The Research Of Theory Of Mind Reasoning Order Of Senior High School Students In Different Types Of Games

People are always trying to understand the mental state of others, and to make causal explanations and predictions about others’behavior based on this understanding. This ability is known as theory of mind. There are several disadvantages of the traditional paradigms of theory of mind such as small applicable range of subjects, poor repeatability and lack of ecological validity, and the most important is, what measured by these tasks is if someone has theory of mind or which order of theory of mind he has, rather than the performance of using this ability. Therefore, some researchers suggest that games should be used to study theory of mind. The theoretical basis of the paradigm is the "cognitive hierarchy model" and the "game theory of mind". The "cognitive hierarchy model" suggests that the reasoning order of players is different, and one usually think his own order is higher than others’. The "game theory of mind" suggests that researchers could deduce someone’s inference of opponent by his choice. So the results of games could used to measure the reasoning order. Brain imaging studies also confirmed that players will use theory of mind reasoning when they believe they are playing games against a person.Most researchers used Stackelberg games to study theory of mind. The results showed that there is a default reasoning order at the beginning which is dynamically modified with the changes of order of opponent. But because of the different of game settings, their conclusions on the default order are inconsistent. Additionally, simultaneous-move games and other types of games also are used to study, however these studies with less materials focus on the reasoning order of subjects rather than the learning effect in games. Domestic research using this paradigm is few, so the first interesting question of this study is whether the conclusions of foreign studies are to be in line with performance of domestic subjects. Moreover, whether there is learning effect in simultaneous-move games, how does the reasoning order change when the type of games has changed, all of these are questions we want to explore in the study.In comparison with the similar studies abroad, the materials and program used in this study are the same with those in foreign studies. We investigated the changes of reasoning order in Stackelberg games、simultaneous-move games and the time after game types changed by three experiments with senior high school students as subjects.The results of experiment1show that the performance of high school students are consistent with adults subjects of foreign studies in Stackelberg games and the default reasoning order is1-st order. The results of experiment2show that the default reasoning order is2-nd order in simultaneous-move games, indicating that the ability of theory of mind is related to the context of tasks. The results of experiment3show that when game types changed, the reasoning order of subjects did not maintain the acquisition order in previous type of games, but exhibited the default reasoning order of the latter type of games, indicating that subjects were in a new ready state when they faced with a new type of games. Meanwhile, the results of all of three experiments show that the reasoning order of subjects could dynamically adjust to the reasoning order of the opponent, though the ability to rational judgment is not affected by the opponents’reasoning order and the type of games, and the react time is significantly higher when subjects make2-nd predictions than make1-st predictions.This study verified the relevant research, and supported the view that there is a default reasoning order at the beginning which is dynamically modified, yet the performance of subjects in different types of games still need more study.