Theory of mind tested by implicit false belief: A simple and full‐fledged mental state attribution

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.

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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.

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Simulation and the psychology of sociopathy

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x97221515 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 525-527

Author(s):

Joseph L. Hernandez Cruz

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

Simulation Theory ◽

Psychological Explanation ◽

Mental State Attribution ◽

Mental State Ascription

Mealey's (1995a) psychological explanation of the sociopath's antisocial activity appeals to an incomplete or nonstandard theory of mind. This is not the only possible mechanism of mental state attribution. The simulation theory of mental state ascription offers a better hope of explaining the diverse elements of sociopathy reported by Mealey.

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Atypical frontal-posterior synchronization of Theory of Mind regions in autism during mental state attribution

Social Neuroscience ◽

10.1080/17470910802198510 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 135-152 ◽

Cited By ~ 186

Author(s):

Rajesh K. Kana ◽

Timothy A. Keller ◽

Vladimir L. Cherkassky ◽

Nancy J. Minshew ◽

Marcel Adam Just

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

Mental State Attribution

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Parent–child picture-book reading, mothers' mental state language and children's theory of mind

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000905006963 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 32 (3) ◽

pp. 673-686 ◽

Cited By ~ 110

Author(s):

JUAN E. ADRIAN ◽

ROSA A. CLEMENTE ◽

LIDON VILLANUEVA ◽

CAROLIEN RIEFFE

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

Picture Book ◽

False Belief ◽

Book Reading ◽

Mental State Language ◽

Picture Book Reading ◽

Reading At Home ◽

State Language ◽

Parent Child

This study focuses on parent–child book reading and its connection to the development of a theory of mind. First, parents were asked to report about frequency of parent–child storybook reading at home. Second, mothers were asked to read four picture-books to thirty-four children between 4;0 and 5;0. Both frequency of parent–child storybook reading at home, and mother's use of mental state terms in picture-books reading tasks were significantly associated with success on false belief tasks, after partialling out a number of potential mediators such as age of children, verbal IQ, paternal education, and words used by mothers in joint picture-book reading. Among the different mental state references (cognitive terms, desires, emotions and perceptions), it was found that the frequency and variety of cognitive terms, but also the frequency of emotional terms correlated positively with children's false belief performance. Relationships between mental state language and theory of mind are discussed.

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No evidence found for anticipatory looking responses to specific satiety in adult humans.

10.31234/osf.io/c2rdu ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Rachel Crosby ◽

Edward Legg ◽

Nicola Clayton ◽

Ljerka Ostojic

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental States ◽

Small Sample ◽

Minimal System ◽

False Belief ◽

Mental State Attribution ◽

Adult Humans ◽

Response Measures ◽

Small Sample Sizes ◽

Anticipatory Looking

Recent research has uncovered a developmental paradox within theory of mind. While spontaneous response measures indicate sensitivity to false beliefs in infants before their first birthday, tasks involving elicited response measures of false belief are only passed consistently from 4 years of age. In adults, it has been suggested that these spontaneous responses may result from a minimal theory of mind system, which allows rapid and automatic attribution of mental states to others.It has been proposed that the limitations of the minimal system in adults may resemble the limitations demonstrated by non-human animals in tasks thought to involve mental state attribution. Here we have adapted the specific satiety paradigm used with Eurasian jays to investigate adult humans’ anticipatory looking responses based on another individual’s specific satiety.Although no clear evidence was found for spontaneous desire attribution in this study, it is difficult to draw conclusions from these results given the small sample sizes available and the current replication failures of studies demonstrating spontaneous responses to false belief.

