Fonctions exécutives et théorie de l’esprit chez le jeune enfant : une relation réciproque ?

The aim of this study was to assess the specific relation between 18-month-olds’ performance on tasks measuring language skills, executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM). The ToM tasks included measures of intention and false-belief understanding whereas working memory and inhibitory control were assessed with three EF tasks. Expressive vocabulary was assessed with the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory. The main findings showed that both aspects of ToM are strongly linked at this age to inhibitory control, but not to working memory abilities. Language skills were not associated with either ToM or EF abilities. With regard to inter-tasks coherence within EF and ToM, we replicated previous findings with no consistency across EF tasks but an association between false-belief and intention understanding. Overall, these findings provide evidence for a link between executive function and theory of mind at the youngest age ever tested. They also challenge the view that EF is not required to succeed on the false-belief task based on spontaneous responses.     

The link between preschoolers' executive function and theory of mind and the role of epistemic states

The aim of this study was to assess the specific relation between 3- to 6-year-olds’ performance on a task measuring executive function (EF), the Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS), and different developmental attainments in their theory of mind (ToM) by employing a battery of scaled ToM tasks that were comparable in task format and task demands. In addition, individual differences on the temperamental dimensions emotionality, activity, sociability, and shyness were assessed by parental rating. The main findings show that children’s (N = 195) performance on the DCCS related to their overall performance on the ToM scale but that this relation was specific to those ToM tasks that tap children’s understanding of epistemic states such as knowledge access, diverse beliefs, and false beliefs regarding content and location. The relation between children’s EF and overall ToM performance remained significant after controlling for age, sentence comprehension, child temperament, and parental education. Individual differences in child activity showed consistent negative relation to EF and ToM abilities. The findings point to a differential involvement of the various EF components in reasoning about different mental concepts.     

Are Infants’ Theory-of-Mind Abilities Well Integrated? Implicit Understanding of Intentions,Desires, and Beliefs

The development of theory of mind (ToM) in infancy has been mainly documented through studies conducted on a single age group with a single task. Very few studies have examined ToM abilities other than false belief, and very few studies have used a within-subjects design. During 2 testing sessions, infants aged 14 and 18 months old were administered ToM tasks based on the violation-of-expectation paradigm which measured intention, true belief, desire, and false-belief understanding. Infants’ looking times at the congruent and incongruent test trials of each task were compared, and results revealed that both groups of infants looked significantly longer at the incongruent trial on the intention and true-belief tasks. In contrast, only 18-month-olds looked significantly longer at the incongruent trial of the desire task and neither age group looked significantly longer at the incongruent trial on the false-belief task. Additionally, intertask comparisons revealed only a significant relation between performance on the false-belief and intention task. These findings suggest that implicit intention and true-belief understanding emerge earlier than desire and false-belief understanding and that ToM constructs do not appear to be integrated, as is the case for explicit ToM.     

4、5岁儿童一般语言能力和心理理论关系的纵向研究

为探明汉语儿童语言和心理理论的发展, 追踪二者的动态关系及相互作用的方向, 本研究以80名4、5岁儿童为研究对象, 纵向探查了前后相隔6个月的儿童的一般语言能力和心理理论的发展状况, 并运用交叉-滞后组相关分析初步探查了二者是否存在因果关系及可能的作用方向。结果表明：4~5岁是汉语儿童心理理论发展的重要时期, 语言在这一阶段也得到快速发展。交叉-滞后组相关分析发现了4岁儿童语言和心理理论因果关系的证据, 但随着年龄的增长, 语言对心理理论的前提基础作用有所减弱, 5岁儿童没有表现出这种因果关系。     

A longitudinal study of child siblings and theory of mind development

This study tested a sample of 63 children twice in a longitudinal design over 14 months to examine their theory-of-mind (ToM) understanding in relation to their number of child-aged siblings (1–12 years). Age-appropriate batteries of ToM tests emphasising false belief were given at the start of the study, when children had a mean age of 4–2 (range: 3–3 to 5–6), and at the end, when mean age was 5–4 (range: 4–3 to 6–9). Irrespective of chronological age, children with 2 or more child siblings scored significantly higher on both the earlier and the later battery than those with no child-aged siblings. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that, over and above chronological age and verbal intelligence, having more child siblings predicted higher ToM scores at Times 1 and 2. Furthermore, at Time 2, the participant's number of child-aged siblings continued to predict higher ToM scores even after controlling for age, verbal intelligence, and Time 1 ToM scores. Results were considered in relation to the kinds of family-based social and conversational experiences that might foster ToM growth throughout the period from toddlerhood to the threshold of primary school.     

