Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 May;11(3):e1523.
doi: 10.1002/wcs.1523. Epub 2019 Dec 17.

What is mindreading?

Shannon Spaulding  1
Affiliations
Review

What is mindreading?

Shannon Spaulding. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. 2020 May.

Abstract

Theory of mind, also known as mindreading, refers to our ability to attribute mental states to agents in order to make sense of and interact with other agents. Recently, theorists in this literature have advanced a broad conception of mindreading. In particular, psychologists and philosophers have examined how we attribute knowledge, intention, mentalistically loaded stereotypes, and personality traits to others. Moreover, the diversity of our goals in a social interaction-precision, efficiency, self/in-group protection-generates diversity in the mindreading processes we employ. Finally, the products of mindreading are varied, as well. We produce different sorts of mindreading explanations depending on our epistemic goals and the situational context. In this article, I piece together these different strands of research to present a broad conception of mindreading that is complex, messy, and interesting. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Knowledge and Belief Philosophy > Psychological Capacities.

Keywords: explanation; mindreading; stereotypes; theory of mind; traits.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Ames, D. L. (2004a). Strategies for social inference: A similarity contingency model of projection and stereotyping in attribute prevalence estimates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(5), 573-585.
    1. Ames, D. R. (2004b). Inside the mind reader's tool kit: Projection and stereotyping in mental state inference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(3), 340-353.
    1. Andrews, K. (2012). Do apes read minds? Toward a new folk psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
    1. 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.
    1. Apperly, I. A. (2012). What is “theory of mind”? Concepts, cognitive processes and individual differences. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(5), 825-839.

LinkOut - more resources