Knowledge Tree
theory of mind
Also known as: ToM
Facts (67)
Sources
A Survey of Incorporating Psychological Theories in LLMs - arXiv arxiv.org 21 facts
referenceMatteo Bortoletto, Constantin Ruhdorfer, Adnen Abdessaied, Lei Shi, and Andreas Bulling published research in 2024 regarding the limitations of theory of mind modeling in dialogue-based collaborative plan acquisition.
claimResearchers assess the core social intelligence of Large Language Models by measuring their capacity to represent and reason about beliefs using Theory of Mind (ToM) benchmarks.
claimResearch by Soubki et al. (2024) indicates that there are lingering gaps between Large Language Model performance and human performance in spoken dialogues regarding Theory of Mind.
claimTheory of Mind (ToM) adaptations in LLMs enhance interpersonal reasoning, which aids in missing knowledge inference (Bortoletto et al., 2024), common ground alignment (Qiu et al., 2024), and cognitive modeling (Wu et al., 2024a).
referenceSneheel Sarangi, Maha Elgarf, and Hanan Salam introduced 'Decompose-ToM', a method for enhancing theory of mind reasoning in large language models through simulation and task decomposition, in a 2025 paper presented at the 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics.
referenceThe paper 'Think twice: Perspective-taking improves large language models’ theory-of-mind capabilities' was published in the Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) in August 2024.
referenceYuanfei Wang, Fangwei Zhong, Jing Xu, and Yizhou Wang introduced 'Tom2c', a target-oriented multi-agent communication and cooperation framework that incorporates theory of mind.
claimWilf et al. (2024) and Jung et al. (2024) refined Theory of Mind in LLMs via task decomposition, while Sarangi et al. (2025) utilized recursive simulation.
referenceSclar et al. (2023) published 'Minding language models’ (lack of) theory of mind: A plug-and-play multi-character belief tracker' in the Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pp. 13960–13980.
measurementCognitive development and reasoning capabilities in Large Language Models have been assessed through cognitive maturity (Laverghetta Jr. & Licato, 2022), subjective similarity (Malloy et al., 2024), reasoning strategies (Mondorf & Plank, 2024; Yuan et al., 2023), decision-making (Ying et al., 2024), and Theory of Mind (Jung et al., 2024).
claimWhile some researchers interpret GPT-4's performance on false-belief tasks as emergent Theory of Mind-like reasoning (Kosinski, 2024), others argue it is merely pattern matching, noting that minor prompt changes can significantly alter results (Strachan et al., 2024; Shapira et al., 2024).
referenceMichal Kosinski published 'Evaluating large language models in theory of mind tasks' in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.
referenceTheory of Mind (ToM) is a framework used to evaluate how individuals understand and attribute mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, to others.
claimPsychological insights have historically influenced key Natural Language Processing (NLP) breakthroughs, specifically the cognitive underpinnings of attention mechanisms, reinforcement learning, and Theory of Mind-inspired social modeling.
referenceAdil Soubki, John Murzaku, Arash Yousefi Jordehi, Peter Zeng, Magdalena Markowska, Seyed Abolghasem Mirroshandel, and Owen Rambow benchmarked theory of mind using common ground in their 2024 paper published in the Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2024.
referenceSimon Baron-Cohen, Alan M. Leslie, and Uta Frith published a study in 1985 investigating whether autistic children possess a 'theory of mind'.
referenceNature Human Behaviour published the study 'Testing theory of mind in large language models and humans' in 2024, volume 8, issue 7, pages 1285–1295.
referenceRecent benchmarks developed to probe distinct facets of Theory of Mind (ToM) in Large Language Models include ToMBENCH (Chen et al., 2024c), OpenToM (Xu et al., 2024a), HI-TOM (Wu et al., 2023), and FANTOM (Kim et al., 2023).
referenceShuwen Qiu, Mingdian Liu, Hengli Li, Song-Chun Zhu, and Zilong Zheng authored 'MindDial: Enhancing conversational agents with theory-of-mind for common ground alignment and negotiation', published in the Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue.
referenceThe paper 'ToMBench: Benchmarking theory of mind in large language models' by Zhuang Chen, Jincenzi Wu, Jinfeng Zhou, Bosi Wen, Guanqun Bi, Gongyao Jiang, Yaru Cao, Mengting Hu, Yunghwei Lai, Zexuan Xiong, and Minlie Huang was published in the 'Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics' in Bangkok, Thailand, in August 2024.
claimTheory of Mind (ToM) enables LLM agents to grasp the mental states of other agents.
