This item is intended to tap the understanding that seeing-leads-to-knowing[1].Understanding that knowledge about an object can be gained by looking at it (as looking inside an unmarked box) is a significant accomplishment that forms the basis of much social interaction (Pratt & Bryant, 1990). How seeing-leads-to-knowing (a.k.a. “knowledge access”) is knotted up with several other related, but distinctly different, social cognitive domains has been the topic of muchresearch. Although not without controversy, some consensus is emerging that a representational understanding of belief is requisite for the understanding that seeing-leads-to-knowing (Lohmann, Carpenter, & Call, 2005; Olson & Astington, 1987). “Once one has a concept of belief, it is possible to think of and refer to the seeing that occurs in the absence of belief” (Olson & Astington, 1987, p. 405). Seeing-leads-to-knowing is, in turn, considered foundational to false beliefunderstanding with false belief tasks traditionally describing what people see (and do not see) as tests of what people know (and do not know).
Performance on seeing-leads-to-knowing tasks is affected by the processing demands of the task (Lohmann et al., 2005) and the complexity of the test questions (O’Neill & Gopnik, 1991; Pratt & Bryant, 1990) and is positively related to children’s verbal abilities (Lohman et al., 2005). In typical development, most research indicates that 3- and 4-year-olds understand perceptual access as a source of knowledge (Baron-Cohen, 1992; Hughes & Donaldson, 1979; Pillow, 1989; Pratt & Bryant, 1990; Wimmer, Hogrefe, & Perner, 1988; Wellman & Bartsch, 1988, Zaitchik, 1991;but see Hogrefe, Wimmer, & Perner, 1986, who argued for a slightlymore protracted developmental time-table) and that this knowledge precedes their understanding of false beliefs (Hogrefe et al., 1986; Wellman & Lui, 2004). Contrary to early conceptualizations of children as strict empiricists who employ seeing-leads-to-knowing as a formal if not rigid rule when attributing informational states to others (Sodian & Wimmer, 1987), there is growing consensus that inference of knowledge, even among young children, is a complex process in which the child considers not only another’s access to perceptual information (what is seen or heard) but also another’s mental information (e.g., the basis of another’s belief, the trustworthiness of the information obtained, and the child’s degree of certainty in the state of reality; Friedman, Griffin, Brownell, & Winner, 2003; Lohmann et al., 2005, Zaitchik, 1991).
Seeing-leads-to-knowing in ASD
Peterson, Wellman, and Lui (2005) reported that 75% of their sample of children with high functioning ASD passed a standard seeing-leads-to-knowing test. Other researchers using samples withmore heterogeneous language profileshave reported that the majority of participants ASD fail the test.For example, Leslie and Frith (1988) reported a 44% pass rate, Perner, Frith, Leslie, and Leekam (1989)reported a 35% pass rate, and Baron-Cohen and Goodhart (1994), who used a slightly more stringent test, reported a 33% pass rate for individuals with ASD but a 75% pass rate for age- and IQ-matched individuals with intellectual disability. Not surprisingly in ASD, performance on tests of seeing-leads-to-knowing is strongly related to the ability to deceive (Baron-Cohen, 1992; Baron-Cohen & Goodhart, 1994) and in tests of deception, persons with ASD make specific types of errors:
“when asked to hide a penny in one of their hands, the majority of subjects with autism either (1) [failed]to close the hand that the penny was not in, or (2) opened the hand the penny was in before the other person had a chance to guess, or (3) hid the penny in full view of the guesser. All of these errors reveal a fundamental inability to understand the point of hiding – to occlude information and not just objects…they also reveal a failure to understand that a guesser will know the location of an object if she or he is allowed to see where it is put” (Baron-Cohen & Goodhart, 1994, p. 400).
In summary, the seeing-leads-to-knowing deficit in ASD has been characterized as “robust” (Baron-Cohen & Goodhart, 1994, p. 397) and “it is clear that, as far as the principle that seeing-leads-to-knowing is concerned, these subjects are severely impaired” (Baron-Cohen & Goodhart, 1994, p. 400). Consequently, a few specific teaching programs have been developed to train the seeing-leads-to-knowing principle. This is typically accomplished via didactic lessons that make use of physical props (e.g., photos that represent what has been seen) and analogies to non-metalizing entities (e.g., cameras) to explain how people get thoughts or information into their heads (e.g., Hadwin, Baron-Cohen, Howlin, & Hill, 1996; McGregor,Whiten, & Blackburn 1998; Swettenham, Baron-Cohen, Gomez, & Walsh, 1996). Although the results from these studies confirm that many children with autism can be taught to pass tests of seeing-leads-to-knowing, generalization of skills to novel situations and settings has proven elusive. One promising exception is a study by McGregor et al. (1998) who offer recommendations for intervention materials and strategies that appear to facilitate transfer of learning to natural contexts.
Seeing-leads-to-knowing in ADHD
Very few studies have examined seeing-leads-to-knowing in ADHD. The most substantive study on the topic was conducted by Hutchins et al. (2016) who compared typically developing (TD) males, males with high functioning ASD, and males with ADHD (ages 5-14) using the Theory of Mind Inventory (ToMI; this caregiver assessment) as well as a standard child performance measure. On the ToMI, males with ADHD had significantly lower scores compared to the TD group but significantly higher scores than the ASD group. By contrast, performance on the child performance measure for the ADHD group was high and indistinguishable from the TD group. Hutchins et al. (2016) concluded that performance on basic level theory of mind competencies like seeing-leads-to-knowing is moderated by the amount and quality of executive function (EF) resources which are believed to vary with context. Specifically, they speculated that under decontextualized (e.g., laboratory type tasks that draw on ‘cold’ or ‘analytical’ EF resources), children with ADHD are likely to demonstrate success on competencies like seeing-leads-to-knowing. On the other hand, understanding of seeing-leads-to-knowing may be weak when trying to solve real-life motivationally-significant problems that draw on ‘hot’ EF resources.
