) supports the idea that the abilities to mentalize in the first- and in the third-person should be kept distinct. These authors found that, during interviews concerning their delusions, some schizophrenic subjects can gain insight into their own mental states when the perspective is shifted from the first- to the third-person. 

  A different kind of evidence was provided by an fMRI study conducted by Vogeley et al. (2001), who found different patterns of brain activation in different lobes as healthy subjects took the first- or the third-person perspective. Another distinction, orthogonal to that between first- and third-person ToM, is that between egocentrism and allocentrism (Frith & de Vignemont, 2005). In the egocentric perspective, the others are represented in relation to the self, while in the allocentric perspective the others’ mental states are represented independently from the self. Again, however, there is no empirical test of this distinction. 

  To sum up, there is a wide agreement in the literature that ToM is more complex than a monolithic, all-or-nothing function that just turns on and off whenever necessary and functions as whole. Yet, to date there is no single test for its assessment which be able to yield, within a unitary framework, specific and comparable measures along the first- vs. second-order, the first- vs. third-person, and the egocentrism vs. allocentrism dimensions. For this reason we developed a new instrument, the Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.: Bosco, Colle, Pecorara, & Tirassa, 2006), which adopts a unitary methodology to investigate different ToM abilities, thus providing more complete, detailed, and comparable profiles of this elusive function. We administered Th.o.m.a.s. to a group of schizophrenic subjects; we expected their ToM abilities to be damaged, but we also wished to investigate in detail whether specific components or sub-skills were less impaired than another. In the next section, we will describe the ToM Assessment Scale and the hypotheses it allowed to generate; then, we will report the empirical data obtained from its administration to a group of 22 persons suffering from schizophrenia and a matching control group.

 The Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.) 
  Th.o.m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview aimed at assessing a subject’s theory of the mind. It consists of 39 open-ended questions that leave the interviewee free to express and articulate her thought. When they are not provided spontaneously by the interviewee, the interviewer may specifically ask for real-world examples to enrich and contextualize the answer. Differently from most other instruments for the study of mentalization, where a subject’s ToM is appraised based on her performance at predefined tasks, Th.o.m.a.s. is a direct inquiry, where the subject is invited to express her understanding of mental states, both of her own and of the others. Beside what has been discussed in the previous section, another major reason why Th.o.m.a.s. has such structure is the standpoint that we adopt in the ongoing theoretical discussion concerning the very nature and ‘‘functioning” of ToM. 

  In brief, the problem is whether ToM consists of an explicit, formal, substantially linguistic form of reasoning or also (or only) of other, less theorematic and less local activities (Gallagher, 2001; Gallagher & Hutto, 2008; Zahavi, 2005). There is no space to discuss the issue here, nor is it the focus of this paper (but see Tirassa & Bosco, 2008; Tirassa, Bosco, & Colle, 2006b). We have little doubt that, as humans, we can engage in highly complex ToM reasoning when we need or want to, as it happens when a general attempts to foresee and understand what his opponent’s strategies will be on the battlefield; yet, there can be as little doubt that we do not explicitly represent and reason about the mental states of anybody who happens to smile and say hello to us or to be drinking a double whiskey in the bar where we are eating a sandwich. In the latter cases, we are not making any theory about the other’s mental states (or even about those of our own), and we may hardly ever notice that there is a social activity going on in which we are immersed. 

  Yet, our mental activities are not devoid of a social, mentalizing flavor—our observations of or actions toward these individuals are fully informed by our comprehension that the former is treating us gently, and that the latter is a thirsty customer of the bar. This is why we are ready to smile and shake hands with the one, or to understand why the other is beginning to mutter about having lost a job and a spouse. Th.o.m.a.s. builds on the idea that the human mentalizing abilities are basically a way to look at the world, a background which informs our whole social life and against which more explicit, theory-driven reasoning episodes become possible and meaningful. We felt that an interview would be more appropriate to let such worldview emerge, without focusing too much on the more formal, theorematic activities that may or may not be employed moment by moment by an individual, particularly one with a mental problem.(paper代写)

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