Aspects Of Theory Of Mind Research Articles

A machine-learning approach to investigating the complexity of theory of mind in individuals with schizophrenia

Individuals with schizophrenia have difficulty attributing mental states to themselves and to others - Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM is a complex, multifaceted theoretical construct comprising first and second order, first and third person, egocentric and allocentric perspective, and cognitive and affective ToM. Most studies addressing ToM deficit in people with schizophrenia consider it an "all-or-nothing" ability and use a classical statistical methodology to test a null hypothesis. With the present study, we investigated ToM in individuals with schizophrenia, considering its complex nature and degrees of impairment. To do this, we used a machine-learning approach to detect patterns in heterogeneous and multivariate data. Our findings highlight the complex nature of ToM deficit in individuals with schizophrenia and reveal the relationship between various different aspects of ToM.

Assessing theory of mind abilities in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: A psychometric study of the Faux Pas Recognition test in Serbian

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a social-cognitive ability to understand the mental states of others. ToM functions are compromised in the case of mental disorders characterized by cognitive impairments. The Faux Pas Recognition test (FPRT) is considered a good measure of verbal aspects of ToM as it measures social adaptation through the adequate interpretation of potentially sensitive and awkward social situations. However, data on FPRT psychometric properties is somewhat limited. The aim of the present study is the psychometric evaluation of the FPRT in Serbian population. The adapted version in Serbian has been administered to 268 healthy participants, 30 patients with schizophrenia and 31 with bipolar affective disorder. The results show a high internal consistencies of Faux Pas stories (? = .954), Control stories (? = .929) and overall test (? = .936). Both Horn?s parallel analysis and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a single-factor solution is optimal, supporting the premise of a general ToM ability underlying performance across test. The Faux Pas test showed good discriminative power in differentiation between individuals from healthy and clinical populations making it a useful clinical instrument.

The link between emotion comprehension and cognitive perspective taking in theory of mind (ToM): a study of preschool children.

The study examined the relation between perspective taking embedded in theory of mind (ToM) and emotion comprehension (EC) in young children. Our study involved children from Poland aged 3-6 (N = 99; 54% boys) from public and private kindergartens residing mainly in urban areas, whose parents could mostly be classified as middle class. The children were examined with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) and three tasks targeting three aspects of ToM: a first-order false belief task, an appearance-reality test, and a mental states opacity task. The results showed similarities in performances between these different measures. However, only the opacity task predicted the emotion comprehension test results (η2 = 0.13). The results indicate that the key element of ToM that explains individual differences in children's emotion comprehension is the full-blown understanding of perspective taking, namely that having access to an object under one description does not ensure access to that object under all descriptions. In the research, we took also into account the linguistic side of such specific competences as ToM and EC, which allowed us to see the role of language in scaffolding the development of children's ability to handle such socially fundamental tasks as understanding emotions and epistemic states.

Social Cognition in Opioid Use Disorder

Background: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is associated with significant functional impairment and neurocognitive dysfunction, but only a handful of studies have investigated social cognitive abilities in this condition. This study aimed to investigate facial emotion recognition accuracy/biases and two different aspects of theory of mind (ToM) (ToM-decoding vs ToM-reasoning) in people with recovered OUD. Methods: The participants included 32 people with recovered OUD who were on Buprenorphine + Naloxone (B/N) maintenance treatment and 32 healthy controls. In addition to neurocognitive tasks, both groups were assessed by a facial emotion recognition task, the faux pas recognition task, and the reading the mind from the eyes task. Results: In comparison to healthy controls, people on B/N maintenance treatment showed deficits in facial emotion recognition (d = 1.32) and both aspects of ToM (d = 0.87–1.21). In analyses of individual emotions, people on B/N maintenance treatment had decreased accuracy in recognition of anger and fear and had a bias to identify other emotions as sad. The duration of opioid use was robustly associated with difficulties in the recognition of anger. Conclusion: People in B/N maintenance treatment have significant difficulties in recognizing the emotions and mental states of others. Deficits in social cognition might be important for understanding the difficulties in interpersonal and social functioning in people with OUD.

Mind the gap: challenges of deep learning approaches to Theory of Mind

Theory of Mind (ToM) is an essential ability of humans to infer the mental states of others. Here we provide a coherent summary of the potential, current progress, and problems of deep learning (DL) approaches to ToM. We highlight that many current findings can be explained through shortcuts. These shortcuts arise because the tasks used to investigate ToM in deep learning systems have been too narrow. Thus, we encourage researchers to investigate ToM in complex open-ended environments. Furthermore, to inspire future DL systems we provide a concise overview of prior work done in humans. We further argue that when studying ToM with DL, the research’s main focus and contribution ought to be opening up the network’s representations. We recommend researchers to use tools from the field of interpretability of AI to study the relationship between different network components and aspects of ToM.

