Metarepresentation

Metarepresentation (shaped from the Greek preposition and prefix Meta meaning “beyond” and the word “representation”) is the capacity of a mind to represent “a higher-order representation with a lower-order representation embedded within,^[1] as stated Deirdre Wilson. In other words, it is the capacity to represent a representation.^[2] For example, a drawing is the representation of something and someone who looks at the drawing would represent it in his or her mind.^[3]Metarepresentation also gives us the capacity to understand other's thoughts. Put simply a person has thoughts in response to a statement and may interpret it in many ways. This forms many metarepresentations of the statement. ^[4] Metarepresentation is also the ability to generate new knowledge or meaning through representing thoughts or concepts that are not noticed on a day-to-day basis. ^[5] The ability to represent a representation of thoughts and concepts is the essence of reflection and higher-order thought. ^[6] In this way, metarepresentation connects deeply with the theory of mind by giving the capacity to associate a statement to the diverging belief of another person.^[7] Someone without the capacities of the theory of mind would only have limited metarepresenting capacities. For example, autistic people are limited because they can’t link a person with a belief. Similarly, some children may lack the ability to link people with their beliefs. ^[8] Without that, they can’t have thoughts about the thoughts of someone else’s.

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