Thinking While Talking

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.

Download Full-text

Children’s first and second-order false-belief reasoning in a verbal and a low-verbal task

Synthese ◽

10.1007/s11229-012-0169-9 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 191 (3) ◽

pp. 321-333 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Bart Hollebrandse ◽

Angeliek van Hout ◽

Petra Hendriks

Keyword(s):

Second Order ◽

False Belief ◽

Verbal Task ◽

False Belief Reasoning ◽

Belief Reasoning

Download Full-text

Deception dissociates from false belief reasoning in deaf children: Implications for the implicit versus explicit theory of mind distinction

British Journal of Developmental Psychology ◽

10.1111/j.2044-835x.2011.02072.x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 188-209 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Peter A. de Villiers ◽

Jill G. de Villiers

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

False Belief ◽

Deaf Children ◽

Explicit Theory ◽

False Belief Reasoning ◽

Belief Reasoning

Download Full-text

Theory of Mind and evidentiality in Romani-Bulgarian bilingual children

Psychology of Language and Communication ◽

10.2478/v10057-009-0007-4 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 21-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

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.

Download Full-text

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

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1016/j.dcn.2010.08.001 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 67-76 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

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

Download Full-text

Developmental Trajectory of Theory-of-Mind Decline in Older Adults

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1167 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 362-363

Author(s):

W Quin Yow ◽

Xiaoqian Li ◽

Jiawen Lee

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Developmental Trajectory ◽

False Belief ◽

Gaze Following ◽

Younger Adults ◽

False Belief Reasoning ◽

The Impact ◽

Belief Reasoning ◽

Mind Task

Abstract Theory-of-Mind (ToM) is critical to individual social competence and mental health across the lifespan (Frith, 2008). Though it is often discussed as one broad construct, ToM abilities can be viewed as following a developmental trajectory: from early emotion recognition and gaze following to more advanced inferences about others’ beliefs, perspectives, and intentions (Hutchins et al., 2012). Despite current literature suggesting that ToM abilities may be impaired in late adulthood, there is no consensus regarding whether ToM abilities are differentially affected by age. In this study, we examined younger adults (N=18, aged 19-30) and older adults (N=13, aged 58-76) on their ToM competence across three levels of ToM abilities: Early-ToM (e.g., recognizing a happy face), Basic-ToM (e.g., perspective-taking and false-belief reasoning), and Advanced-ToM (e.g., inferring second-order emotion and false belief). All participants completed a Theory-of-Mind Task Battery consisting of three subscales that assessed the three levels of ToM, where participants viewed vignettes and answered questions about the protagonists’ feelings and beliefs. Overall, younger adults outperformed older adults on the battery, F(1,29)=7.34, p=.011. However, a significant interaction between age and ToM levels (p=.010) revealed that Early and Advanced ToM (ps>.25) were not as affected by age as Basic ToM (p=.007). Older adults have difficulty in inferring others’ perspectives/beliefs while their attributions of emotion and higher-order false beliefs are relatively preserved compared to the younger adults. These findings provide important insights into the impact of age on various levels of ToM and could help inform early detection of ToM decline in normal aging.

Download Full-text

Is Implicit Theory of Mind a Real and Robust Phenomenon? Results From a Systematic Replication Study

Psychological Science ◽

10.1177/0956797617747090 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 29 (6) ◽

pp. 888-900 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Louisa Kulke ◽

Britta von Duhn ◽

Dana Schneider ◽

Hannes Rakoczy

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Convergent Validity ◽

Large Scale ◽

False Belief ◽

Replication Study ◽

Implicit Theory ◽

Empirical Basis ◽

False Belief Reasoning ◽

Belief Reasoning ◽

Anticipatory Looking

Recently, theory-of-mind research has been revolutionized by findings from novel implicit tasks suggesting that at least some aspects of false-belief reasoning develop earlier in ontogeny than previously assumed and operate automatically throughout adulthood. Although these findings are the empirical basis for far-reaching theories, systematic replications are still missing. This article reports a preregistered large-scale attempt to replicate four influential anticipatory-looking implicit theory-of-mind tasks using original stimuli and procedures. Results showed that only one of the four paradigms was reliably replicated. A second set of studies revealed, further, that this one paradigm was no longer replicated once confounds were removed, which calls its validity into question. There were also no correlations between paradigms, and thus, no evidence for their convergent validity. In conclusion, findings from anticipatory-looking false-belief paradigms seem less reliable and valid than previously assumed, thus limiting the conclusions that can be drawn from them.

Download Full-text

Neural correlates of true and false belief reasoning

NeuroImage ◽

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.01.042 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 1378-1384 ◽

Cited By ~ 158

Author(s):

Monika Sommer ◽

Katrin Döhnel ◽

Beate Sodian ◽

Jörg Meinhardt ◽

Claudia Thoermer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Neural Correlates ◽

False Belief ◽

False Belief Reasoning ◽

Belief Reasoning

Download Full-text

Neural correlates of theory-of-mind are associated with variation in children’s everyday social cognition

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience ◽

10.1093/scan/nsz040 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (6) ◽

pp. 579-589 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Cora E Mukerji ◽

Sarah Hope Lincoln ◽

David Dodell-Feder ◽

Charles A Nelson ◽

Christine I Hooker

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Mental States ◽

False Belief ◽

School Age Children ◽

Cognitive Behavior ◽

School Age ◽

Temporoparietal Junction ◽

False Belief Reasoning

ABSTRACT Theory of mind (ToM), the capacity to reason about others’ mental states, is central to healthy social development. Neural mechanisms supporting ToM may contribute to individual differences in children’s social cognitive behavior. Employing a false belief functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm, we identified patterns of neural activity and connectivity elicited by ToM reasoning in school-age children (N = 32, ages 9–13). Next, we tested relations between these neural ToM correlates and children’s everyday social cognition. Several key nodes of the neural ToM network showed greater activity when reasoning about false beliefs (ToM condition) vs non-mentalistic false content (control condition), including the bilateral temporoparietal junction (RTPJ and LTPJ), precuneus (PC) and right superior temporal sulcus. In addition, children demonstrated task-modulated changes in connectivity among these regions to support ToM relative to the control condition. ToM-related activity in the PC was negatively associated with variation in multiple aspects of children’s social cognitive behavior. Together, these findings elucidate how nodes of the ToM network act and interact to support false belief reasoning in school-age children and suggest that neural ToM mechanisms are linked to variation in everyday social cognition.

Download Full-text

Theory of Mind

The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198791768.013.23 ◽

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.

Download Full-text