scholarly journals The trajectory change of theory of mind in the elderly

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.I. Melehin

Theory of mind is viewed as a cognitive mechanism of social cognition. Features of social cognition and theory of mind are differentiated. Studies of cognitive and affective components of theory of mind in old age are summarized. Heterogeneous changes of theory of mind show that the deficit in the ability to understand the mind of another is not total, but selective. Factors (neuroanatomical, cognitive, psychosocial, etc.) influencing the theory of mind in old age are systematized. Strategies of enhancing theory of mind in old age are described.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Chlebuch ◽  
Thalia R. Goldstein ◽  
Deena Skolnick Weisberg

Abstract Many studies have claimed to find that reading fiction leads to improvements in social cognition. But this work has left open the critical question of whether any type of narrative, fictional or nonfictional, might have similar effects. To address this question, as well as to test whether framing a narrative as fiction matters, the current studies presented participants (N = 268 in Study 1; N = 362 in Study 2) with literary fiction texts, narrative nonfiction texts, expository nonfiction texts, or no texts. We tested their theory-of-mind abilities using the picture-based Reading the Mind in the Eyes task and a text-based test of higher-order social cognition. Reading anything was associated with higher scores compared to reading nothing, but the effects of framing and text type were inconsistent. These results suggest that prior claims regarding positive effects of reading fiction on mentalizing should be seen as tenuous; other mechanisms may be driving previously published effects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 460-464
Author(s):  
Thammanard Charernboon

Objective People with schizophrenia show impairment in social cognition, such as emotion recognition and theory of mind. The current study aims to compare the ability of clinically stable schizophrenia patients to decode the positive, negative and neutral affective mental state of others with educational match-paired normal control.Methods 50 people with schizophrenia and 50 matched controls were compared on the positive, negative and neutral emotional valence of affective theory of mind using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Tests.Results The results showed that people with schizophrenia performed worse in negative and neutral emotional valence than normal controls; however, no significant differences in decoding positive valence were found.Conclusion Our data suggest that there is variability in the performance of affective theory of mind according to emotion valence; the impairments seem to be specific to only negative and neutral emotions, but not positive ones.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.I. Melehin ◽  
E.A. Sergienko

The paper presents outcomes of researches on the central component of social cognition — theory of mind in late adulthood. The outcomes show that, in normal aging, in advanced adulthood (55—74 years) as well as in old age (75—90 years) there are several qualitative changes in the affective (understanding and differentiation of emotions) and cognitive (understanding irony and deceit) components of theory of mind. Also, at these ages individuals may develop various forms of theory of mind deficits. They may encounter difficulties with reading facial expressions and recognizing other people’s emotions. It becomes harder for them to recognize negative emotions (such as sorrow, fear, anger) than positive ones (joy). The paper describes features of pragmatic interpretation of events and understanding of deceit and irony in late adulthood.


Author(s):  
Emanuele Castano

AbstractResearch shows that reading literary but not popular fiction enhances the Theory of Mind (ToM). This article builds on the symmetry between literary theory and film theory and investigates whether exposure to art films, but not Hollywood films, enhances ToM. Participants (N = 232) were randomly assigned to view either art or Hollywood films and then answered questions about the film and its characters before completing two separate measures of ToM (the Read the Mind in the Eyes Test and the Moral Judgement Task). Results showed that art film viewers scored higher on both ToM measures and that the effect was sequentially mediated by perception of complexity and predictability of the characters. The findings are discussed in the context of the emerging literature on the impact of fiction on social cognition.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 257-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes H. Scheidemann ◽  
Franz Petermann ◽  
Marc Schipper

Abstract. We investigated theory of mind (ToM) deficits in Alzheimer‘s disease (AD) and its possible connection to autobiographical memory (ABM). Patients and matched controls were evaluated and compared using a video-based ToM test, an autobiographical fluency task, and a neuropsychological test battery. We found that ToM deficits were positively associated with semantic ABM in the clinical group, whereas a positive relationship appeared between ToM and episodic ABM in controls. We hypothesize that this reflects the course of the disease as well as that semantic ABM is used for ToM processing, being still accessible in AD. Furthermore, we assume that it is also less efficient, which in turn leads to a specific deficit profile of social cognition.


Romanticism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-270
Author(s):  
Mark Sandy

Attending to the hoped-for connection between young and older generations, this essay revisits Wordsworth's poetic fascination with the elderly and the question of what, if any, consolation for emotional and physical loss could be attained for growing old. Wordsworth's imaginative impulse is to idealise the elderly into transcendent figures, which offers the compensation of a harmonious vision to the younger generation for the losses of old age that, in all likelihood, they will themselves experience. The affirmation of such a unified and compensatory vision is dependent upon the reciprocity of sympathy that Wordsworth's poetry both sets into circulation and calls into question. Readings of ‘Simon Lee’, ‘I know an aged Man constrained to dwell’, and ‘The Old Cumberland Beggar’ point up the limitations of sympathy and vision (physical and poetic) avowed in these poems as symptomatic of Wordsworth's misgivings about the debilitating effects of growing old and old age. Finally, Wordsworth's unfolding tragedy of ‘Michael’ is interpreted as reinforcing a frequent pattern, observed elsewhere in his poetry, whereby idealised figures of old men transform into disturbingly spectral second selves of their younger counterparts or narrators. These troubling transformations reveal that at the heart of Wordsworth's poetic vision of old age as a harmonious, interconnected, and consoling state, there are disquieting fears of disunity, disconnection, disconsolation, and, lastly, death.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Ma. Guillermina Yáñez-Téllez ◽  
Daniel Hernández-Torres

Los niños con trastorno por déficit de atención con hiperactividad (TDAH) presentan problemas en la interacción social, los cuales pueden ser atribuidos a deficiencias en la cognición social (CS), no obstante, esta función ha sido poco estudiada en esta población. El objetivo de este trabajo fue realizar una revisión de la literatura de los últimos 18 años acerca de la CS en niños con TDAH, en los subdominios de teoría de la mente, reconocimiento de emociones en rostros, lenguaje pragmático y prosodia afectiva. Se realizó una búsqueda en las bases de datos PubMed y Scopus, combinando las siguientes palabras clave: “ADHD”, “social cognition”, “theory of mind”, “emotion recognition”, “pragmatic language” y “affective prosody”. Se seleccionaron artículos desde el 2000 hasta el 2018. El reconocimiento de emociones en rostros es el déficit en CS más reportado, encontrándose fallas en la comprensión de gestos de miedo, tristeza, felicidad y enojo, aunque no de manera consistente. Asimismo, se reportan deficiencias en la teoría de la mente, principalmente en la referencia social, entendimiento de emociones básicas, metarrepresentaciones, inferencias de segundo orden y comprensión de juicios sociales complejos.


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