The accidental transgressor: morally-relevant theory of mind

To test young children’s false belief theory of mind in a morally relevant context, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, children (N = 162) at 3.5, 5.5, and 7.5 years of age were administered three tasks: prototypic moral transgression task, false belief theory of mind task (ToM), and an “accidental transgressor” task, which measured a morally-relevant false belief theory of mind (MoToM). Children who did not pass false belief ToM were more likely to attribute negative intentions to an accidental transgressor than children who passed false belief ToM, and to use moral reasons when blaming the accidental transgressor. In Experiment 2, children (N = 46) who did not pass false belief ToM viewed it as more acceptable to punish the accidental transgressor than did participants who passed false belief ToM. Findings are discussed in light of research on the emergence of moral judgment and theory of mind.     

Duck or rabbit? Reversing ambiguous figures and understanding ambiguous representations

In two studies we investigated 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children’s ability to reverse ambiguous figures and the relation between this ability and the ability to understand multiple representations. Children never reversed before they were informed of the two alternative interpretations of the figures. Even when they were informed of the alternatives and understood that both were possible, 3‐year‐olds and most 4‐year‐olds did not reverse. In contrast, a majority of 5‐year‐olds did reverse. In general, children only reversed if they also passed a standard false belief task. However, there was a closer correlation between reversals and a ‘droodle’ task that involved an understanding of the ambiguity of perceptual representations. These results suggest that the immediate experience of reversal may depend on a more abstract understanding of ambiguous representations.     

Implicit and explicit false belief development in preschool children

The ability to represent the mental states of other agents is referred to as Theory of Mind (ToM). A developmental breakthrough in ToM consists of understanding that others can have false beliefs about the world. Recently, infants younger than 2 years of age have been shown to pass novel implicit false belief tasks. However, the processes underlying these tasks and their relation to later‐developing explicit false belief understanding, as well as to other cognitive abilities, are not yet understood. Here, we study a battery of implicit and explicit false belief tasks in 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children, relating their performance to linguistic abilities and executive functions. The present data show a significant developmental change from failing explicit false belief tasks at 3 years of age to passing them at the age of 4, while both age groups pass implicit false belief tasks. This differential developmental trajectory is reflected by the finding that explicit and implicit false belief tasks do not correlate. Further, we demonstrate that explicit false belief tasks correlate with syntactic and executive functions, whereas implicit false belief tasks do not. The study thus indicates that the processes underlying implicit false belief tasks are different from later‐developing explicit false belief understanding. Moreover, our results speak for a critical role of syntactic and executive functions for passing standard explicit false belief tasks in contrast to implicit tasks.     

幼儿看图叙述中心理状态术语的使用与错误信念理解关系的短期跟踪研究

摘 要：为探明汉语儿童看图叙述中心理状态术语的应用及与错误信念理解能力的关系,并追踪二者相互作用的方向,本研究以101名3-5岁儿童为研究对象,纵向探查了前后相隔3个月的儿童看图叙述中心理状态术语使用情况和错误信念能力的发展状况,并从横向和纵向两个时间点分别探讨了心理状态术语的运用与错误信念理解的关系。结果表明：3-5岁儿童错误信念理解能力快速发展;儿童看图叙述中使用较多的愿望术语和情绪术语,信念术语应用相对较少,且认知词汇类型较少。控制了一般语言能力和年龄之后,仅在第一次测验上,情绪术语、信念术语仍然与同期及后期错误信念理解能力存在显著相关。     

The link between infant attention to goal‐directed action and later theory of mind abilities

Various studies have shown that infants in their first year of life are able to interpret human actions as goal‐directed. It is argued that this understanding is a precondition for understanding intentional actions and attributing mental states. Moreover, some authors claim that this early action understanding is a precursor of later Theory of Mind (ToM) development. To test this, we related 6‐month‐olds’ performance in an action interpretation task to their performance in ToM tasks at the age of 4 years. Action understanding was assessed using a modified version of the Woodward‐paradigm ( Woodward, 1999 ). At the age of 4 years, the same children were tested with the German version of the ToM scale developed by Wellman and Liu (2004 ). Results revealed a correlation between infants’ decrement of attention to goal‐directed action and their ability to solve a false belief task at the age of 4 years with no modulation by language abilities. Our results indicate a link between infant attention to goal‐directed action and later theory of mind abilities.     