The complexity of theory of mind deficit in schizophrenia: A cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from a longitudinal schizophrenia study

A large number of trials have supported the functional significance of Theory of Mind (ToM) impairment in schizophrenia. However, the nature and the extent of the impairment are still unclear. Reviews on the topic suggest that, in many cases, studies use only one tool to assess the levels of difficulty in the field, limiting the validity of the measurement to one aspect of ToM. On the other hand, the divergence of the used assessment tools makes it hard to compare the result of these studies. Thus, we decided to use additional assessment tools to evaluate the extent of ToM in order to describe several aspects of the phenomenon.A hierarchical cluster analysis of variables was used on a sample of 68 participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, to determine the similarity between variances of the assessed ToM subcomponents. Further cross-sectional correlational analysis was then performed to investigate the association between the identified clusters and other used measures (e.g.: neurocognition).The statistical analysis supported a five-cluster model. Identified clusters illustrate the difference between Hypo and HyperToM as well as the degree of ToM task complexity, allowing for a more accurate description of the nature of ToM deficit in schizophrenia.

Effect of Solitary and Group Purposeful Movement Plays on Various Aspects of Theory of Mind in Girls Aged 8 years

Background and Aims Solitary movement plays have been reported to be effective in improving the primary aspects of Theory of Mind (ToM), and the design of interventions based on interpersonal interactions has been emphasized to influence the advanced aspects of ToM. To test this hypothesis, the effect of solitary and group purposeful movement plays on various aspects of ToM in girls aged eight years was compared. Methods In this quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design, 40 girls with a mean age of 8.53 years from two elementary schools in Tehran were selected and randomly assigned to solitary play (n =13), group play (n = 12), and control (n = 15) groups after preliminary evaluations. The Test of Theory of Mind (Ghamrani et al., 2006) was completed immediately before and after an experimental period (eight weeks, 16 sessions of 60 minutes) and one month after the end of the intervention. The 3 (time) × 3 (group) mixed analysis of variance and related post hoc tests at a 95% confidence level were used to analyze the data. Results Recognition of emotions and pretense (ps < 0.001), understanding of false belief (ps <0.001), and total level of ToM (ps < 0.001) significantly improved in both experimental conditions, but second-order false belief and understanding of humor improved only in the group play condition (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the scores of the recognition of emotions and pretense (ps < 0.05), understanding of false belief (ps < 0.05), second-order false belief and understanding of humor (ps < 0.001), and the total level of ToM (ps < 0.001) in the play condition group were significantly higher than solitary play in the post-test and follow-up. Conclusion Although solitary movement plays improve the primary aspects of ToM, to facilitate the development of more advanced aspects, such as understanding of humor and second-order false belief, the use of group-based interactive-cooperative plays seems to be essential for eight-year-old girls.

Lesions in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex and their Impact on Social Cognition

Aims: To identify the impact of ventromedial prefrontal cortex injury (vmPFC) on social cognition (SC) processes in a stroke patient in relation to a control group matched by age, gender and schooling. Possible associations between post-injury behavior and impacted neuropsychological attributes of emotion recognition, Theory of Mind (ToM), and empathy are discussed. Method: A patient with stroke in right vmPFC and 10 healthy participants completed different screening, neuropsychological assessment and SC tests. Results: Correlations were found between damage in vmPFC and alterations in affective ToM, working and retrograde memory, mood and relational alterations in the patient. Discrepancies were found with respect to other studies in relation to the laterality of the injury and the impact of cognitive and affective empathy which seems to be relatively intact. Conclusions: There is a need to clarify the role of affective ToM after acquired brain injury (ABI) in vmPFC. A protocol is needed to assess and intervene in aspects of ToM that would involve documenting strengths and deficits of ToM: inter and intrapersonal after an ABI. Similarly, there is a need to address the lateralization of different domains of function in vmPFC and their relationship to affective ToM. How to cite: Sánchez Tombe, J. R. (2022). Lesions In The Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex And Their Impact On Social Cognition. Revista Colombiana de Psicología,31(2), 11-26. https://doi.org/10.15446/rcp.v31n2.88206

Theory of mind tested by implicit false belief: a simple and full-fledged mental state attribution.

