Scaling of Advanced Theory‐of‐Mind Tasks

Osterhaus, Christopher; Koerber, Susanne; Sodian, Beate

doi:10.1111/cdev.12566

Cited by 92 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…Before commenting on our main result, it should be noted that there were not significant correlations between ToM and executive functioning at pre‐test. This finding is in line with results of a number of studies involving school‐aged children (Bock et al, ; Lecce et al, ; Osterhaus, Koerber, & Sodian, ) but contrasts with studies on preschoolers that have repeatedly found moderate correlations between executive functioning and false‐belief understanding (see, for example, the meta‐analysis by Devine & Hughes, ). This discrepancy in findings can be explained considering the differences between traditional false‐belief tasks and “advanced” measures of ToM, as the ones adopted in the present study.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Enhancing advanced Theory of Mind skills in primary school: A training study with 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds

Bianco

Lombardi

Massaro

et al. 2019

Infant and Child Development

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Recent evidence showed that it is possible to help children's Theory of Mind (ToM) development during preschool and middle childhood. This study aimed to promote advanced mentalizing skills in children attending Year 2 of primary school through a ToM training programme based on narratives followed by multiple‐choice questions and conversations about mental states. Participants were 49 children, aged between 7 and 8 years (Mage = 7.6 years; SD = 3.98 months), assigned to the experimental (27 children, 11 boys) or to the control condition (22 children, 7 boys). The two groups were matched at pretest for age, ToM, socio‐economic background, reading comprehension, and executive functioning. The classroom‐training programme was delivered by an experimenter in four sessions (each 50 min long). The ToM group improved ToM skills significantly more than the control group both in the practiced and in the transfer ToM task. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed. Highlights We developed and tested the efficacy of a training programme for improving theory of mind skills in children aged 7–8 years. The ToM training programme was effective in promoting advanced ToM skills at school in children aged 7–8 years. The study fits with the experiential‐learning account according to which social and pedagogical experiences shape socio‐cognitive development.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Enhancing advanced Theory of Mind skills in primary school: A training study with 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds

Bianco

Lombardi

Massaro

et al. 2019

Infant and Child Development

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“…A second view assigns central importance to the occurrence of a conceptual change. This change takes place between the age of three and four/five for simple ToM skills (Perner, 1991; Gopnik, 1993; Wellman et al, 2001; Wellman, 2014), and this conceptual development continues into more advanced ToM skills at the age of eight/ten (Osterhaus et al, 2016). Our data show a pattern of overall continuous increase, with a steep growth of ToM knowledge around the age of four, followed by a more continuous increase of ToM knowledge leveling off toward the age of five and interrupted by a temporary regression around the age of six, which occurs in boys and girls alike.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…San Juan and Astington (2012) have even suggested that executive function and language abilities can aid the developmental step from an implicit to an explicit ToM. However, Osterhaus et al (2016) found that advanced ToM abilities were not determined by information-processing capacities (such as executive control: working memory and inhibition), instead indicating conceptual development.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Non-linearities in Theory-of-Mind Development

Blijd-Hoogewys

Geert

2017

Front. Psychol.

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Research on Theory-of-Mind (ToM) has mainly focused on ages of core ToM development. This article follows a quantitative approach focusing on the level of ToM understanding on a measurement scale, the ToM Storybooks, in 324 typically developing children between 3 and 11 years of age. It deals with the eventual occurrence of developmental non-linearities in ToM functioning, using smoothing techniques, dynamic growth model building and additional indicators, namely moving skewness, moving growth rate changes and moving variability. The ToM sum-scores showed an overall developmental trend that leveled off toward the age of 10 years. Within this overall trend two non-linearities in the group-based change pattern were found: a plateau at the age of around 56 months and a dip at the age of 72–78 months. These temporary regressions in ToM sum-score were accompanied by a decrease in growth rate and variability, and a change in skewness of the ToM data, all suggesting a developmental shift in ToM understanding. The temporary decreases also occurred in the different ToM sub-scores and most clearly so in the core ToM component of beliefs. It was also found that girls had an earlier growth spurt than boys and that the underlying developmental path was more salient in girls than in boys. The consequences of these findings are discussed from various theoretical points of view, with an emphasis on a dynamic systems interpretation of the underlying developmental paths.

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“…However, implicit false belief understanding was already present and stable in this age range (see also Low, 2010). More evidence is necessary to conclude that implicit mentalizing continuously persists in parallel to a corresponding explicit system beyond early childhood, when children become increasingly proficient in advanced and second order mentalizing (e.g., Perner and Wimmer, 1985; Osterhaus et al, 2016). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit Mentalizing Persists beyond Early Childhood and Is Profoundly Impaired in Children with Autism Spectrum Condition

et al. 2016

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Implicit mentalizing, a fast, unconscious and rigid way of processing other’s mental states has recently received much interest in typical social cognitive development in early childhood and in adults with autism spectrum condition (ASC). This research suggests that already infants implicitly mentalize, and that adults with ASC have a sustained implicit mentalizing deficit. Yet, we have only sparse empirical evidence on implicit mentalizing beyond early childhood, and deviations thereof in children with ASC. Here, we administered an implicit mentalizing eye tracking task to assess the sensitivity to false beliefs to a group of 8-year-old children with and without ASC, matched for chronological age, verbal and non-verbal IQ. As previous research suggested that presenting outcomes of belief-based actions leads to fast learning from experience and false belief-congruent looking behavior in adults with ASC, we were also interested in whether already children with ASC learn from such information. Our results provide support for a persistent implicit mentalizing ability in neurotypical development beyond early childhood. Further, they confirmed an implicit mentalizing deficit in children with ASC, even when they are closely matched to controls for explicit mentalizing skills. In contrast to previous findings with adults, no experience-based modulation of anticipatory looking was observed. It seems that children with ASC have not yet developed compensatory general purpose learning mechanisms. The observed intact explicit, but impaired implicit mentalizing in ASC, and correlation patterns between mentalizing tasks and executive function tasks, are in line with theories on two dissociable mentalizing systems.

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Scaling of Advanced Theory‐of‐Mind Tasks

Cited by 92 publications

References 91 publications

Enhancing advanced Theory of Mind skills in primary school: A training study with 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds

Enhancing advanced Theory of Mind skills in primary school: A training study with 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds

Non-linearities in Theory-of-Mind Development

Implicit Mentalizing Persists beyond Early Childhood and Is Profoundly Impaired in Children with Autism Spectrum Condition

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