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

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.

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.

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

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

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 888-900 ◽  
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.

Neural correlates of true and false belief reasoning

NeuroImage ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 1378-1384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Sommer ◽  
Katrin Döhnel ◽  
Beate Sodian ◽  
Jörg Meinhardt ◽  
Claudia Thoermer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Correlates ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Belief Reasoning ◽  
Belief Reasoning

New Strategies for the Treatment of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Including Antibodies and Other Novel Agents

Hematology ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin S. Tallman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Acute Myeloid Leukemia ◽  
Multidrug Resistance ◽  
Myeloid Leukemia ◽  
Cytotoxic Agents ◽  
High Dose ◽  
Farnesyltransferase Inhibitors ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Acute Myeloid

Abstract The prognosis for younger adults (≤ 55–60 years) with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has improved during the last four decades. However, there has been little progress in the treatment of older adults. This disappointing observation is important because the median age of patients with AML is about 70 years. Approximately 60%–80% of younger adults with AML achieve complete remission (CR) with the cytotoxic agents cytarabine and an anthracycline such as daunorubicin or idarubicin or the anthracenedione mitoxantrone. However, only 30%–40% of such patients are alive and disease-free at 5 years. Among older adults, CR is achieved in 40%–55%, but there are very few long-term survivors. Many studies have evaluated the impact of alternative doses and schedules, as well as additional cytotoxic drugs, on the prognosis for this group of patients. The outcome has not improved substantially beyond that achieved with conventional doses of an anthracycline and cytarabine followed by high-dose cytarabine consolidation. Several factors identified at diagnosis can predict outcome. The most important of these is the karyotype of the leukemic cells. Another critical factor is the presence of transmembrane transporter proteins, which confer multidrug resistance and mutations in or overexpression of specific genes such as WT1, C/EBPα, BAX, and BCL-2/BAX ratio, BAALC, EVI1, KIT and FLT3. The development of specific agents directed at gene mutations, signal transduction pathways and unique cell surface antigens provide the foundation for new therapeutic strategies. Such agents include the immunoconjugate gemtuzumab ozogamicin, multidrug resistance inhibitors, farnesyltransferase inhibitors, histone deacetylase and proteosome inhibitors, antiangiogenesis agents, FLT3 inhibitors, apoptosis inhibitors, and nucleoside analogs. All of these agents can potentially address the heterogeneous abnormalities in AML and significantly improve the outcome for patients.

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

Synthese ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 191 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Hollebrandse ◽  
Angeliek van Hout ◽  
Petra Hendriks
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Verbal Task ◽  
False Belief Reasoning ◽  
Belief Reasoning

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

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 579-589 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals AGE, EXPERIENCE OF RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS, AND DISTRESS

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S711-S712
Author(s):  
Shayla Thompson ◽  
Broderick Sawyer ◽  
Suzanne Meeks
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Racial Microaggressions ◽  
Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Anger Rumination ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Racial microaggressions are a common form of racial discrimination consisting of subtle or interpersonal slights. Racial microaggressions are linked to various kinds of psychological distress in younger adults, but have not been studied across the lifespan. We examined the relationship of racial microaggressions with psychological distress and anger rumination among younger and older adults identified as racial or ethnic minorities. We hypothesized that age would moderate the relationship between racial microaggressions and psychological distress and anger rumination, that is, the relationship would be weaker for older than for younger adults. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and were compensated $1 for their participation. Preliminary tests of the hypotheses (N=220), using multiple regression analyses to test for moderation, failed to support the hypothesis that age would mitigate the impact of microaggressions on symptom severity. Both age and microaggressions were related to psychological distress and anger rumination, but contrary to prediction, older adults showed more exacerbation of distress in the face of microaggressions than younger adults. The results also differed by gender and ethnic groups, suggesting the importance of examining intersectional experiences of race, gender, and age in response to discrimination. These cross-sectional findings lend support to the importance of considering both subtle and overt discriminatory experiences in understanding the mental health challenges for minority groups in the U.S., but more work is needed to examine the intersection of ethnicity with other demographic variables, and to understand how the lifelong experiences of discrimination may shape older adults’ vulnerability, well-being, and resilience.

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