Reliability and generalizability of an acted-out false belief task in 3-year-olds

The current study tested the reliability and generalizability of a narrative act-out false belief task held to reveal Theory of Mind (ToM) competence at 3 years of age, before children pass verbal standard false belief tasks (the “Duplo task”; Rubio-Fernández & Geurts, 2013, Psychological Science). We conducted the task across two labs with methodologically improved matched control conditions. Further, we administered an analogue intensionality version to assess the scope of ToM competence in the Duplo task. 72 3-year-olds participated in a Duplo change-of-location task, a Duplo intensionality task, and half of them in a matched verbal standard change-of-location task, receiving either false belief or matched true belief scenarios. Children performed at chance in the false belief Duplo location change and intensionality tasks as well as in the standard false belief task. There were no differences to the standard task, and performance correlated across all three false belief tasks, revealing a rather unified competence and no task advantage. In the true belief conditions of both Duplo tasks, children performed at ceiling and significantly different from the false belief conditions, while they were at chance in the true belief condition of the standard task. The latter indicates that a pragmatic advantage of the Duplo task compared to the standard task holds only for the true belief scenarios. Our study shows that the Duplo task measures the same ToM competence as the standard task and rejects a notion of earlier false belief understanding on the group level in 3-year-old children.     

Aging of theory of mind: The influence of educational level and cognitive processing

Previous studies of theory of mind (ToM) in old age have provided mixed results. We predicted that educational level and cognitive processing are two factors influencing the pattern of the aging of ToM. To test this hypothesis, a younger group who received higher education (mean age 20.46 years), an older group with an education level equal to that of the young group (mean age 76.29 years), and an older group with less education (mean age 73.52 years) were recruited. ToM tasks included the following tests: the second‐order false‐belief task, the faux‐pas task, the eyes test, and tests of fundamental aspects of cognitive function that included two background tests (memory span and processing speed) and three subcomponents of executive function (inhibition, updating, and shifting). We found that the younger group and the older group with equally high education outperformed the older group with less education in false‐belief and faux‐pas tasks. However, there was no significant difference between the two former groups. The three groups of participants performed equivalently in the eyes test as well as in control tasks (false‐belief control question, faux‐pas control question, faux‐pas control story, and Eyes Test control task). The younger group outperformed the other two groups in the cognitive processing tasks. Mediation analyses showed that difficulties in inhibition, memory span, and processing speed mediated the age differences in false‐belief reasoning. Also, the variables of inhibition, updating, memory span, and processing speed mediated age‐related variance in faux‐pas. Discussion focused on the links between ToM aging, educational level, and cognitive processing.     

Links between theory of mind and executive function in young children with autism: clues to developmental primacy

There has been much theoretical discussion of a functional link between theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF) in autism. This study sought to establish the relationship between ToM and EF in young children with autism (M = 5 years, 6 months) and to examine issues of developmental primacy. Thirty children with autism and 40 typically developing children, matched on age and ability, were assessed on a battery of tasks measuring ToM (1st- and 2nd-order false belief) and components of EF (planning, set shifting, inhibition). A significant correlation emerged between ToM and EF variables in the autism group, independent of age and ability, while ToM and higher order planning ability remained significantly related in the comparison group. Examination of the pattern of ToM-EF impairments in the autism group revealed dissociations in 1 direction only: impaired ToM with intact EF. These findings support the view that EF may be 1 important factor in the advancement of ToM understanding in autism. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Friendlessness and theory of mind: A prospective longitudinal study