About 40 years have passed since 'theory of mind (ToM)' research started. The false-belief test is used as a litmus test for ToM ability. The implicit false-belief test has renewed views of ToM in several disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. Many important questions have been considered via the paradigm of implicit false belief. We recently addressed the phylogenetic and physiological aspects of ToM using a version of this paradigm combined with the chemogenetic technique on Old World monkeys. We sought to create animal models for autism that exhibit behavioral phenotypes similar to human symptoms. The simultaneous manipulation of neural circuits and assessments of changes in phenotypes can help identify the causal neural substrate of ToM.

A Cross-Cultural Study of Theory of Mind Using Strange Stories in School-Aged Children from Australia and Mainland China

ABSTRACT To date, cross-cultural studies on Theory of Mind (ToM) have predominantly focused on preschoolers. This study focuses on middle childhood, comparing two samples of mainland Chinese (n = 126) and Australian (n = 83) children aged between 5.5 and 12 years. Strange Stories, the most commonly used measure of ToM, was employed. The study aimed to examine the one- versus two-factor structure and measurement invariance of Strange Stories across two cultures; use the verified invariant model of Strange Stories to compare children’s cognitive and affective ToM across two cultures; and finally, to investigate correlates of individual differences on Strange Stories cross-culturally. Multiple-groups confirmatory factor analysis revealed the measurement invariance of a two-factor model of Strange Stories (cognitive and affective) in both groups. Chinese children performed comparably to Australian children on cognitive ToM stories, but more poorly than Australian children on affective ToM stories. There were cultural differences in the correlates of ToM. The number of older siblings was a positive predictor of cognitive ToM for Chinese children, but a negative predictor of cognitive ToM for Australian children. The findings confirm that Strange Stories is a reliable measure for evaluating ToM in school-aged children from mainland China and Australia and highlight the importance of considering both cognitive and affective aspects of ToM in cross-cultural comparison.

The Effects of Adult Aging and Culture on Theory of Mind.

Older adults tend to have poorer Theory of Mind (ToM) than their younger counterparts, and this has been shown in both Western and Asian cultures. We examined the role of working memory (WM) in age differences in ToM, and whether this was moderated by education and culture (the United Kingdom vs. Malaysia). We used 2 ToM tests with differing demands on updating multiple mental states (false belief) and applying social rules to mental state processing (faux pas). We also looked at the role of education, socioeconomic status, and WM. A total of 298 participants from the United Kingdom and Malaysia completed faux pas, false belief, and WM tasks. Age effects on some aspects of ToM were greater in the Malaysian compared to the UK sample. Malaysian older adults were poorer at faux pas detection, aspects of false belief, and WM compared to young adults. In subsequent moderated mediation analyses, we found that, specifically in the Malaysian sample, the mediating effects of WM on the age and ToM relationship occurred at the lowest levels of education. This pattern of results may reflect changes in the familiarity and cognitive load of explicit mental state attribution, along with cultural differences in the pace and nature of cognitive aging. Cultural differences in education and WM should be considered when researching age differences in ToM.

Unimpaired social cognition in adult patients with ADHD: brain volumetric and behavioral results.

The present study aimed to investigate whether adult patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show deficits in social cognition and to identify the structural neural correlates of social cognitive skills in ADHD. Twenty-six adult patients with ADHD and 26 matched healthy control participants performed the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition and underwent a structural magnetic resonance imaging scan. We compared theory of mind (ToM) performance between ADHD patients and healthy controls. Using voxel-based morphometry, we further compared gray matter volumes in regions that are critical for social cognition between the two groups and examined whether ToM performance was correlated with brain morphometry measures. We did not observe any between-group differences in ToM abilities or regional gray matter volumes. Across both groups, performance on affective aspects of ToM correlated positively with gray matter volumes in the medial part of the superior frontal gyri, which is typically involved in social cognition. This study is the first to relate brain structure to social cognitive abilities in adult patients with ADHD. Although our sample was small and heterogeneous, with half of the patients showing mild-to-moderate psychiatric comorbidities, our results may encourage longitudinal studies that relate social cognitive development in childhood and adolescence to brain maturation of ADHD patients.

Higher order theory of mind in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder.

Some evidence suggests that patients with bipolar disorder (BD) have better Theory of Mind (ToM) skills than patients with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder (SCH). However, this difference is not consistently reported across studies, so rather than being global, it may be restricted to specific aspects of ToM. Our primary objective was to compare higher order ToM performance between BD and SCH patients using the Hinting Task (HT). Ninety-four remitted patients were recruited (BD = 47, SCH = 47). Intelligence quotient (IQ), attention, memory, executive functions, and processing speed were also assessed. Patients with BD performed better on the HT than patients with SCH, even when the analysis was adjusted for IQ and neurocognition (p < 0.001, [Formula: see text] = 0.144). Regression analysis in the total sample showed that a diagnosis of SCH and lower IQ were associated with lower HT scores (R2 = 0.316, p < 0.001). In the BD group, verbal memory and processing speed were the main predictors of HT performance (R2 = 0.344, p < 0.001). In the SCH group, no variable was significant in explaining HT performance. In the context of previous studies that found no significant differences in the most basic aspects of ToM (e.g., understand other people's thoughts/beliefs), our results suggest that differences between the two disorders might be limited to the more challenging aspects (e.g., understand the intended meaning of indirect requests). No causal inferences can be made in this cross-sectional study. However, regression analyses show that whereas in BD patients, ToM functioning would be partially modulated by neurocognitive performance, in SCH patients, it could be largely independent of the well-known neurocognitive impairment.