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Developmental progression of mental state understandings in infancy

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025419830233 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 363-368 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Tik-Sze Carrey Siu ◽

Him Cheung

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

False Belief ◽

Experimental Setup ◽

Visual Access ◽

Developmental Progression ◽

Emotional Display ◽

Violation Of Expectation ◽

Verbal Theory

This study establishes a sequence of developing mental state understandings in infants. We used three violation-of-expectation paradigms to assess fifty-seven 16-month-olds’ ability to (a) infer an actress’s intention from her prior repeated approaches to an object, (b) recognize her emotion by watching her facial-emotional display, and (c) deduce her false belief by noticing her lack of visual access to a change in the experimental setup. Contingencies between passing the three tasks were analyzed. Results showed that the infants made sense of intention first, followed by emotion, and then false belief. This progressive sequence parallels what has been found with preschoolers using verbal theory-of-mind tasks.

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Mothers’ and Teachers’ Mental-State Discourse With Preschoolers During Storybook Reading

Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology ◽

10.1891/1945-8959.13.1.103 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 103-119 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Margalit Ziv ◽

Marie-Lyne Smadja ◽

Dorit Aram

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

Mental States ◽

False Belief ◽

Pivotal Role ◽

Storybook Reading ◽

Mental Causality ◽

Points Of View

Mothers and teachers play a pivotal role in promoting preschool children’s theory of mind. This study explored and compared mothers’ and teachers’ mental-state discourse during storybook reading with children, focusing on their use of mental terms and references to three mental-state aspects: false belief, mental causality, and different points of view. Participants were 60 mothers and their children, and 60 teachers and 300 preschoolers. Mothers read the book to one child and teachers read the same book to groups of 5 children. The book involved a central false-belief theme. Main findings revealed that mothers and teachers elaborated on book-related mental states. However, teachers’ discourse included more mental terms and more references to mental causality and different people’s perspectives. The findings suggest that reading books with rich mental-state contents encourages rich discourse on mental-state elements. Parents and teachers should be guided in how to use their unique knowledge and relationships with children to enrich their mediation of books’ mental-state aspects and discuss them with children.

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Synchrony in the onset of mental state understanding across cultures? A study among children in Samoa

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025412454030 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 21-28 ◽

Cited By ~ 50

Author(s):

Andreas Mayer ◽

Birgit E. Träuble

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

Mental States ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

False Belief ◽

Large Sample ◽

Location Task ◽

False Belief Understanding ◽

Continuous Survey ◽

Suitable Object

The development of false belief understanding in Samoa was investigated in two studies testing more than 300 children. Children’s understanding was assessed with a change of location task. The results of study 1 suggest that Samoan children improve gradually and slowly, with no succeeding majority before 8 years of age. One third of the 10–13-year-olds still failed. Study 2 used a different translation among 55 children from 4–8 years of age and supports the former results. These findings speak for the cultural variability of theory of mind development and provide the first cross-cultural continuous survey on false belief understanding of children older than 5 years of age with a large sample in a place where mental states are no suitable object for conjecture.

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Influence of exposure to children’s movies on television on theory-of- mind acquisition in preschoolers

International journal of health & medical sciences ◽

10.31295/ijhms.v4n1.650 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Devi Rusli ◽

Dian Novita Ariani ◽

Nurmina Nurmina ◽

Rinaldi Rinaldi

Keyword(s):

Theory Of Mind ◽

Mental State ◽

Mental States ◽

False Belief

Recently cases of harness which is conducted by children indicated that decrease capability of children understanding against other's mental states Children’s ability to grasp other’s mental states (theory of mind) is important in the context of socialization. Previous research has not investigated the duration in measuring the exposure of narrative media (children's movies on television), which is one of the impacts on the acquisition of ToM. The movie on television represents the relations between children and their mental state. This study aims to investigate the influence of exposure to children’s movies on television towards children's ToM acquisition among preschoolers. ToM was assessed using a ToM scale by Wellman and Liu, and exposure to children’s movies on television was measured with a questionnaire. The study has been conducted to 85 preschoolers ages 3–5 years old/36-71 months ((M = 4.88 SD = 0,683), with the involvement of their parents to fill the questionnaires. The result of this study shows that exposure to children's movies on television does not significantly influence children’s ToM. The strong relations between the two is considered false belief (FB) since the result of the study shows that.

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