The cross-cultural study of mind and behaviour: a word of caution link.springer.com Apr 8, 2022 15 facts
claimTheory of Mind (ToM) is a capacity that all humans, with the exception of autistic individuals, are able to develop through a combination of naturally selected innate proclivities and social or cultural learning.
referenceR. E. Smith published 'Empowered imagination and mental vulnerability: local theory of mind and spiritual experience in Vanuatu' in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2020.
perspectiveThe author contends that Luhrmann’s 'anthropological theory of mind' fails to debunk the ethnocentric psychological claim that Theory of Mind (ToM) is a pan-human, pre-cultural faculty because the theory does not demonstrate real differences in ToM.
quoteTanya Luhrmann stated: 'the standard psychological theory of mind carries with it a series of assumptions that may be culturally particular to a Euro-American context' (Luhrmann 2011: 6).
claimDaniel Dennett introduced the concept of the 'intentional stance' as an alternative term for 'Theory of Mind' (ToM) to avoid confusion with actual theories of the mind.
claimThe capacity to attribute agency or minds (Theory of Mind) differs from the cultural definitions of which specific entities are objects of that attribution.
claimThe existence of different culturally constructed models of the mind cannot be taken as a consequence of different mentalizing capacities or different Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities.
claimPsychologists define 'theory of mind' (ToM) as the capacity to infer mental states from other human beings or agents, a capacity sometimes referred to as 'mentalization' (Carruthers and Smith 1996; Fonagy et al. 2004).
claimCecilia Heyes has claimed that the Theory of Mind (ToM) capacity originates in some form of cultural learning, rather than being innate or instinctive.
claimDevelopmental psychologists define Theory of Mind (ToM) as a psychological faculty or ability, rather than an explicit 'theory' or set of propositions about the nature of the mind.
claimResearchers generally consider theory of mind a universal human capacity, with defective theory of mind associated with neuropsychological disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (Baron-Cohen et al. 2000).
claimWhile the timing of acquiring mentalizing capacity may vary across cultural settings, theory of mind is considered a pan-human, likely pre-cultural, capability (Barrett et al. 2013; Lillard 1998).
claimResearchers have debated the extent to which non-human animals, particularly non-human primates, possess a theory of mind (Call and Tomasello 2008; Premack and Woodruff 1978).
perspectiveThe author of 'The cross-cultural study of mind and behaviour: a word of caution' questions the universality of theory of mind claims because research on the development of this faculty in children has been conducted primarily among WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) populations.
referenceRichard Dawkins and John Krebs (1984) proposed that non-human animals likely possess the capacity for Theory of Mind, mindreading, or agency attribution in varying degrees.
Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART) frontiersin.org 6 facts
claimEmpathy is distinct from theory of mind and refers to the ability to share the emotions and sensations of others.
claimThe right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) is associated with Theory of Mind (ToM), whereas the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) is involved in representing one's own mental states.
claimThe medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) are involved in mentalizing and Theory of Mind (ToM).
claimTheory of mind (ToM) is defined as the act of imagining the intentions of others.
referenceCorbetta, Patel, and Shulman (2008) reviewed the reorienting system of the human brain, connecting it from environmental processing to theory of mind.
referenceR. N. Spreng, R. A. Mar, and A. S. Kim published 'The common neural basis of autobiographical memory, prospection, navigation, theory of mind, and the default mode: a quantitative meta-analysis' in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience in 2009 (Volume 21, pages 489–510).
The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Springer Nature Link link.springer.com 5 facts
claimThe author asserts that the 'hard problem of consciousness' is the fundamental challenge of modern science because there is no established theory of mind and matter, which creates an epistemic gap between objective description and phenomenal experience.
claimDavid Chalmers's theory of mind posits that the phenomenal character of experience is irreducible to physical properties, which implies the existence of an additional ontic category without necessarily requiring non-physical 'stuff'.
claimNikolaus von Stillfried has attempted to synthesize ontological interpretations from the philosophy of mind and quantum physics into a single coherent theory of mind and matter.
quoteDavid Chalmers stated: 'A completed theory of mind must provide both a (nonreductive) account of consciousness and a (reductive) account of why we judge that we are conscious, and it is reasonable to expect that these two accounts will cohere with each other.'
claimAny proposed solution to the hard problem of consciousness should ideally provide answers to the nature of psychophysical correlation, the existence of the physical world, and the specific quality of qualia, which would also amount to a fundamental theory of mind and matter.
