Adding sound to theory of mind: Comparing children’s development of mental-state understanding in the auditory and visual realms

Abstract

Theory-of-mind (ToM) gradually develops during the preschool years. Measures of ToM usually target visual experience, but auditory experiences also provide valuable social information. Given differences between the visual and auditory modalities (e.g., sights persist, sounds fade) and the important role environmental input plays in social-cognitive development, we asked whether modality might influence the progression of ToM development. The current study expands Wellman and Liu's (2004) ToM scale by testing 66 preschoolers using five standard visual ToM tasks and five newly-crafted auditory ToM tasks. Age and gender effects were found, with 4- and 5-year-old children demonstrating greater ToM abilities than 3-year-olds, and girls passing more tasks than boys; there was no significant effect of modality. Both visual and auditory tasks formed a scalable set. These results indicate that there is considerable consistency in when children are able to use visual and auditory inputs to reason about various aspects of others' mental states.

Developing theory of mind abilities in Swedish pre‐schoolers

“…When examining the tasks and the age groups, it is evident that the children master significantly more ToM tasks as they grow older. There is also an interesting difference between girls and boys, favouring girls, consistent with the results of Hasni et al (), which showed that 3‐ to 5‐year‐old girls outperformed boys in the overall results of the scale. To examine the gender difference in detail, we analysed the results in each age group.…”

“…Most studies have nevertheless found no difference between boys and girls ToM results (e.g., Bulgarelli, Testa, & Molina, ; Hughes & Dunn, ; Mathieson & Banerjee, ; Renouf et al, ). Some studies have, however, found higher ToM results in girls compared with boys of the same age (Calero et al, ; Charman, Ruffman, & Clements, ; Hasni, Adamson, Williamson, & Robins, ; Walker, ). Charman et al () demonstrated a slight advantage for girls over boys at 3–4 years of age.…”

“…A year later, both boys and girls pass this task. Hasni et al () showed a gender differences in 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds in the United States. Girls outperformed boys on the total number of correct answers on the ToM scale as well as other ToM measures.…”

Knowing what others know: Linking deception detection, emotion knowledge, and Theory of Mind in preschool

“…The seven-item scale was designed for the experimenter to administer tasks in order of relative conceptual difficulty, with the Diverse Desires task being the easiest task and the Real-Apparent Emotion task being the most difficult. As previous research has demonstrated (e.g., Hasni, Adamson, Williamson, & Robins, 2017;Vanderbilt, Liu, & Heyman, 2011;Wellman, Lopez-Duran, LaBounty, & Hamilton, 2008), ToM scale scores were generated by participants completing all seven tasks and receiving one point for each task they passed (possible range: 0-7). As previous research has demonstrated (e.g., Hasni, Adamson, Williamson, & Robins, 2017;Vanderbilt, Liu, & Heyman, 2011;Wellman, Lopez-Duran, LaBounty, & Hamilton, 2008), ToM scale scores were generated by participants completing all seven tasks and receiving one point for each task they passed (possible range: 0-7).…”

“…According to Wellman and Liu (2004), older children tend to pass more ToM scale tasks than younger children, but there is not an effect of task order. As previous research has demonstrated (e.g., Hasni, Adamson, Williamson, & Robins, 2017;Vanderbilt, Liu, & Heyman, 2011;Wellman, Lopez-Duran, LaBounty, & Hamilton, 2008), ToM scale scores were generated by participants completing all seven tasks and receiving one point for each task they passed (possible range: 0-7).…”