"Theory of mind" is the ability to reason about what other people think, know, intend and desire. There are significant developments in these abilities between the ages of 2 and 7 years, and recent work has also found precocious abilities in young infants. In comparison, the abilities of older children and adults are poorly understood, even though there clearly are changes in everyday social reasoning abilities beyond the age of 7. PhD projects in this area will develop methods suitable for testing theory of mind reasoning in older children and/or adults, with potential for extending these behavioural methods by using them in combination with eye tracking or recordings of Event Related Potentials (ERP/EEG).
More information about the work going on in this lab can be found here:
http://www.ianapperly.eclipse.co.uk/
Key words: THEORY OF MIND, PERSPECTIVE TAKING, EXECUTIVE FUNCTION, DEVELOPMENT, COGNITION, NEUROIMAGING
Funding Notes
Up to 10 fully funded PhD studentships are available. For more information see:
http://www.psychology.bham.ac.uk/postgraduate/scholarships.shtml
Applications are welcomed all year round, but we strongly encourage applications by the end of March to allow an early decision on funding.
Apperly, I.A. & Butterfill, S.A, (2009). Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states? Psychological Review, 116(4), 953-970.
Apperly, I.A., Samson, D., & Humphreys, G.W. (2009). Studies of adults can inform accounts of theory of mind development. Developmental Psychology, 45(1), 190-201.
More information
More information about the work going on in this lab can be found here:
http://www.ianapperly.eclipse.co.uk/
Key words: THEORY OF MIND, PERSPECTIVE TAKING, EXECUTIVE FUNCTION, DEVELOPMENT, COGNITION, NEUROIMAGING
Funding Notes
Up to 10 fully funded PhD studentships are available. For more information see:
http://www.psychology.bham.ac.uk/postgraduate/scholarships.shtml
Applications are welcomed all year round, but we strongly encourage applications by the end of March to allow an early decision on funding.
Apperly, I.A. & Butterfill, S.A, (2009). Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states? Psychological Review, 116(4), 953-970.
Apperly, I.A., Samson, D., & Humphreys, G.W. (2009). Studies of adults can inform accounts of theory of mind development. Developmental Psychology, 45(1), 190-201.
More information