Cumulative risk disparities in children's neurocognitive functioning: a developmental cascade model

The current longitudinal study examined the role of cumulative social risk on children's theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning (EF) across early development. Further, we also tested a cascade model of development in which children's social cognition at 18 months was hypothesized to predict ToM and EF at age 4.5 through intermediary language skills at age 3. We then examined whether this developmental mechanism varied as a function of social risk status. Participants were 501 children recruited when they were newborns, at which point eight psychosocial risk factors were assessed and combined into a metric of cumulative social disadvantage. Families were followed up at 18 months, at which point four social‐cognitive skills were assessed using developmentally sensitive tasks: joint attention, empathy, cooperation, and self‐recognition. Language was measured at age 3 using a standardized measure of receptive vocabulary. At age 3 and 4.5, EF and ToM were measured using previously validated tasks. Results showed that there were notable cumulative risk disparities in overall neurocognitive skill development, and these effects became more differentiated over time. Support was also found for a developmental mechanism wherein the effect of social cognition at 18 months on ToM and EF in the preschool period operated specifically through children's receptive language ability at age 3. This pathway functioned similarly for children with both low‐ and high‐risk backgrounds. These results extend previous findings by documenting the role of cumulative social disadvantage on children's neurocognition and the pathways that link key neurocognitive abilities across early development.     

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.     

Knowing minds, controlling actions: the developmental relations between theory of mind and executive function from 2 to 4 years of age

This longitudinal study examined the concurrent and predictive relations between executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) in 82 preschoolers who were assessed when they were 2, 3, and 4 years old. The results showed that the concurrent relation between EF and ToM, after controlling for age, verbal ability, and sex, was significant at 3 and 4 years of age but not at 2 years of age. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that EF at age 2 significantly predicted ToM at age 3 and that EF at age 3 significantly predicted ToM at age 4, over and above the effects of age, verbal ability, and prior performance on ToM tasks. However, ToM at ages 2 and 3 did not explain a significant amount of variance in EF at age 4. Bootstrap procedures revealed that verbal ability at age 3 fully mediated the relation between ToM at age 2 and EF at age 4.     

幼儿执行功能的发展对心理理论发展的影响*

采用追踪研究设计,探讨儿童3至5岁成长过程中,执行功能与心理理论发展间的预测关系。以155名3岁、4岁儿童为被试,采用经典实验任务对儿童的执行功能和心理理论进行间隔1年的追踪测查,并运用分层回归分析检验了二者间的预测关系。结果发现：儿童执行功能、心理理论在3至5岁期间均有显著的发展,且在此期间执行功能、心理理论的个体差异相对稳定;儿童在3岁、4岁时执行功能与心理理论呈显著正相关,但在5岁时二者间相关不显著;儿童3岁时的执行功能能够显著预测3至4岁期间心理理论的发展,而4岁时的执行功能不能预测4至5岁期间心理理论的发展;3至5岁期间,心理理论对执行功能发展始终不具有预测作用。     

Emotion understanding, theory of mind, and prosocial orientation: Relations over time in early childhood

Data were collected when children were 42, 54, and 72 months of age (Ns=210, 191, and 172 for T1, T2, and T3, respectively). Children's emotion understanding (EU) and theory of mind (ToM) were examined as predictors of children's prosocial orientation within and across time. EU positively related to children's sympathy across 2.5 years, and T1 EU positively related to parent-reported prosocial orientation concurrently and across 1 year (T2). T2 ToM positively related to parents' reports of sympathy and prosocial orientation concurrently and 18 months later (T3); in contrast, T3 ToM did not relate to sympathy or prosocial orientation. T2 ToM accounted for marginally significant variance (p<0.058) in T3 mother-reported prosocial orientation over and above that accounted for by T2 prosocial orientation. Fostering the development of EU and ToM may contribute to children's prosocial orientation.     

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.     

