Inference Game

Successful social interactions depend on recognizing and adjusting to others’ intentions, which are often uncertain and can change suddenly over time. This adaptability, a key aspect of theory of mind (ToM), develops progressively during childhood. Currently, the computational mechanisms underlying the development of this ability are not well understood, partly due to rare combinations of developments of new algorithms accounting for ToM processes, together with carefully controlled experiments concerning ToM. Recent Large Language Models (LLMs) tested in ToM tasks show behaviors that are indistinguishable from human behavior (Kosinski, 2024; Sclar et al., 2024; Strachan et al., 2024). However, LLM models do not explain ToM processes with mathematically formalized equations. Here, we used a different approach to provide an explicit model of a fundamental process required for ToM: tracking the fluctuating competitive/cooperative intentions of others. This is one of the tasks that was used to test this ability.