First-order Theory Of Mind Research Articles

The 36-Item Yoni Task: Normative Data for the Clinical Assessment of Theory of Mind.

Background: The evaluation of Theory of Mind (ToM) in the clinical setting remains limited due to the lack of valid instruments for a quick and reliable assessment. In this study, the psychometric properties of the Yoni-36 task were tested, and correction grids, equivalence scores, and normative data were computed. Methods: In total, 318 healthy subjects (169 females; mean age = 42.22 ± 18.11 years; mean education = 15.01 ± 3.43 years) were enrolled and administered the Yoni-36 task. Results: Statistical analysis showed good-to-high internal consistency, split-half reliability, and discrimination ability (especially for the second-order items) of the Yoni-36 task. Regression models highlighted the predictive role of age and education on second-order, affective, cognitive accuracy, and response time scores. Education influenced the first-order ToM response time score as well. Based on β values of the regressions, raw scores of the Yoni task were adjusted for sex, age, and education, and correction grids were computed. The equivalent scores indicated an accuracy index score < 0.69 and a response time index score < 0.83 as cut-off points for ToM competence. Normative data reported a mean accuracy and response time index score of 0.90 ± 0.11 and 0.91 ± 0.05 in the Italian population, respectively. Conclusions: The Yoni-36 proved to be a valid instrument for a quick and reliable ToM assessment, suitable to be included in neuropsychological batteries and to be used in routine clinical practice.

Towards a computational model for higher orders of Theory of Mind in social agents.

Effective communication between humans and machines requires artificial tools to adopt a human-like social perspective. The Theory of Mind (ToM) enables understanding and predicting mental states and behaviours, crucial for social interactions from childhood through adulthood. Artificial agents with ToM skills can better coordinate actions, such as in warehouses or healthcare. Incorporating ToM in AI systems can revolutionise our interactions with intelligent machines. This proposal emphasises the current focus on first-order ToM models in the literature and investigates the potential of creating a computational model for higher-order ToM.

Theory of mind performance of large language models: A comparative analysis of Turkish and English

Theory of mind (ToM), understanding others’ mental states, is a defining skill belonging to humans. Research assessing LLMs’ ToM performance yields conflicting findings and leads to discussions about whether and how they could show ToM understanding. Psychological research indicates that the characteristics of a specific language can influence how mental states are represented and communicated. Thus, it is reasonable to expect language characteristics to influence how LLMs communicate with humans, especially when the conversation involves references to mental states. This study examines how these characteristics affect LLMs’ ToM performance by evaluating GPT 3.5 and 4 performances in English and Turkish. Turkish provides an excellent contrast to English since Turkish has a different syntactic structure and special verbs, san- and zannet-, meaning “falsely believe.” Using Open AI's Chat Completion API, we collected responses from GPT models for first- and second-order ToM scenarios in English and Turkish. Our innovative approach combined completion prompts and open-ended questions within the same chat session, offering deep insights into models’ reasoning processes. Our data showed that while GPT models can respond accurately to standard ToM tasks (100% accuracy), their performance deteriorates (below chance level) with slight modifications. This high sensitivity suggests a lack of robustness in ToM performance. GPT 4 outperformed its predecessor, GPT 3.5, showing improvement in ToM performance to some extent. The models generally performed better when tasks were presented in English than in Turkish. These findings indicate that GPT models cannot reliably pass first-order and second-order ToM tasks in either of the languages yet. The findings have significant implications for Explainability of LLMs by highlighting challenges and biases that they face when simulating human-like ToM understanding in different languages.

Cortico-limbic disruption, material-specificity, and deficits in cognitive-affective theory of mind.

