Are the classic false belief tasks cursed? Young children are just as likely as older children to pass a false belief task when they are not required to overcome the curse of knowledge

The question of when children understand that others have minds that can represent or misrepresent reality (i.e., possess a ‘Theory of Mind’) is hotly debated. This understanding plays a fundamental role in social interaction (e.g., interpreting human behavior, communicating, empathizing). Most research on this topic has relied on false belief tasks such as the ‘Sally-Anne Task’, because researchers have argued that it is the strongest litmus test examining one’s understanding that the mind can misrepresent reality. Unfortunately, in addition to a variety of other cognitive demands this widely used measure also unnecessarily involves overcoming a bias that is especially pronounced in young children—the ‘curse of knowledge’ (the tendency to be biased by one’s knowledge when considering less-informed perspectives). Three- to 6-year-old’s (n = 230) false belief reasoning was examined across tasks that either did, or did not, require overcoming the curse of knowledge, revealing that when the curse of knowledge was removed three-year-olds were significantly better at inferring false beliefs, and as accurate as five- and six-year-olds. These findings reveal that the classic task is not specifically measuring false belief understanding. Instead, previously observed developmental changes in children’s performance could be attributed to the ability to overcome the curse of knowledge. Similarly, previously observed relationships between individual differences in false belief reasoning and a variety of social outcomes could instead be the result of individual differences in the ability to overcome the curse of knowledge, highlighting the need to re-evaluate how best to interpret large bodies of research on false belief reasoning and social-emotional functioning.

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

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.

The Effects Of Adult Ageing And Culture On Theory Of Mind

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.