Self-study
P1
Common sense suggests that we know our own thoughts directly, but that we infer the thoughts of other people. ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██████████████ ███ ███████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███
Standard assumption ·
We know our own thoughts directly
For other people, we must infer their thoughts.
Counter-evidence ·
Children often describe their own thoughts incorrectly
(Not sure what this means. How can we even know that these descriptions are incorrect? Let's keep going.)
Psychologists' perspective ·
We infer our own thoughts and don't know them directly
(Not sure what this means, either. So, we make conclusions about what we think? Going to need the passage to explain things here.)
P2
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Analogy ·
Why do we mistakenly believe that we know our own thoughts directly? Consider the nature of expertise.
Elaborate on analogy ·
Expertise makes us think we see relationships directly, when we're really just making very quick inferences
Example: chess experts' ability to "see" whether a position is weak or strong. Experts make inferences so fast they don't notice they're making them. And we are experts in our own thinking, so we don't notice our own inferences.
P3
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Mistaken implication of psychologists' perspective ·
Might seem that psychologists are saying we infer our own thoughts based on observations of our own behavior
The phrase "perilously close" indicates the author thinks that it would be dangerous for someone to think we infer thoughts based on our own behavior.
Clarification ·
Psychologists say we infer thoughts based on internal feelings and emotions
So, we're not making inferences based on seeing our own external behavior.
Passage Style
Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)
Single position
9.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████████████ ██████████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ████████
a
Some children who ████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████████ █████ ███ █████████
Even if some children were as good as adults in identifying their own thoughts, we still know that, in general, “in certain circumstances, young children tend to misdescribe their own thoughts.” Pointing out a few exceptions doesn’t change the overall results, which we still need to explain. Also, the psychologists’ view isn’t that every single young child will be worse than adults at identifying their own thoughts. So (A) doesn’t provide counterevidence to the psychologists’ view.
b
Experiments with older ████████ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████████ █████ █████████
The experiment concerns young children, so it’s not clear how the fact older children can identify their own thoughts more accurately has any impact. (B) doesn’t suggest another explanation for why young children misdescribe their own thoughts.
c
The limited language ██████ █████████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████████ █████ █████████
This provides an alternate explanation for why the children misdescribed their own thoughts. Perhaps the children simply weren’t able to communicate their thoughts, even if they accurately identified those thoughts. The misdescription could result from poor language skills rather than from failure to identify one’s own thoughts.
d
Most young children ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ █████ █████████
Children’s personal knowledge of the difference between direct and indirect access is irrelevant, because the psychologists’ interpretation isn’t dependent on their understanding of this difference. The psychologists think young children misdescribe their thoughts because they fail to identify their thoughts accurately. One can fail to identify one’s own thoughts without being aware of the concept of direct and indirect access to thoughts.
e
The psychologists who █████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ████████ ████ █████████ ████ █████████████ ██████ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ █████████
This doesn’t undermine the author’s interpretation, because we still know from the experiments that young children misdescribe their own thoughts in some circumstances. We still observed these results, and these observed results do not depend on the original purpose of the experiments.