Chronic friendlessness in childhood predicts adverse mental health outcomes throughout life, yet its earliest roots are poorly understood. In theory, developing a theory of mind (ToM) should help children gain mutual friends and one preschool study (Peterson & Siegal, 2002. Br J Dev Psychol, 20, 205) suggested a cross‐sectional connection. We therefore used a 2‐year prospective longitudinal design to explore ToM as a predictor of mutual friendship in 114 children from age 5 to 7 years after controlling potential confounds including language ability and group popularity. Confirming friendship's distinctiveness from group sociometric status, numerous group‐rejected children (53%) had a mutual friend whereas 23% of those highest in group status did not. Five‐year‐olds with a mutual friend significantly outperformed their friendless peers on a comprehensive ToM battery (basic and advanced false belief). Longitudinally, chronically friendless 7‐year‐olds (no friends at either testing time) stood out for their exceptionally poor Time 1 ToM understanding even after controlling for group popularity, age, and language skill. Extending previous evidence of ToM's predictive links with later social and cognitive outcomes, these results for mutual friendship suggest possible interventions to help reduce the lifelong mental health costs of chronic friendlessness.     

Social cognition is not reducible to theory of mind: When children use deontic rules to predict the behaviour of others

The objective of this paper is to discuss whether children have a capacity for deontic reasoning that is irreducible to mentalizing. The results of two experiments point to the existence of such non‐mentalistic understanding and prediction of the behaviour of others. In Study 1, young children (3‐ and 4‐year‐olds) were told different versions of classic false‐belief tasks, some of which were modified by the introduction of a rule or a regularity. When the task (a standard change of location task) included a rule, the performance of 3‐year‐olds, who fail traditional false‐belief tasks, significantly improved. In Study 2, 3‐year‐olds proved to be able to infer a rule from a social situation and to use it in order to predict the behaviour of a character involved in a modified version of the false‐belief task. These studies suggest that rules play a central role in the social cognition of young children and that deontic reasoning might not necessarily involve mind reading.     

Probing the depth of infants’ theory of mind: disunity in performance across paradigms

There is currently a hot debate in the literature regarding whether or not infants have a true theory of mind (ToM) understanding. According to the mentalistic view, infants possess the same false belief understanding that older children have but their competence is masked by task demands. On the other hand, others have proposed that preverbal infants are incapable of mental state attribution and simply respond to superficial features of the events in spontaneous‐responses tasks. In the current study, we aimed to clarify the nature of infants’ performance in tasks designed to assess implicit theory of mind (ToM) by adopting a within‐subject design that involved testing 18‐month‐old infants on two batteries of tasks measuring the same four ToM constructs (intention, desire, true belief, and false belief). One battery included tasks based on the violation‐of‐ expectation (VOE) procedure, whereas the other set of tasks was based on the interactive, helping procedure. Replication of the original findings varied across tasks, due to methodological changes and the use of a within‐subject design. Convergent validity was examined by comparing performance on VOE and interactive tasks that are considered to be measures of the same theory of mind concept. The results revealed no significant relations between performance on the pairs of tasks for any of the four ToM constructs measured. This pattern of results is discussed in terms of current conflicting accounts of infants’ performance on implicit ToM tasks. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3vqfe_zdhA&feature=youtu.be     

Three‐year‐olds express suspense when an agent approaches a scene with a false belief

Research on early false belief understanding has entirely relied on affect‐neutral measures such as judgments (standard tasks), attentional allocation (looking duration, preferential looking, anticipatory looking), or active intervention. We used a novel, affective measure to test whether preschoolers affectively anticipate another's misguided acts. In two experiments, 3‐year‐olds showed more expressions of suspense (by, e.g. brow furrowing or lip biting) when they saw an agent approach a scene with a false as opposed to a true belief (Experiment 1) or ignorance (Experiment 2). This shows that the children anticipated the agent's surprise and disappointment when encountering reality. The findings suggest that early implicit knowledge of false beliefs includes anticipations of the affective implications of erring. This vital dimension of beliefs should no longer be ignored in research on early theory of mind.     