What is the contribution of executive functions to communicative-pragmatic skills? Insights from aging and different types of pragmatic inference.

The role of executive functions in supporting the pragmatics of communication has been extensively examined in clinical populations, but is still under-explored in healthy aging. In this study we addressed the role of executive skills, including inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, in older adults' communicative-pragmatic abilities. Pragmatics was extensively assessed by measuring the understanding of figurative language, narrative texts, humor, and implicatures. A hierarchical regression analysis using composite scores evidenced a global effect of executive functions on communicative-pragmatic abilities, beyond demographic and theory of mind aspects. More fine-grained analyses showed that working memory was the strongest predictor of all pragmatic tasks. Specifically, comprehending narratives and humor seemed to capitalize primarily upon working memory, whereas figurative language and implicatures relied on working memory and to some extent cognitive flexibility. Conversely, inhibition did not stand out as a robust predictor of pragmatics. We argue that working memory allows for the simultaneous consideration of multiple pieces of information needed for pragmatic inferencing, and that only once working memory has played its role other executive aspects, such as cognitive flexibility and inhibition, might come into play. Overall, this study highlights the diverse role of executive skills in pragmatics in aging, and more generally contributes to shed light on pragmatic competence in older adults.

Theory of Mind after Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: A Scoping Review.

This scoping review aims to synthesize existing literature regarding theory of mind (ToM) outcomes, the neuropathology associated with ToM outcomes, and the relationship between ToM outcomes and social functioning in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI). We searched MEDLINE® and PsycINFO databases to identify all literature that examined ToM following pediatric TBI until July 2019. A total of 29 articles met inclusion and exclusion criteria and were included in the results. These articles examined a variety of aspects of ToM, which could be broadly grouped into those focused on cognitive, cognitive-affective, and pragmatic factors. The existing literature suggests that children and adolescents with TBI, compared with their typically developing peers and peers with orthopedic injuries, are more likely to have deficits in ToM. The evidence further shows that the age at which brain injury occurs contributes to ToM disruption. Neuroimaging techniques have offered crucial insights into how TBI may impact ToM performance in children and adolescents. Finally, this review provides evidence that disruption in ToM plays a role in the difficulties in social functioning demonstrated by children and adolescents with TBI. Limitations and gaps in the existing literature warrant future research in this field.

Research Review: The relationship between social anxiety and social cognition in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Childhood Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is common and impairing. The recommended treatment is a disorder specific form of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that includes social skills training and, whilst they appear to be more effective than more general treatments, it is not clear whether social skills training is the critical component involved in improved outcomes, particularly given that evidence for the relationship between social anxiety and social skills deficits in children is inconsistent. This may be partly due to an overlap in their observable features, and because the nature of the association may vary in different contexts (e.g. according to child age). An alternative approach is to examine the association between social anxiety and the social cognitive capacities that underpin social skills. This paper aims to examine the association between social anxiety and social cognition in children and adolescents, and examine conceptual and methodological moderators of this relationship. Papers published between 1980 and 2019 were screened systematically. Fifty studies were identified from which an effect size could be calculated for the relationship between social anxiety and social cognition, including 15,411 children and adolescents. An overall significant, but moderate effect (r=-.15) was identified, where increased social anxiety was associated with lower social cognitive ability. Moderation analyses revealed specific associations within studies examining social anxiety among participants with and without ASD who were older than 7 years old, and studies assessing the relationship between social anxiety and specific aspects of Theory of Mind (ToM). No significant association was identified between social anxiety and emotion recognition. Significant associations between social anxiety and social cognitive abilities appear to be accounted for by elevated social anxiety among children with ASD, and those with difficulties in specific aspects of ToM but not broader social skills, such as emotion recognition. This reinforces the importance of accurately identifying and treating social anxiety within ASD populations. In addition, treatments for social anxiety among neurotypical populations may benefit from targeting particular aspects of ToM rather than emotion recognition and other broad social skills.