How language relates to belief,desire, and emotion understanding

Two experiments examined syntax and semantics as correlates of theory-of-mind (ToM). In Experiment 1 children’s language was examined at 3 years of age in relation to ToM at 3, 3.5, 4, and 5.5 years. Semantics predicted unique variance in later belief understanding but not desire understanding. Syntax did not explain unique variance in belief or desire. In Experiment 2 two measures of syntax and a measure of semantics were used with 65 3–5-year-olds. The syntax measures tested children’s understanding of word order and embedded clauses. They were related to false belief, but contrary to some predictions, were also related to emotion recognition. Performance on language control tasks with low syntactic demands correlated equally well with false belief. In both experiments performance on the syntax and semantics tasks was highly inter-correlated. We argue that ToM is related to general language ability rather than syntax or semantics per se.     

Relations Among Sociocognitive Abilities and Prosocial Behavior

To further the understanding of the relations among sociocognitive abilities and social behavior, the current study examined theory of mind (ToM), social information processing (SIP), and prosocial behavior in 116 preschoolers (M age = 58.88 months) in Turkey. False belief tasks were utilized to test ToM and cartoons were used to assess SIP patterns. Prosocial behavior was measured with mother-reports and individual assessments. ToM was not related with the attribution of intent and was the only sociocognitive predictor of prosocial behavior, but just in boys. Results also pointed at sex differences in levels of sociocognitive development; girls showed greater ToM and more non-hostile attribution. Findings imply that SIP patterns might be less closely related to positive than antisocial behaviors, and understanding others’ minds might be less needed for positive acts in Turkish girls, who may learn to engage in such behavior as part of their gender role more strongly.     

Theory of Mind Understanding and Conversational Patterns in Middle Childhood

The author investigated the longitudinal relations between theory of mind (ToM) understanding and perceptions of self and social conversations in 17 school-aged children (12 girls, 5 boys, age 8–12 years). ToM was assessed at Time 1 (T1; M age = 8 years 5 months, SD = 8.7 months, and perceptions of self and conversational experiences assessed two years later at Time 2 (T2; M age = 10 years 4 months, SD = 7.9 months. Most importantly, longitudinal findings showed that children who scored relatively high on ToM at T1 reported relatively lower perceptions of self-worth and higher number of mental states verbs in their perceptions of peer and family conversations at T2. Significant negative longitudinal associations were found between children's number of siblings and their perceptions of self-worth (T1) and number of cognitive terms in their perceptions of peer and family conversations (T2). Frequency analysis suggested that girls’ perceptions of conversations referred to more social and psychological aspects of self and relationships, whereas boys focused mainly on physical activities. Most children were more likely to prefer listening to talking during social conversations. The majority of children reported feelings of mixed or ambiguous emotions during experiences of silence. Implications for socioemotional and cognitive development in early adolescents are discussed.     

Investigating the relationship between trait and ability emotional intelligence and theory of mind

Theoretical links between emotional knowledge and theory of mind (ToM) have previously been proposed. This study investigates this relationship using measures of both ability and trait emotional intelligence (EI). Our sample comprised 194 children, divided into two age groups (5–7 years and 8–10 years). Children participated in measures of false belief understanding, advanced tests of ToM, ability EI and trait EI, and a standardized language assessment. For both age groups, we found that only ability EI was related to false belief understanding. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed that the understanding and managing branches of ability EI predicted unique variance in false belief understanding once controlling for age, language, and the other ability EI branches. Trait EI failed to display any association with false belief understanding. Ability and trait EI were associated with more advanced ToM tasks undertaken only by the older sample. These results offer support for previous research that has found a relationship between emotion perception and labelling and ToM. They also provide new knowledge: (1) higher order emotional knowledge, measured by ability EI, is associated with advanced ToM; and (2) emotional self efficacy, as measured by trait EI, is also important in advanced ToM. Furthermore, they provide the first account of associations between standardized EI measures and ToM.     

