Blind Faith and False Belief: An Examination of the Development of The

The purpose of this paper is to closely examine the effects of children with internal profound visual impairment (CPVI) and a possible correlation to the delay in the development of theory of mind (ToM). Specifically, this paper will compare a study that investigated how visual cues bushel the development of ToM to a similarly themed episode from the popular television show Xena Warrior Princess. On the surface these two groups whitethorn appear to be an odd comparison, for children with CPVI and Xena seem like they have nothing in common. However, there is one episode in particular entitled unreasoning Faith, in which these two worlds collide in a unique and surprising way proving and interesting parallel and additional insight into how blindness may affect the development of the theory of mind. In the article entitled, An investigation of first-order false belief rationality of children with congenital profound visual impairment, a detailed look at the development of ToM was p erformed. Theory of mind (ToM) is defined as the ability to impute noetic states to others and to take care and predict behavior in terms of those mental states (Green 1). In order to examine ToM, the study performed a series of false belief tests. False belief can also be explained as error which connected to false reasoning. In the case of the children in this study, the false belief would be if they can correctly identify how another person would respond to a specific task, if that person had limited information that the children were previously made privy too. These tests are important because, as they article explains the testing false belief is the some direct way to access if a person has a fully developed theory of mind (Dennett c... ...ere is a correlation between blindness and a delay to the development ToM. Whether its Xena or children with congenital profound visual impairment its obvious that visual cues are significant when trying to interpret the actions o f others. Xena, like the children in the study, was forced to rely on other senses to compensate for the lack of visual cues, which is important because without them children are at a disadvantage to understanding the greater world around them. Works CitedBlind Faith. Xena Warrior Princess. Created by Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi. Perf. Lucy Lawless, Renee OConnor. USA Network. April 17, 1997.Green, Sarah, Linda Pring, and John Swettenham. An Investigation of First-order False Belief correspondence of Children with Congenital Profound Visual Impairment. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22.1 (2004) 1-17.