Representing intentions in self and other: studies of autism and typical development

Two experiments were conducted to explore the extent to which individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as well as young typically developing (TD) children, are explicitly aware of their own and others’ intentions. In Experiment 1, participants with ASD were significantly less likely than age‐ and ability‐matched comparison participants to correctly recognize their own knee‐jerk reflex movements as unintentional. Performance on this knee‐jerk task was associated with performance on measures of false belief understanding, independent of age and verbal ability, in both participants with ASD and TD children. In Experiment 2, participants with ASD were significantly less able than comparison participants to correctly recognize their own or another person’s mistaken actions as unintended, in a ‘Transparent Intentions’ task ( Russell & Hill, 2001 ; Russell, Hill & Franco, 2001 ). Performance on aspects of the Transparent Intentions task was associated with performance on measures of false belief understanding, independent of age and verbal ability, in both participants with ASD and TD children. This study suggests that individuals with ASD have a diminished awareness of their own and others’ intentions and that this diminution is associated with other impairments in theory of mind.     

The Relation Between Children's Trust Beliefs and Theory of Mind Abilities

The study examined the relation between children's trust beliefs and Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities. A sample of 168 Italian children (M = 9 years–6 months, SD = 7 months) were administered the Italian Children's Generalized Trust Beliefs (ICGTB) Scale, two Second‐Order False Belief ToM measures, and an Advanced ToM measure. As expected, the ICGTB scale demonstrated: (1) validity by its three factor structure and (2) reliability by exhibiting acceptable internal consistency and test–retest stability. As expected, the children's emotional trust beliefs in others were associated with both second‐order false belief ToM ability and advanced ToM ability. These relations were not attributable to verbal ability. The findings are discussed with respect to the relations among children's emotional trust beliefs, personal disclosure, and quality of attachment. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

4岁儿童对他人记忆的评判与错误信念理解的关系

从观点采择的角度考察儿童对他人记忆的评判及其与错误信念理解的关系。与他人分享记忆时,个体需要同时处理自我与他人对过去的表征和看法;而要顺利完成错误信念任务,个体需要同时加工自我的真实信念与他人的错误信念。因此个体对他人记忆的评判能力可能会与其对错误信念的理解相关。40名4岁儿童完成一系列错误信念任务和评判他人记忆是否正确任务,情境包括视觉、意图解释和情绪解释。结果表明,控制年龄、语言和记忆能力等因素后,被试评判他人记忆的成绩仍然可以预测其对错误信念的理解。这些结果为幼儿在回忆叙述中谈及他人越多,其心理理论越好提供了进一步的证据和可能的解释     

Understanding pretence and understanding action

Two studies were carried out in an attempt to replicate an earlier but controversial set of findings that suggested that young children are able to understand pretence in a mentalistic sense (Hickling, Wellman, & Gottfried, 1997). In Study 1, 65 three‐year‐olds and 77 four‐year‐olds were asked to either judge the thoughts of an absent teddy bear, who had not witnessed a change in the original pretence stipulation, or were asked to complete a similar, standard false‐belief task. Study 2 repeated the experimental procedures of the first study with 24 three‐year‐olds and 16 four‐year‐olds, with the difference that all children had to complete both tasks in a single session. The results obtained across both studies showed that 3‐year‐olds were unable to correctly judge the discrepant thoughts of the teddy bear, suggesting that young children do not attribute a false belief to another actor during pretend play, and that instead they view pretence in terms of overt action.     