Affective and cognitive theory of mind in patients with cervical dystonia with and without tremor.

Theory of mind (ToM) refers to an individual's ability to attribute mental states to predict and explain another person's behavior. It has been shown that patients with cervical dystonia (CD) present impaired ToM ability supporting the idea that CD is a network disorder. An emerging hypothesis is that different phenotypes of CD reflect distinct key nodes in the malfunctioning cerebral network. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the presence of tremor as additional phenotypic feature of CD influences the ability to attribute a cognitive or emotional state to another person. We enrolled 35 patients with CD, 21 with tremor (CD-T) and 14 without tremor (CD-NT) and 47 age-matched healthy subjects (HS). The Emotion Attribution Task (EAT) was adopted to assess the affective ToM ability while the Advanced Test (AT) was used to investigate the cognitive ToM ability. Results showed that CD patients' performance was worse than HS in recognizing the emotional feelings expressed in the EAT situations, with no difference between CD-T and CD-NT. Regarding cognitive ToM, both CD-T and CD-NT performed worse than HS in the AT task. However, it also emerged that CD-T were more impaired in AT task than CD-NT. Our results indicate that both affective and cognitive aspects of ToM are impaired in CD and that cognitive ToM is more impaired in patients presenting tremor respect to those without. These findings support the hypothesis that the cerebral network responsible of motor and non-motor impairments is more widespread in CD-T than CD-NT.

Cognitive and Affective Aspects of Theory of Mind in Greek-Speaking Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Substantial research indicates that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties with Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities, but rarely have studies used a comprehensive battery to measure both the cognitive and affective aspects of ToM. The present study tested this ability in 24 Greek-speaking children with ASD (ages 7-14), and their performance was compared to 24 age-, gender- and language-matched typically developing controls. Results showed that ASD children's performance was selectively impaired in both ToM aspects, supporting the distinction between ToM components. This is the first study of ToM abilities among Greek-speaking children with ASD, and the findings confirm that children with ASD are experiencing difficulties with socio-emotional understanding across languages and cultures.

Association of theory of mind and empathy abilities in adolescents with social anxiety disorder

Studies have shown that elevated empathic abilities and impaired theory of mind (ToM) tasks may be associated with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Adolescence is a critical period for the onset of SAD which may cause impairment in various domains of functioning. We aimed to investigate the association of ToM and empathy characteristics in adolescents diagnosed as having SAD. Forty-one drug-naive adolescents (between 12 and 18 years), who were diagnosed as having SAD without comorbidities were enrolled in the patient group. Forty adolescents in the same age range without any psychiatric disorders were matched as the healthy control group. The sample was evaluated via the Kiddie and Young Adult Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia Present and Lifetime Version. The severity of the SAD symptoms was evaluated using the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents. ToM was evaluated with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and emotion recognition was assessed by Faces Test. The KA-SI Empathic Tendency Scale was used to assess empathic abilities. The average age was 14.36 ± 1.41 years in the SAD group and 14.30 ± 1.04 years in the control group. Twenty-eight adolescents were female in the SAD and control groups. SAD and healthy controls did not differ in terms of sociodemographic data. There were higher scores in the KA-SI cognitive and affective empathic subscales (p < .001 in all scales) in the SAD group compared with the healthy controls. Adolescents with SAD have more difficulties both in Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and Faces Test. The results of this study may indicate that although adolescents with SAD may be impaired in decoding aspects of ToM they may evaluate themselves as more empathic in self-report tests. The discrepancy between objective tests of ToM decoding and subjective reports of empathy may play an important role in the etiology and treatment of SAD in adolescents.

Cognitive and Affective Theory of Mind in Positive Schizotypy: Relationship to Schizotypal Traits and Psychosocial Functioning.

Theory of mind (ToM) impairments are well documented in schizophrenia, although it remains unclear whether these deficits exist among individuals with schizotypy. The current study sought to shed light on mixed findings in schizotypy by differentiating between various aspects of ToM, (cognitive/affective ToM and overmentalization/undermentalization). A three-group design (positive schizotypy, negative affect, and healthy control) was used to assess ToM performance on the Movie for Assessment of Social Cognition. Results indicated that the positive schizotypy group made greater intent overmentalization errors than both control groups. The schizotypy and negative affect groups made greater emotion overmentalization errors relative to healthy controls. In addition, the authors explored the relationship between ToM, schizotypal traits, and psychosocial functioning. Results demonstrated a significant positive relationship between cognitive-perceptual schizotypal traits and intent overmentalization as well as a significant positive relationship between interpersonal traits and emotion overmentalization. Finally, intent and emotion overmentalization were both related to poorer psychosocial functioning.