Theory of Mind

2019 ◽  
pp. 523-536
Author(s):  
Paula Rubio-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Infants And Children ◽  
Standard Theory ◽  
Experimental Pragmatics ◽  
False Belief Tasks ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Belief Reasoning

Current accounts of Theory of Mind development have tried to explain the results of false-belief tasks with infants and children, but failed to account for the evidence of early belief reasoning reported in the experimental pragmatics literature. This chapter reviews a number of studies on the acquisition of the mental state verb know; toddlers’ understanding of factivity (or the difference between knowing and thinking); early referential communication and toddlers’ reliance on others’ engagement as a proxy for their knowledge, and the emergence of preschoolers’ understanding of the seeing-knowing relation. The results of these studies reveal a more nuanced picture than those of false-belief tasks, with some Theory of Mind abilities emerging earlier in conversation than in laboratory tasks, while children’s epistemic theories continue to develop beyond their passing of standard Theory of Mind tasks.

Assessment of Theory of Mind in Adults: Beyond False Belief Tasks

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 142-146
Author(s):  
Asmita Karmakar ◽  
Atanu Kumar Dogra
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Belief Tasks

Referential communication abilities and Theory of Mind development in preschool children

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIELA RESCHES ◽  
MIGUEL PÉREZ PEREIRA
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Epistemic State ◽  
Communication Task ◽  
Social Abilities ◽  
Communicative Context ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Specific Contribution

This work aims to analyse the specific contribution of social abilities (here considered as the capacity for attributing knowledge to others) in a particular communicative context. 74 normally developing children (aged 3;4 to 5;9, M=4·6) were given two Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, which are considered to assess increasing complexity levels of epistemic state attribution: Attribution of knowledge-ignorance (Pillow, 1989; adapted by Welch-Ross, 1997) and Understanding of False-belief (Baron Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985). Subjects were paired according to their age and level of performance in ToM tasks. These dyads participated in a referential communication task specially designed for this research. The resulting communicative interchanges were analysed using a three-level category system (pragmatic functions, descriptive accuracy, and ambiguity of messages). The results showed significant differences among subjects with different levels of social comprehension regarding the type of communicative resources used by them in every category level. In particular, understanding of false belief seems to be the most powerful predictor of changes in the children’s development of communicative competence.

Thinking While Talking

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 574-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley M. Newton ◽  
Jill G. de Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Verbal Task ◽  
Reasoning Task ◽  
Spoken Dialogue ◽  
False Belief Reasoning ◽  
Belief Reasoning

This experiment tested the ability of 81 adult subjects to make a decision on a simple nonverbal false-belief reasoning task while concurrently either shadowing prerecorded spoken dialogue or tapping along with a rhythmic shadowing track. Our results showed that the verbal task, but not tapping, significantly disrupted false-belief reasoning, suggesting that language plays a key role in working theory of mind in adults, even when the false-belief reasoning is nonverbal.

The Development of Theory of Mind Reasoning in Micronesian Children

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 39-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Oberle
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Preschool Age Children ◽  
False Belief Tasks

AbstractIn this study, the development of false-belief understanding was investigated among 3–5-year-old Yapese and Fais children in Micronesia. Sixty-nine children took part in an experiment investigating their understanding of false belief with a culturally adjusted surprise content task, which has been widely used in Theory of Mind (ToM) research and was first introduced by Hogrefe, Wimmer and Perner (1986). The results show that as in western cultures, 3-year-old Micronesian preschoolers do not display understanding of false belief measured with classical false-belief tasks, while 5-year-olds do. These findings contribute to research on the universality and cultural variability of cognitive development in preschool age children.

scholarly journals Theory of Mind and evidentiality in Romani-Bulgarian bilingual children

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hristo Kyuchukov ◽  
Jill De Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
The World ◽  
Bilingual Group ◽  
False Belief Reasoning ◽  
Contradictory Evidence ◽  
Belief Reasoning

Theory of Mind and evidentiality in Romani-Bulgarian bilingual children The paper reports two studies of the development of false belief reasoning in bilingual Roma children in Bulgaria. No previous work has considered Roma children. Two studies were conducted, and in the second study the Roma children spoke a dialect of Romani that contains evidential markers, as does Bulgarian, their second language. Results reveal no advantage of bilingualism, and similar results with age to that found in other groups across the world. The bilingual group had better understanding of evidentials than the monolingual Bulgarian group, possibly related to the linguistic character of the markings. There is contradictory evidence about the relation of ToM and understanding of evidentiality.

scholarly journals True- and false-belief reasoning in children and adults: An event-related potential study of theory of mind

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Meinhardt ◽  
Beate Sodian ◽  
Claudia Thoermer ◽  
Katrin Döhnel ◽  
Monika Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Potential Study ◽  
False Belief Reasoning ◽  
Belief Reasoning

scholarly journals The Effects Of Adult Ageing And Culture On Theory Of Mind

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
louise phillips ◽  
Louisa Lawrie ◽  
Alexandre Schaefer ◽  
Min Hooi Yong
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Social Rules ◽  
Mental State Attribution ◽  
Generational Changes ◽  
False Belief Reasoning

Older adults tend to have poorer mental state understanding (Theory of Mind, ToM) than their younger counterparts, including in both Western and Asian cultures. The current study aimed to directly investigate whether there are any cultural differences in the pattern of age effects on ToM tasks. Given evidence of cultural differences in the development of ToM across childhood, we predicted that older Asian adults would find the mental state tasks particularly resource-demanding. We used two ToM tests which made differing demands on updating multiple mental states (the false belief task) and applying social rules to mental state processing (the faux pas task). We also looked at the role of education, socioeconomic status, individualism versus collectivism and working memory (WM). A total of 298 participants from UK and Malaysia completed faux pas, false belief, and WM tasks. Results showed that interacting effects of age and culture were evident in faux pas detection, some aspects of false belief reasoning, and WM tasks, with older Malaysian participants performing poorly compared to the other groups. We also found that WM fully mediated age differences in ToM in the Malaysian sample. High levels of individualism were associated with poorer faux pas detection, but education and socioeconomic status did not explain additional variance in the ToM tasks. This pattern of results may reflect generational changes in the familiarity and cognitive load of explicit mental state attribution, along with cultural differences in the pace and nature of cognitive ageing.

scholarly journals Case Report: Theory of Mind and Figurative Language in a Child With Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Melogno ◽  
Maria Antonietta Pinto ◽  
Teresa Gloria Scalisi ◽  
Fausto Badolato ◽  
Pasquale Parisi
Keyword(s):  
Case Report ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Corpus Callosum ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Metaphor Comprehension ◽  
Brain Hemispheres ◽  
False Belief Tasks

In this case report, we studied Theory of Mind (ToM) and figurative language comprehension in a 7.2-year-old child, conventionally named RJ, with isolated and complete agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC), a rare malformation due to the absence of the corpus callosum, the major tract connecting the two brain hemispheres. To study ToM, which is the capability to infer the other’s mental states, we used the classical false belief tasks, and to study figurative language, i.e., those linguistic usages involving non-literal meanings, we used tasks assessing metaphor and idiom comprehension. RJ’s intellectual level and his phonological, lexical, and grammatical abilities were all adequate. In both the ToM false belief tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension, RJ showed a delay of 3 years and a significant gap compared to a typically developing control group, while in idioms, his performance was at the border of average. These outcomes suggest that RJ has a specific pragmatic difficulty in all tasks where he must interpret the other’s communicative intention, as in ToM tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension. The outcomes also open up interesting insights into the relationships between ToM and figurative language in children with isolated and complete ACC.

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