The Theory of Mind deficit due to cognitive-affective disintegration is a poorly understood cognitive consequence of cortical and subcortical disruption in right temporal lobe epilepsy. Following Marr's trilevel approach, we used the material-specific processing model to understand the Theory of Mind deficit in drug-resistant epilepsy (N = 30). We examined pre- and post-surgery changes in first-order (somatic-affective, non-verbal component) and second-order Theory of Mind (cognitive-verbal component) in three groups formed using: (i) seizure side (right versus left), (ii) right temporal epilepsy (right temporal lobe epilepsy versus non-right temporal lobe epilepsy), and (iii) right temporal lobe epilepsy with amygdalohippocampectomy (right temporal lobe epilepsy versus left temporal lobe epilepsy amygdalohippocampectomy versus non-amygdalohippocampectomy). We observed a marked deficit in the first-order Theory of Mind in the right temporal lobe amygdalohippocampectomy group; we mapped this deficit to decline in the non-verbal component of Theory of Mind (somatic-affective component). Preliminary results support using a material-specific processing model to understand the Theory of Mind deficits in right temporal lobe epilepsy amygdalohippocampectomy. Malleability of verbal processing in presence of deterioration of non-verbal processing might have clinical relevance for post-surgery recovery in right temporal lobe epilepsy amygdalohippocampectomy. Documenting the material-specific nature of deficits (verbal versus non-verbal) in non-western, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse country enables us to understand the problem of heterogeneity in post-surgery cognitive consequences in the right amygdalohippocampectomy.

Standardization and normative data of the 48-item Yoni short version for the assessment of theory of mind in typical and atypical conditions.

The Yoni task is a computerized tool assessing first-and second-order affective and cognitive Theory of Mind (ToM), accounting for the multidimensional and multi-level mentalizing features. The Italian Yoni task has been validated and standardized in its 98-item version, and a 48-item short version has been proposed for a quick digital evaluation of ToM in clinical contexts. The present study aimed to test the Yoni-48's convergent validity, correlating the tool score with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (ET) and Gender Test (GT), its items discrimination ability through the Classical Test Theory, and Rash model, its reliability by evaluating the internal consistency (McDonald's ω, Cronbach's α, Guttman's λ 2, and Guttman's λ 6) and Spearman-Brown ϱSP split-half analysis, and to provide standardization and normative data in the Italian population. Results suggested a good convergent validity with a statistically significant association with ET (p < 0.001), while a null correlation was observed with GT (p = 0.947). The Classical Test Theory and Rash model confirmed a good discrimination ability of the Yoni-48's second-order affective and cognitive ToM items, while weaker discrimination capacity was registered for the first-order ToM items. The inter-item reliability was optimal for clinical purposes (ω, α, λ 2, λ 6 ≥ 0.90). Also, the split-half reliability was high (Spearman-Brown ϱSP = 0.90). For standardization, age and education were revealed as significant predictors of Yoni accuracy scores, except for the first-order ToM score. Instead, age was the only predictor of Yoni's response speed score. The Italian normative data showed a high Yoni accuracy in healthy adults (mean accuracy = 0.85) and speed (mean response time = 0.92). Finally, both accuracy and response time level was balanced between the affective and cognitive components of ToM. This study supports the psychometric properties of the Yoni-48 and provides normative data for the Italian population. Further studies are needed to test the suitability of this short version for profiling the social cognition neurocognitive phenotype.

Moral judgements among neurotypical children, autistic children and adults with intellectual disability

Background: The present study investigates the possible differences between neurotypical children (NT), autistic children, and adults with intellectual disability (ID) related to (i) morality of the agent, (ii) morality of the action, and (iii) culpability in inappropriate situations. Method: Eighty-four Spanish participants (32 NT, 30 autistic children, and 22 adults with ID) responded to a task of moral transgression with an unambiguous structure (bad intention – bad outcome), where the stories were classified as first-order Theory of Mind (ToM) (based on simple desires) and second-order ToM (based on revenge). Results: Autistic group judged similarly to NT group. However, adults with ID had greater difficulty judging the (ii) morality of the action (compared with the autistic and NT group) and (iii) culpability (compared with the NT group). Also, ID adults encountered problems responding the moral questions in the balloon story (second-order ToM) and ice-cream story (first-order ToM). Conclusions: Autistic and NT children were able to make similar moral judgements, however adults with ID did not respond in the same way – as they were more benevolent in their judgements.

Coordinating movements and beliefs: Different facets of doing things together.

