Does language matter for implicit theory of mind? The effects of epistemic verb training on implicit and explicit false-belief understanding

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 19-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie San Juan ◽  
Janet Wilde Astington
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Implicit Theory ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Progressing from an implicit to an explicit false belief understanding: A matter of executive control?

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Kloo ◽  
Susanne Kristen-Antonow ◽  
Beate Sodian
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Executive Functions ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Second Order ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Explicit Theory ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Reflective Processing ◽  
Conscious Control

In a longitudinal study ( N = 54), we investigated the developmental relation between children’s implicit and explicit theory of mind and executive functions. We found that implicit false belief understanding at 18 months was correlated with explicit false belief understanding at 4 to 5 years of age, with the latter being closely related to second-order false belief understanding at 5 years of age. Also, replicating a number of studies, explicit first- and second-order false belief understanding, in contrast to implicit false belief understanding, were related to executive functioning. This indicates that executive functions play a role in standard explicit false belief tasks, but not in implicit false belief understanding. We argue that spontaneous, implicit false belief understanding does not require conscious control, whereas explicit false belief understanding is based on conscious, reflective processing. In sum, we suggest a developmental enrichment account of theory of mind development, with belief processing becoming increasingly reflective and controlled with advancing age.

scholarly journals On the Relationship between Theory of Mind and Syntax in Clinical and Non-Clinical Populations: State of the Art and Implications for Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Fontana ◽  
Mauro Adenzato ◽  
Jacopo S. Penso ◽  
Ivan Enrici ◽  
Rita B. Ardito
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Neuropsychological Disorders ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
The Relationship

Background:Over the years, different explanations have been given on the relationship between syntax and Theory of Mind,i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to others and predict, describe, and explain behavior based on such mental states. In the present study, we focus on the relationship between false-belief understanding as a crucial aspect of Theory of Mind, and on the ability to master the syntax of complementation,i.e., the ability to produce and comprehend sentences in a recursive way.Objective:Our purpose is to test two main hypotheses on the relationship between false-belief understanding and the ability to master the syntax of complementation: the dependence and the independence of false-belief understanding on syntactic complementation.Method:We analyze studies on children with typical development, deaf children with deaf signing or hearing parents, children with specific language impairment, children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, longitudinal and training studies, and studies on adults with neuropsychological disorders.Conclusion:Strengths and weaknesses of the two hypotheses are discussed and limitations of the current state of knowledge are presented. A lifespan approach taking into account both the emergence and maintenance of false-belief understanding and using both implicit and explicit false-belief tasks is proposed to face the issue discussed.

Do children understand desires before they understand beliefs? A comparison of 3-year-olds’ grasp of incompatible desires, competitive games and false beliefs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Proft ◽  
Cornelia Hoss ◽  
Katharina Manfredini Paredes ◽  
hannes rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Active Choice ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Competitive Games ◽  
Cognitive Attitudes

A long-standing dispute in theory of mind research concerns the development of understanding different kinds of propositional attitudes. The asymmetry view suggests that children understand conative attitudes (e.g., desires) before they understand cognitive attitudes (e.g., beliefs). The symmetry view suggests that notions of cognitive and conative attitudes develop simultaneously. Relevant studies to date have produced inconsistent results, yet with different methods and dependent measures. To test between the two accounts more systematically, we thus combined different forms of desire tasks (incompatible desires and competition) with different forms of measurement (verbal ascription and active choice) in a single design. Additionally, children’s performance in the desire tasks was compared to their false-belief understanding. Results revealed that 3-year-olds were better at ascribing desires than at ascribing beliefs for both desire tasks whereas they had difficulties actively choosing the more desired option in the competition task. The present findings thus favor the asymmetry theory.

scholarly journals A Longitudinal Study of the Relations Between Theory of Mind, Executive Function, and Lying in Children

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changzhi Zhao ◽  
Siyuan Shang ◽  
Alison M. Compton ◽  
Genyue Fu ◽  
Liyang Sai
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Function ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Emotion Understanding ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Chinese Children ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Knowledge Access

This study used longitudinal cross-lagged modeling to examine the contribution of theory of mind (ToM), executive function (EF) to children’s lying development and of children’s lying to ToM and EF development. Ninety-seven Chinese children (initial Mage = 46 months, 47 boys) were tested three times approximately 4 months apart. Results showed that the diverse desire understanding and knowledge access understanding components of ToM, as well as the inhibitory control component of EF predicted the development of children’s lying, while the diverse belief understanding and false belief understanding components of ToM, and the working memory component of EF did not predict development of children’s lying. Meanwhile, children’s lying predicted development of children’s belief-emotion understanding components of ToM, but not any other ToM components, or EF components. These findings provide longitudinal evidence for the relation between ToM, EF, and children’s lying during the preschool years.

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 Developmental Readiness in the Understanding of Own and Other’s False Beliefs

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Amadó ◽  
Elisabet Serrat ◽  
Francesc Sidera
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Developmental Readiness ◽  
Representational Change

One of the most important milestones in the development of theory of mind is the understanding of false beliefs. This study compares children’s understanding of representational change and others’ false beliefs and evaluates the effectiveness of an appearance-reality training for improving children’s false belief understanding. A total of 78 children ranging in age from 41 to 47 months were trained in three sessions and evaluated in a pretest and in a posttest. The results show that for children it is easier to understand representational change than false beliefs in others, and that the improvement after training was greater when starting from a higher score in the pretest. The implications of this for training in false belief understanding are discussed.

scholarly journals A two-lab direct replication attempt of Southgate, Senju, & Csibra (2007)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dora Kampis ◽  
Petra Karman ◽  
Gergely Csibra ◽  
Victoria Southgate ◽  
Mikołaj Hernik
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Collaborative Study ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Action Prediction ◽  
Belief Attribution ◽  
False Belief Understanding

The study by Southgate, V., Senju, A., and Csibra, G. (Southgate et al., 2007) has been widely cited as evidence for false-belief attribution in young children. Recent replication attempts of this paradigm have yielded mixed results: several studies were unable to replicate the original finding, raising doubts about the suitability of the paradigm to assess non-verbal action prediction and Theory of Mind. In a preregistered collaborative study including two of the original authors, we tested 160 24- to 26-month-olds across two locations using the original stimuli, procedure, and analyses as closely as possible. We found no evidence for action anticipation: only roughly half of the infants looked in anticipation to the location of an agent’s impending action when action prediction did not require taking into account the agent’s beliefs and a similar number when the agent held a false-belief. These results and other non-replications suggest that the paradigm does not reliably elicit action prediction and thus cannot assess false belief understanding in 2- year-old children. While the results of the current study do not support any claim regarding the presence or absence of Theory of Mind in infants, we conclude that an important piece of evidence that has to date supported arguments for the existence of this competence, can no longer serve that function.

scholarly journals Are we less social in noisy environments? No effect of noise on implicit Theory of Mind performance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louisa Kulke ◽  
hannes rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Environmental Noise ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Implicit Theory ◽  
Noisy Environments ◽  
Testing Environment ◽  
Gaze Patterns ◽  
Replication Research ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Anticipatory Looking

Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to attribute beliefs and desires to others, has been a recent focus of replication research. While some researchers found an implicit form of ToM, which could be measured with different tasks, including anticipatory looking measures, other researchers could not replicate these finding. The testing conditions may play a role for the success of replications. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the effect of a noisy testing environment on results in an anticipatory looking false belief task. The original findings could only be partially replicated, leaving room for alternative explanations. Environmental noise did not significantly affect gaze patterns. Therefore, previous failed replications are unlikely to be related to different levels in environmental noise.

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