Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Implicit Personality Theories01:23

Implicit Personality Theories

727
Implicit personality theory explains how individuals make assumptions about the relationships between personality traits, behaviors, and character types. When people learn that someone possesses a particular trait, they tend to infer the presence of other related characteristics, forming a cohesive impression. This cognitive shortcut plays a crucial role in social interactions and interpersonal judgments.Central Traits and Their InfluenceSolomon Asch's seminal 1946 study highlighted the power...
727
Implicit Memories01:24

Implicit Memories

639
Implicit memories, also known as non-declarative memories, are long-term memories that function outside of conscious awareness. These memories influence behavior and skills without explicit knowledge. This type of memory is evident in tasks like playing tennis, snowboarding, and texting. Implicit memory has three subsystems: procedural memory, conditioning, and priming. This type of memory is essential in various activities, from everyday tasks to specialized skills.
One key aspect of implicit...
639
Cognitive Learning01:21

Cognitive Learning

1.6K
Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...
1.6K
Purposive Learning01:22

Purposive Learning

692
E. C. Tolman emphasized the purposiveness of behavior — the idea that much of our behavior is goal-directed. For instance, employees who aim for a promotion work diligently to meet their targets. Tolman argued that when classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur, the organism acquires certain expectations. In classical conditioning, a child might fear a dog because they expect it to bite. In operant conditioning, a person might consistently work overtime because they expect a...
692
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination02:55

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

77.8K
Humans are very diverse and although we share many similarities, we also have many differences. The social groups we belong to help form our identities (Tajfel, 1974). These differences may be difficult for some people to reconcile, which may lead to prejudice toward people who are different. Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Prejudice is common against people who...
77.8K
Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

1.3K
The preoperational stage, the second of Jean Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, spans approximately ages 2 to 7 and is characterized by the emergence of symbolic thinking. During this stage, children use language, images, and symbols to represent objects and concepts, enabling them to engage in imaginative and pretend play. This symbolic thinking supports children's ability to perform make-believe actions, such as imagining a broom as a horse or their hand as a phone, blending...
1.3K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Baseline neurochemical excitability and individual differences in motor learning and non-invasive brain stimulation outcomes.

Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior·2026
Same author

Post-error slowing and individual differences in metacognition.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2026
Same author

Neurochemical Correlates of Mind-Wandering and Meta-Awareness.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same author

Dopamine alters motor learning performance in the presence and absence of feedback.

Neurobiology of learning and memory·2026
Same author

The Time Course of Attention Engagement in a Single-stream Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Design.

Journal of cognitive neuroscience·2025
Same author

Generalized learning induced by training and tDCS is predicted by prefrontal cortical morphology.

Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)·2025
Same journal

People make graded judgments about the inconceivable.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

The self as an image: Appearance and belief in visual representations of one's own face.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Corrigendum to 'Consonant, vowel, and tone cues in early wordform recognition: Evidence from Cantonese-learning infants' [Cognition 275 (2026) 106624].

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Identifying distinct sources of whole number interference in children's decimal comparison: the role of numerical magnitude and inhibitory control.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Evidence for abstract spatial concept learning in young animals.

Cognition·2026
Same journal

Blurred lines or clear boundaries? Synchrony and social dominance shape domain-specific self-other processing.

Cognition·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 27, 2026

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling
06:51

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

Published on: April 6, 2018

7.8K

Task instructions and implicit theory of mind.

Dana Schneider1, Zoie E Nott2, Paul E Dux2

  • 1School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Australia; Institute of Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany.

Cognition
|June 24, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Humans implicitly track others' mental states automatically and unintentionally. This implicit theory of mind (iToM) operates without conscious control, even when task goals differ, demonstrating an uncontrollable cognitive process.

Keywords:
Anticipatory lookingAutomatic processingImplicit processingMentalizingTheory of Mind

More Related Videos

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

5.7K
Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task
06:08

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

Published on: July 22, 2025

1.2K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Apr 27, 2026

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling
06:51

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

Published on: April 6, 2018

7.8K
Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

5.7K
Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task
06:08

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

Published on: July 22, 2025

1.2K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Social Neuroscience

Background:

  • The implicit theory of mind (iToM) system is hypothesized to enable unconscious tracking of others' mental states.
  • Recent research suggests iToM may utilize executive attentional resources, questioning its efficiency and automaticity.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the controllability and intentionality of the implicit theory of mind (iToM) system.
  • To examine how behavioral intentions and task instructions influence iToM operation.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a Sally-Anne false-belief task to analyze eye-movement patterns under varying task instructions.
  • Compared eye movements across three groups: No Instructions, Ball Tracking, and Belief Tracking.

Main Results:

  • All participant groups exhibited eye movements consistent with belief analysis, irrespective of task instructions.
  • Participants in the No Instructions and Ball Tracking groups reported no conscious mentalizing during debriefing.

Conclusions:

  • Provides definitive evidence that humans implicitly track others' belief states.
  • Demonstrates that this implicit belief tracking is an uncontrollable and unintentional cognitive process.