This study investigates the relations between two forms of joint action (JA)-movement coordination (MC) and goal attainment-and theory of mind (ToM), contrasting the interactionist and traditional cognitivist views. A custom task was carried out to measure the properties of the JAs between children and their parents, while classical tasks were performed to measure first- and second-order ToM. Thereafter, cross-recurrence quantification analysis was applied to quantify participants' movements. The children were from Poland and were aged 42, 66, and 78 months (N=297, 133 girls, White, from a large city). The results suggested that the characteristics of dyad MC influence goal attainment and are related to children's first-order ToM (R2 =.447) but not to their second-order ToM.

The Theory of Mind Performance in School-Age children with Down syndrome and autism spectrum disorder

Theory of Mind (ToM) is ability in children and adolescents plays a key role to achieve the cognitive development, emotional and social cognition, which can enhance their communication ability. The study reported herein explored the comprehension of the ToM in Down syndrome (DS), Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), and typically development children (TD) during middle childhood and examined the role of IQ in the Theory of Mind. The participants were 74 Iranian school-aged between 6 and 12 years who participated in three groups: 24 ASD, 24 DS, and 26 TD. Children were compared to ToM tasks and first-, second-and third-order ToM tasks. Participants’ IQs were measured using the Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPMs). We used SPSS 25 for analysis of variance (ANOVA), and correlation coefficient to assess the differences between the groups on ToM tasks. The level of significance was set at .05. These results show consistency with previous literature. TD group performed better than both clinical groups in all orders. ASD was competent to pass the first-order ToM tasks better than DS (p&lt; .001). These findings suggest that second-order did not show statistically significant in clinical groups. It also finds statistically significant between the TD group than both other groups (F= 55.13, p&lt; .001). For the third-order, children with DS did not perform statistically significant different (F= 4.99, p = 0.010) than children with ASD, and nor we found between ASD and TD groups. The IQ was significantly correlated with orders of false belief understanding. The significant consideration is required in further studies with more wide samples in other groups of neurodevelopment disorders.

The atypical pattern of irony comprehension in autistic children

AbstractNonliteral language understanding has always been recognized as problematic in autistic individuals. We ran a study on 26 autistic children (mean age = 7.3 years) and 2 comparison groups of typically developing children, 1 matched for chronological age, and 1 of younger peers (mean age = 6.11 years) matched for linguistic abilities, aiming at assessing their understanding of ironic criticisms and compliments, and identifying the cognitive and linguistic factors that may underpin this ability. Autistic participants lagged behind the comparison groups in the comprehension of both types of irony, and their performance was related to mindreading and linguistic abilities. Significant correlations were found between first-order Theory of Mind (ToM) and both types of irony, between second-order ToM and ironic compliments, and between linguistic abilities and ironic criticisms. The autistic group displayed an interesting, and previously unattested in the literature, bimodal distribution: the great majority of them (n = 18) displayed a very poor performance in irony understanding, whereas some (n = 6) were at ceiling. We discuss these results in terms of two different profiles of autistic children.

Advanced scaling and modeling of children’s theory of mind competencies: Longitudinal findings in 4- to 6-year-olds

First-order theory of mind (ToM) development has shown to conform to a Guttman scale, with desire reasoning developing before belief reasoning. There have been attempts to test for internal consistency and scalability in advanced ToM, but not over a broad age range and only with a limited set of tasks. This 2-year longitudinal study (N = 155; Mage = 4.2; SD = 0.85 months; 68 girls, 87 boys) tests for the scalability of a broader range of ToM tasks, and we model the developmental transition from first-order to advanced ToM in 4- to 6-year-olds. Rasch analyses showed that psychometrically sound and developmentally sequenced scales emerge when measures of morally relevant and second-order false belief, as well as mental verb understanding, metacognition, and recognition of nonliteral speech are included. Individual differences were moderately stable over time, and there were systematic transitions from failure to success in children’s performance, suggesting that conceptual continuity exists between first-order and advanced ToM.

