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Sally-Anne test
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The Sally-Anne test is a psychological test, used in developmental psychology to measure a person's social cognitive ability to attribute false beliefs to others (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). In 1988, Leslie and Frith repeated the experiment with human actors (rather than dolls) and found similar results.
Test description The experimenter uses two dolls, "Sally" and "Anne". Sally has a basket; Anne has a box. Experimenters show their subjects (usually children) a simple skit, in which Sally puts a marble in her basket and then leaves the scene. While Sally is away and cannot watch, Anne takes the marble out of Sally's basket and puts it into her box. Sally then returns and the children are asked where they think she will look for her marble. Children are said to "pass" the test if they understand that Sally will most likely look inside her basket before realizing that her marble isn't there.
Normal children under the age of four, along with most autistic children (of all ages), will answer "Anne's box," seemingly unaware that Sally does not know her marble has been moved.
In the Baron-Cohen study of theory of mind in autism, 61 children - 20 of whom were diagnosed autistic under established criteria, 14 with Down's Syndrome and 27 of whom were determined as clinically unimpaired - were tested with "Sally" and "Anne".
In the test process, after introducing the dolls, the child is asked the control question of recalling their names (the Naming Question). A short skit is then enacted; Sally takes a marble and hides it in her basket. She then 'leaves' the room and goes for a walk. Whilst she is away, and therefore unbeknownst to her, Anne takes the marble out of Sally's basket and puts it in her own box. Sally is then reintroduced and the child is asked the key question, the Belief Question: 'Where will Sally look for her marble?'
The control Reality Question and Memory Question are then asked;
- The Reality Question - "Where is the marble really?" - ensures the child had paid attention to the transfer of the marble from the basket to the box. It also helps in determining any manifestation of negativism in the child's answers.
- The Memory Question - "Where was the marble in the beginning?" - establishes that the child had not forgotten where Sally had left her marble.
For the children to 'pass' this test they must answer the Belief Question correctly, by indicating that Sally believe that the marble is in her own basket, continuous with her perspective although not with the child's own. If the child cannot take an alternative perspective, they will indicate that Sally has cause to believe - as they do - that the marble has moved. To pass, the children have to show that Sally has her own beliefs that may not correlate with reality.
InterpretationChildren who pass the test (presumably) understand that there are two different sets of beliefs:
- their own beliefs, based on what they have personally seen, heard, remembered, imagined, reasoned, etc., and
- the beliefs of others, based on what they have seen, heard, etc..
Children who pass this test are believed to have the following mental capacities:
- to recognize that other people have perceptions/feelings/beliefs/thoughts/etc. different from their own;
- to recognize that others may not know everything they themselves know, and vice versa;
- to "mind-read" (or "mind-guess") other people's thoughts and feelings;
- and to predict (or even interfere with) other people's third-party relationships.
Those children who fail the test are said by some psychologists to lack a "theory of mind." (In this context, "mind" refers to psychological processes such as perception, belief, thought, or memory.) However, failing the Sally-Anne test does not mean that an individual has no awareness of mental states: great apes and very young children, who typically fail the test, nonetheless show other sophisticated social behaviors (such as empathy).
Great apes and other monkeys Since other great apes are not known to have a human-like theory of mind, it is assumed that it evolved after our ancestors diverged from other great apes. Suddendorf has suggested that this occurred with H. erectus (dating from 1.8 mya). Current research has failed, however, to disprove conclusively a theory of mind in other great apes and some new world monkeys outside the family of great apes, as for example the capuchin monkeys.
CriticismStrictly speaking, the scenario presented in the test does not give sufficient information to determine Sally's expectations about the location of the marble. For example, it is not said whether Sally and Anne had previously discussed possible locations for the marble. Thus "I don't know" is, in a sense, the most correct answer.
A positive answer can be reached only by making assumptions about the unstated parts of the situation. There are many possible sets of assumptions that could be made, and the small number of likely answers means that the test cannot adequately distinguish between many of the possible assumptions. Furthermore, the categorisation of responses into "passes" and "failures" throws away most of that information. There are several ways to pass, and vastly more ways to fail.
These problems make the test of limited use as a diagnostic tool. The standard interpretation of the test identifies a particular stage in the most common pattern of development of social understanding, but it is misleading when applied to subjects who are not following the standard pattern. This is of particular concern with autistics, who are commonly diagnosed as lacking a theory of mind on the basis of "failing" the test.
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