Reading other minds

In his recent article "The theory of mind myth," Robert Burton argues that we are not as good at reading other's minds as we might think, or as some neuroscientists have encouraged us to believe (see Burton's article here). To some extent, I am inclined to agree with Burton. But, I wonder if our inability to read other minds is not so much due to our inability as it is to the tendency of others to mask intention.

In his article, Burton gives several examples to show that we are often wrong in assessing another person's experience or intentions. For instance, we see a photo of a mother gazing at her child and we may be inclined to see a mother looking at her child with love and devotion. Or, we see a photo of a man diving off a cliff and we assume that the man is experiencing a certain amount of fear mixed with exhilaration. But, maybe the woman is thinking about the difficulties that raising a child will bring. And, maybe the man experiences no fear at all. We see the other person and try to guess what they are experiencing or what their intentions might be. But, the reality is we may be completely wrong. We simply can't get "inside" their experience.

I walk past a friend who smiles at me. I assume my friend is glad to see me. But, unbeknownst to me, my friend is thinking about how much she didn't want to see anybody she knew that particular day. Was I wrong? Well, yes I was. But, I wasn't wrong in thinking that a smile very often means something positive, such as my friend being glad to see me. The smile masks what my friend was thinking. I assume this is common enough. Humans, unlike dogs, are very good at appearing other than they are.

I look at my dog and he is wagging his tale. It's safe to assume that my dog is happy to see me. If that were not the case, my dog would be acting differently. Of course, animals can learn to act in such a way as to mask. For instance, my dog might learn that when he tears up the newspaper he gets in trouble. And so, he wags his tail after tearing up the newspaper to somehow mask that he has done. I have seen pets do things like this, so it's not unusual. But, even in this case, I can learn my dog's behavior in such a way to be confident that sometimes wagging does not mean he is glad to see me but that he has torn up the newspaper, again. In other words, I can still be very confident in being able to read my dog's intentions. So, back to people.

We don't always wear our intentions on our faces. Our bodies don't always reveal what we are experiencing. But, when they do reveal others are very good at guessing what is going on. If I am crying it would not be hard to guess that I am sad, or afraid, or even happy depending on the context. And, that is an important part of all this. Photos give some context, but it is limited. The more context available to me the better I will be able to read the other person, assuming that the other person's expression or bodily movement that I see mirrors the intention or experience.

I said that I am inclined to agree with Burton's claim that we aren't as good at reading other minds as we might think. Many times we get it wrong. But, many times we get it right. When I'm trying to explain something the quizzical look on the other person's face clues me in that I'm not explaining it all that well (or, at least, the other person doesn't understand). And, in that case I'm right. I tell a joke and the other person laughs. I assume the other person thinks it's funny based on her laughter. And, again, I am right. Very often we are right in our assessment of what the other person is thinking or intending. These success are not so much because we are especially gifted at reading other people, but because the expression or bodily movement accurately reflects the person's experience or intention.

Something similar can be said about language. We generally trust what people say, and as long as what they say accurately reflects their intentions then we are right in trusting them. But, if they lie we are going to believe what is not accurate. People can mask with their words, just as they do with expressions and bodily movements. Of course, not all masking is intentional or malicious, but too many times it is.

So, what am I getting on about? I take Burton's article to be just one more attempt to discredit folk psychology (see here). To be fair, he admits that his main concern is the current political climate, but nevertheless the article is an attempt to put into question some basic intuitions we all have about our ability to guess other's desires, beliefs, intentions, etc. My contention is that our ability to read other's intentions and experiences is certainly not foolproof, but it is more successful than it is often given credit for. And, I still contend that it is highly unlikely that we will ever find anything to replace our often successful ability to know the minds of others. Maybe the issue is not folk psychology, but simply the unfortunate human desire to be less than forthcoming.