The desirability of beliefs: preschoolers' appreciation of fact beliefs and subsequent emotions

In this study, we investigated the extent to which preschool children's own knowledge about reality biases their understanding that others' beliefs about reality govern others' emotions and not reality itself. Therefore, an increasing tension was created between the beliefs of the protagonist and the participant, by providing varying degrees of evidence about the validity of the protagonist's belief. Children of between 4 and 5 years of age were asked to predict the protagonist's emotion, given the protagonist's desire and the protagonist's belief. The results show that, to a certain extent, preschool children take others' beliefs into account when predicting others' emotions. When the outcome is clear, children probably feel tied to reality, and in the case of false beliefs, their knowledge about reality biases their emotion predictions, as was also evident in ‘false belief’ research (Wimmer H, Perner I. 1983. Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition 13: 103–128). However, when it is uncertain what the actual outcome will be, then it is not the likelihood of others' beliefs but the desirability of the outcome that biases children's predictions of others' emotions. In other words, when the actual outcome is yet unclear, 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds show a tendency for wishful thinking in their predictions of others' emotions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Traces of the artist: Sensitivity to the role of the artist in children's pictorial reasoning

In three studies we investigated the question of whether children consider the attributes of the artist (sentience, age level, affective style, emotion) when making judgments about the traces (drawings) made by that artist. In Study 1, 2–5‐year‐old children were asked to find pictures drawn by a machine, an adult, an older and a younger child. Results indicated that children younger than 4 years do not consider the artists' attributes when making judgments, but 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds do. Furthermore, whereas the oldest children were adept at both machine‐person (sentience) and person‐person (age) contrasts, 4‐year‐olds succeeded only with person‐person contrasts. In Study 2, videotaped artists displayed differences in degree of agitation (affective style) while drawing, and this attribute was manipulated in the drawing by varying line density, asymmetry, line overlap and line gap, or all four features, across stimuli. Three‐ and five‐year‐old children judged whether a calm or agitated person drew the stimuli. Findings showed that five‐year‐old, but not 3‐year‐old, children easily completed the task. In Study 3, 3‐, 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children judged whether happy or sad artists made paintings of matching emotional tone. Performance on this picture judgment task was contrasted with performance on three theory of mind tasks (false belief, emotion and interpretative). The results indicated that 5‐ and 7‐year‐olds successfully judged the impact of artists' emotions on paintings, but 3‐year‐olds did not. Performance on the picture task was related to that on the false belief task, but not to the emotion or interpretive tasks. Taken together, the results suggest that children's view of visual symbols includes a consideration of the qualities of the artist beginning around 5 years, and there appears to be a common link between judgments of the mind behind the visual symbol in the picture task and judgments of mental state reasoning in the false belief task.     

Return of the Candy Witch: Individual differences in acceptance and stability of belief in a novel fantastical being

Recent research indicates that preschoolers make sophisticated choices in accepting testimony as a source of knowledge. Nonetheless, many children accept fantastical beings as real based on misleading testimony. The present study probes factors associated with belief in a novel fantastical figure, the Candy Witch, that 3‐ to 7‐year‐olds heard about at school. Short‐term belief was predicted by an interaction of age, existing beliefs in fantastical figures, and whether the child was ‘visited’ by the Candy Witch. Stability of belief was assessed over the course of 3 weeks and again 1‐year later. First year results revealed three patterns of belief: stable belief, wavering belief and stable non‐belief. First year belief status was not related to age, but older children from the stable belief group were more likely than younger children to disbelieve 1‐year later. The discussion presents a new proposal for the trajectory from belief to disbelief and an updated perspective on the role of individual differences in belief.     

Relations between theory of mind,mental state language and social adjustment in primary school children

The present study investigated the concurrent relations between theory of mind (ToM), mental state language (MSL) and social adjustment (assessed in terms of emotional instability, prosocial behaviour and aggressiveness) in a sample of 150 children between 8 and 11 years of age. The results showed no correlation between the performance on false belief tasks and the frequency of MSL in a narrative task. False belief understanding was unrelated with all measures of social adjustment, whereas the children’s use of MSL was negatively correlated with emotional instability and aggressiveness, above and beyond the influence of receptive language ability. These findings suggest that having a ToM ability is different from spontaneously using it during non-interactive narrative tasks, and that the two ToM measures are differently related to social competence in primary school children.