Early bilingualism enhances mechanisms of false‐belief reasoning

In their first years, children's understanding of mental states seems to improve dramatically, but the mechanisms underlying these changes are still unclear. Such ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) abilities may arise during development, or have an innate basis, developmental changes reflecting limitations of other abilities involved in ToM tasks (e.g. inhibition). Special circumstances such as early bilingualism may enhance ToM development or other capacities required by ToM tasks. Here we compare 3‐year‐old bilinguals and monolinguals on a standard ToM task, a modified ToM task and a control task involving physical reasoning. The modified ToM task mimicked a language‐switch situation that bilinguals often encounter and that could influence their ToM abilities. If such experience contributes to an early consolidation of ToM in bilinguals, they should be selectively enhanced in the modified task. In contrast, if bilinguals have an advantage due to better executive inhibitory abilities involved in ToM tasks, they should outperform monolinguals on both ToM tasks, inhibitory demands being similar. Bilingual children showed an advantage on the two ToM tasks but not on the control task. The precocious success of bilinguals may be associated with their well‐developed control functions formed during monitoring and selecting languages.     

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.     

Reciprocal associations between young children's developing moral judgments and theory of mind

Associations between young children's developing theory of mind (ToM) and judgments of prototypical moral transgressions were examined 3 times across 1 year in 70 American middle class 2.5- to 4-year-olds. Separate path models controlling for cross-time stability in judgments, within-time associations, and children's age at Wave 1 indicated that across both 6-month intervals, children who evaluated moral acts as more wrong independent of authority had more mature ToM 6 months later; in addition, judgments of moral transgressions as less permissible at Wave 2 also led to more advanced ToM at Wave 3. Children with more advanced ToM judged that moral rules are more alterable, however, and rated moral transgressions as less deserving of punishment. Finally, more advanced ToM initially led to evaluations of moral transgressions as less independent of rules and then to judgments of moral transgressions as more independent of rules. During the preschool years, early moral judgments and theory of mind appear to develop as reciprocal, bidirectional processes.     

Do Theory of Mind and Executive Function Deficits Underlie the Adverse Outcomes Associated with Profound Early Deprivation?: Findings from the English and Romanian Adoptees Study

Theory of Mind (ToM) and Executive Function (EF) have been associated with autism and with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and hence might play a role in similar syndromes found following profound early institutional deprivation. In order to examine this possibility the current study included a group of 165 Romanian adoptees, of whom 144 were adopted into the UK from deprived institutional settings before 43months of age, and a group of 52 within-UK adoptees, all adopted before 6months of age. Both groups were assessed at 6 and 11years. The Strange Stories task was used to assess ToM and the Stroop task was used to assess EF, both at age 11. The Romanian adoptees displayed deficits in both ToM and EF compared with the within-UK adoptee group. The degree of deficit was greater for children who had experienced more than 6months of institutional deprivation. Deficits in both domains (ToM and EF) were associated with each of the three apparently deprivation-specific problems, namely quasi-autism, disinhibited attachment and inattention/overactivity. Statistical analyses indicated a mediating role for both ToM and EF with respect to quasi-autism; possibly a partial mediating role for EF with respect to inattention/overactivity; and probably no mediating role for either ToM or EF in the case of disinhibited attachment. In conclusion, there is evidence for a possible mediating role for ToM and EF in the development of some apparently deprivation-specific difficulties in institution-reared Romanian adoptees, but neither accounts for the overall pattern of deprivation-related difficulties.     

Indexical and symbolic referencing: what role do they play in children's success on theory of mind tasks?

Numerous measures have been employed in the last 17 years to assess theory of mind (ToM). The literature reports marked variability in the age at which children succeed on these measures. To account for this variability, researchers have provided explanations ranging from cognitive shifts and voids to the inability to understand the language of the tasks or to social/pragmatic considerations, all of which tell us little if anything about the internal mechanism underlying ToM. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive theoretical account of children's success and the discrepancies found across different ToM tasks. We test the hypothesis that children's understanding of ToM is sensitive to the basic elements of language, that is, to whether the language is indexical or symbolic. Support for this account was found in the analysis of selected test protocols in four published studies of ToM, and new data collected from 53 children (4--6 years) which showed that a higher percentage of children succeeded on tasks with a high ratio of indexical to symbolic references than on tasks with a high ratio of symbolic to indexical references. There was also a main effect of age with older children succeeding at higher rates on both tasks than younger children. Our findings suggest that indexical representation can afford ToM understanding in 4-year-olds, but is not sufficient for a more mature ToM. The latter requires symbolic representation that was demonstrated by the majority of 5--6-year-olds.