Theory of mind in animals

Theory of mind in animals is an extension to non-human animals of the philosophical and psychological concept of theory of mind (ToM), sometimes known as mentalisation or mind-reading. It is an inquiry into whether animals have the ability to attribute (such as intention, desires, pretending, knowledge) to themselves and others, including recognition that others have mental states that are different from their own. To investigate this issue experimentally, researchers place animals in situations where their resulting behavior can be interpreted as supporting ToM or not.

The existence of theory of mind in animals is controversial. On the one hand, one hypothesis proposes that some animals have complex cognitive processes which allow them to attribute mental states to other individuals, sometimes called "mind-reading". A second, more parsimonious, hypothesis proposes that these skills depend on more simple learning processes such as associative learning; or in other words, they are simply behaviour-reading.

Several studies have been designed specifically to test whether animals possess theory of mind by using interspecific or intraspecific communication. Several taxa have been tested including primates, birds and canines. Positive results have been found; however, these are often qualified as showing only low-grade ToM, or rejected as not convincing by other researchers in the subject.

The term "theory of mind" was originally proposed by Premack and Woodruff in 1978. Early studies focused almost entirely on studying if chimpanzees could understand the knowledge of humans. This approach turned out not to be particularly fruitful and 20 years later, Heyes, reviewing all the extant data, observed that there had been "no substantial progress" in the subject area.

A 2000 paper approached the issue differently by examining competitive foraging behaviour between primates of the same species (conspecifics). This led to the rather limited conclusion that "chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not see". Next, brain activity in higher primates was studied and as a result, a 2003 study of the human brain suggested that the a functioning ToM system activated three major nodes, the medial prefrontal, superior temporal sulcus, and inferior frontal: the medial prefrontal node handles the mental state of the self, that the superior temporal sulcus detects the behaviour of other animals and analyzes the goals and outcomes of this behaviour, and the inferior frontal region maintains representations of actions and goals.

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