Life, Intelligence, and Consciousness: A Functional Perspective longnow.org Aug 27, 2025 4 facts
claimHuman collective achievements over the past 10,000 years are a function of mutual modeling capability, which psychologists refer to as 'theory of mind'.
claimTheory of mind is the cognitive capacity that forces an individual to attribute mental states to others and to oneself.
perspectiveBlaise Agüera y Arcas asserts that modern AI models are conscious because they utilize theory-of-mind modeling to function as helpful assistants.
claimBlaise Agüera y Arcas claims that training AI models on massive corpora of human-generated text enables them to learn about human internal states and theory-of-mind.
Self-Consciousness - Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science oecs.mit.edu Jul 24, 2024 4 facts
claimTheory of Mind (ToM) is based on mental states such as beliefs, desires, hopes, and fears, and posits that humans understand and predict the behavior of other social beings by attributing these mental states to them and utilizing implicit knowledge of how these states interact to generate behavior.
referenceThe mainstream approach in cognitive science views mind reading as the product of an implicit common sense psychological theory known as Theory of Mind (ToM), which emerges in stages during childhood, as described by Gopnik and Wellman (1994).
referenceThe 'theory-theory' of mind suggests that self-consciousness is the application of Theory of Mind to oneself, making self-understanding a theoretical achievement, as argued by Nichols and Stich (2003).
referenceCognitive scientists have explored dimensions of self-consciousness including how perception yields self-specifying information, self-recognition in infants and animals, the mechanisms and phenomenology of bodily awareness, and the interdependence of self-consciousness and consciousness of others in theory of mind.
The Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visionary Experiences - Frontiers frontiersin.org Sep 27, 2017 2 facts
claimThe innate modules typically activated by psychedelics involve successful adaptations, including agency detection, theory of mind/mind reading, animal intelligences, musical intelligence, and mimetic enactment capacities.
claimThe "theory of mind" capacity, which infers the mental states and intentions of others, is extended to the conceptualization of bodiless spirits.
Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution frontiersin.org 2 facts
claimEarly hominins likely lacked complex languages, sophisticated technology, and advanced theory of mind, but specific selection pressures led to the acquisition of these traits in the Homo lineage, according to Schwartz and Tattersall (2015) and Silk (2007).
claimModern humans possess complex languages, sophisticated technology, intricate stores of cultural knowledge and beliefs, and an advanced theory of mind, as cited by Richerson and Christiansen (2013) and Tomasello (2014).
The evolution of human-type consciousness – a by-product of ... frontiersin.org 1 fact
claimNicholas Humphrey's 1992 social cognition theory argues that the origin of consciousness lies in the capacity to create a theory of mind for others, which enables complex social interactions.
The Synergy of Symbolic and Connectionist AI in LLM ... arxiv.org 1 fact
referenceJames WA Strachan, Dalila Albergo, Giulia Borghini, Oriana Pansardi, Eugenio Scaliti, Saurabh Gupta, Krati Saxena, Alessandro Rufo, Stefano Panzeri, Guido Manzi, et al. authored the paper 'Testing theory of mind in large language models and humans', published in Nature Human Behaviour in 2024.
The Evidence for AI Consciousness, Today - AI Frontiers ai-frontiers.org Dec 8, 2025 1 fact
claimAI models demonstrate emergent capacities similar to those found in conscious animals, such as theory of mind, metacognitive monitoring, working memory dynamics, and behavioral self-awareness, despite not being explicitly trained for these specific capabilities.
Panpsychism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Jul 18, 2017 1 fact
referenceThe article "William James’s Theory of Mind" by W.E. Cooper was published in the Journal of the History of Philosophy in 1990, volume 28, issue 4, pages 571–593.
Full article: Artificial intelligence and theory of mind - Taylor & Francis tandfonline.com 1 fact
claimRecent research in artificial intelligence has begun exploring explicit Theory of Mind (TOM) modelling within AI systems.
Evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 1 fact
claimAutism may represent a malfunctioning of the theory of mind module.
Self-Consciousness - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Jul 13, 2017 1 fact
claimMaria Legerstee posits that infants possess a sense of people which serves as a precursor to a theory of mind in her 2005 book 'Infants’ Sense of People: Precursors to a Theory of Mind'.
Panpsychism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2015 Edition) plato.stanford.edu May 23, 2001 1 fact
referenceHenry Wellman authored 'The Child's Theory of Mind', published in 1992 by MIT Press.