Seeing-leads-to-knowing in DoHH
A few studies have assessed the comprehension of seeing-leads-to-knowing in children who are DoHH. Peterson and colleagues found that the understanding of seeing-leads-to-knowing (what they refer to as ‘knowledge access’) was no different in deaf native signing children (Peterson et al., 2005) but significantly delayed in deaf late signers(Peterson et al., 2005; Peterson, O’Reilly, & Wellman, 2016; Peterson, Wellman, & Slaughter, 2012). This finding gains importance considering that seeing-leads-to-knowing was also found to be a developmental precursor to false belief understanding for all groups studied (i.e., typically developing children, children with ASD, children who are DoHH). Peterson et al. (2012) concluded that the delays evident in the DoHH sample are likely a result of late signers’ restricted access to early family conversation.
REFERENCES
Baron-Cohen, S. (1992). Out of sight or out of mind: Another look at deception in autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 1141-1155.
Baron-Cohen, S., & Goodhart, F. (1994). The ‘seeing-leads-to-knowing’ deficit in autism: The Pratt and Bryant probe. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 397-401.
Friedman, O., Griffin, R., Brownell, H., & Winner, E. (2003). Problems with the seeing = knowing rule. Developmental Science, 6(5), 505-513.
Hadwin, J., Baron-Cohen, S., Howlin, P., & Hill, K. (1996). Concepts of emotion, belief, and pretence: To what extent can they be taught to children with autism? Development and Psychopathology, 8, 345-365.
Hogrefe, G., Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1986). Ignorance versus false belief: A developmental lag in attribution of mental states. Child Development, 57, 567-582.
Hughes, M., & Donaldson, M. (1979). The use of hiding games for studying the coordination of viewpoints. Educational Review, 31, 133-140.
Hutchins, T. L., Prelock, P. A., Morris, H., Benner, J., LaVigne, T., & Hoza, B. (2016). Explicit vs. applied theory of mind competence: A comparison of typically developing males, males with ASD, and males with ADHD. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 21, 94-108.
Leslie, A., & Frith, U. (1988). Autistic children’s understanding of seeing, knowing, and believing. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 315-324.
Lohmann, H., Carpenter, M., & Call, H. (2005). Guessing versus choosing and seeing versus believing in false belief tasks. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 23, 451-469.
McGregor, E., Whiten, A., & Blackburn, P. (1998). Transfer of the picture-in-the-head analogy to natural contexts to aid false belief understanding in autism. Autism, 2(4), 1998.
Olson, D., & Astington, J. (1989). Seeing and knowing: On the ascription of mental states to young children. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 41(1), 39-411.
O’Neill, D., & Gopnik, A. (1991). Young children’s ability to identify the sources of their beliefs. Developmental Psychology, 27(3), 390-397.
Perner, J., Frith, U., Leslie, A., & Leekam, S. (1989). Exploration of the autistic children’s theory of mind: Knowledge, belief and communication. Child Development, 60, 689-700.
Peterson, C., & Wellman, H. (2005). Steps in theory of mind development for children with deafness or autism. Child Development, 76(2), 502-517.
Peterson, C., O’Reilly, K., & Wellman, H. (2016). Deaf and hearing children’s development of theory of mind, peer popularity, and leadership during middle childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 149, 146-158.
Peterson, C., Wellman, H., & Slaughter, V. (2012). The mind behind the message: Advancing theory-of- mind scales for typically developing children, and those with deafness, autism or Asperger syndrome. Child Development, 83(2), 469-485.
Pillow, B. H. (1989). Early understanding of perception as a source of knowledge. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 47, 116-129.
Pratt, C., & Bryant, P. (1990). Young children understand that looking leads to knowing (so long as they are looking into a single barrel). Child Development, 61, 973-982.
Sodian, B., & Wimmer, H. (1987). Children’s understanding of inference as a source of knowledge. Child Development, 58(2), 424-433.
Swettenham, J., Baron-Cohen, S., Gomez, J., & Walsh, S. (1996). What’s inside someone’s head? Conceiving of the mind as a camera helps children with autism acquire an alternative to a theory of mind. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 1, 78-88.
Wimmer, H., Hogrefe, G., & Perner, J. (1988). Children’s understanding of informational access as a source of knowledge. Child Development, 59, 386-396.
Wellman, H., & Bartsch, K. (1988). Young children’s reasoning about beliefs. Cognition, 30, 239-277.
Wellman, H., & Lui. (2004). Scaling of theory-of-mind tasks. Child Development, 75(2), 523-541.
Zaitchik, D. (1991). Is only seeing really believing?: Sources of the true belief in the false belief task. Cognitive Development, 6, 91-103.
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[1] Of course, there are other sources of perceptual access including hearing (and hearing about) and feeling (as in touching). Research has shown that 3-year-olds have some difficulty identifying their own source of knowledge about what they believe is in a container (i.e., by experiencing the object thru either sight, sound, or touch) but that 4- and 5-year-olds do not have difficulty. In addition, the difficulty of 3-year-olds is not due to sensory modality but rather to the complexity of the test question (O’Neill & Gopnik, 1991).