Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


Isaiah F. Jones - Dissertation.pdf (686.05 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Monkey see, monkey do, monkey mind-read: On the ability of embodiment to facilitate theory of mind judgments

Jones, Isaiah F
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1375099367

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Psychology.
Normally functioning humans are able to represent the internal states of others, an ability termed theory of mind. The ability has obvious fitness benefits, ranging from the mundane to the lifesaving, but particulars of how it operates are still debated. Adopting an embodied cognition stance, some authors (e.g., Iacoboni, 2009) have argued that behavioral mimicry, or personally reproducing the observable acts of a social other, may fundamentally underlie our ability to mind-read, yet this contention has received little empirical attention. Accordingly, I tested the hypothesis that mimicry can facilitate judgments of others' internal states, namely their intentions. In Experiment 1, participants viewed videos of an agent reaching toward one of two objects, cut early in the motion so as to leave the ultimately reached-for object ambiguous, and were asked to guess which was to be grasped. Participants who actively engaged their triceps brachii (the same muscle recruited to make reach motions) more accurately judged the intended object of another person. In Experiment 2, participants viewed targets immediately before they ultimately did or did not cooperate in a separate task and were asked to identify which decision they subsequently rendered. Disruption of the zygomaticus major (the muscle recruited for smiling, a signal of pro-social intent) led to impaired performance for noncooperating targets, but had no impact on cooperating ones. These findings provide some evidence of the role of mimicry in understanding the intentions of others and may therefore profit both the mimicry and theory-of-mind literatures. More broadly, it tentatively supports the burgeoning embodied cognition literature and shows that embodiment may have implications for valuable social-perceptual processes.
Heather Claypool (Committee Chair)
Amy Summerville (Committee Member)
David Waller (Committee Member)
Devon DelVecchio (Committee Member)
35 p.
Social Psychology
embodied cognition; theory of mind; mimicry

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jones, I. F. (2013). Monkey see, monkey do, monkey mind-read: On the ability of embodiment to facilitate theory of mind judgments [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1375099367

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jones, Isaiah. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey mind-read: On the ability of embodiment to facilitate theory of mind judgments. 2013. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1375099367.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jones, Isaiah. "Monkey see, monkey do, monkey mind-read: On the ability of embodiment to facilitate theory of mind judgments." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1375099367

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1375099367
474
© 2013, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Monkey see, monkey do, monkey mind-read: On the ability of embodiment to facilitate theory of mind judgments by Isaiah F Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12