First and Second-Order Theory of Mind as Predictors of Cooperative Behaviors in Preschool and School Children

Prosocial behavior in childhood has been widely studied over the last decades. However, the cognitive processes underlying the development of these behaviors and how children understand each other are still not entirely clear. The concept of Theory of Mind (ToM) has become particularly relevant in the study of the development of social abilities in childhood. In this study, we hypothesize that the cognitive processes of first and second-order ToM are able to predict prosocial behaviors in a differentiated manner. A total of 40 children aged 3 to 7 years old (M = 5.075; SD = 1.248) were evaluated on different tasks to measure both ToM skills, as well as prosocial behaviors such as helping (Instrumental Help; IH) and cooperating (measured through Cooperative Problem Solving and Cooperative Gaming; CPS &amp; CG respectively). Cooperative behavior-related tasks were performed under two conditions: Firstly, a condition of General Behavior (GB) where the task was performed normally. Then, a condition that included an Interruption Period (IP) where the task was abruptly interrupted to assess if the prosocial behavior was resumed autonomously by the child. Our findings enable us to propose a potential framework where first-order ToM predicts basic helping behaviors, while second-order ToM predicts more complex cooperative behaviors. These results also demonstrate that first and second-order ToM skills can differentially predict the complexity of children's prosocial behavior and that helping and cooperative behaviors could be regulated by differential processes.

Group and sex differences in social cognition in bipolar disorder, schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and healthy people

BackgroundImpairment of social cognition is documented in bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder (SCH). In healthy individuals, women perform better than men in some of its sub-domains. However, in BD and SCH the results are mixed. Our aim was to compare emotion recognition, affective Theory of Mind (ToM) and first- and second-order cognitive ToM in BD, SCH and healthy subjects, and to investigate sex-related differences. Methods120 patients (BD = 60, SCH = 60) and 40 healthy subjects were recruited. Emotion recognition was assessed by the Pictures of Facial Affect (POFA) test, affective ToM by the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) and cognitive ToM by several false-belief stories. Group and sex differences were analyzed using parametric (POFA, RMET) and non-parametric (false-belief stories) tests. The impact of age, intelligence quotient (IQ) and clinical variables on patient performance was examined using a series of linear/logistic regressions. ResultsBoth groups of patients performed worse than healthy subjects on POFA, RMET and second-order false-belief (p < 0.001), but no differences were found between them. Instead, their deficits were related to older age and/or lower IQ (p < 0.01). Subthreshold depression was associated with a 6-fold increased risk of first-order false-belief failure (p < 0.001). Sex differences were only found in healthy subjects, with women outperforming men on POFA and RMET (p ≤ 0.012), but not on first/second-order false-belief. LimitationsThe cross-sectional design does not allow for causal inferences. ConclusionBD and SCH patients had deficits in emotion recognition, affective ToM, and second-order cognitive ToM, but their performance was comparable to each other, highlighting that the differences between them may be subtler than previously thought. First-order cognitive ToM remained intact, but subthreshold depression altered their normal functioning. Our results suggest that the advantage of healthy women in the emotional and affective aspects of social cognition would not be maintained in BD and SCH.

Lying and Theory of Mind: A Meta-Analysis.

This meta-analysis investigated the link between lying and theory-of-mind (ToM) by integrating findings from 81 studies involving 7,826 children between 2 and 14years of age from 14 different collectivist and individualist cultures. Overall, there was a small, significant positive association (r=.23). Four main moderators were examined: facet of lying (understanding, instigated production, spontaneous production, maintenance); valence of lies (antisocial, prosocial); type of ToM (first-order, second-order); and culture (collectivist, individualist). Facet of lying and type of ToM were significant moderators. ToM was positively related to all facets of lying, but most strongly linked to lie maintenance and weakest for spontaneous production. Both first-order and second-order ToM were positively related to lying, but the link was stronger for the former.

Validation of revised reading the mind in the eyes test in the Indian (Bengali) population: A preliminary study.

Background:Social cognition deficits are common in clinical populations but there is a dearth of standardized social cognition assessment tools in India. Theory of mind (ToM) is an important aspect of social cognition which is often assessed with the revised reading the mind in eyes test (RMET-R). However, we do not have a statistically validated version of the test for the Indian population.Aim:This study aims to assess the acceptability, reliability, and validity of the Bengali version of the RMET-R.Materials and Methods:We administered the RMET-R to 23 patients with chronic schizophrenia (SCZ), 22 patients with bipolar disorder, and 104 healthy controls (HCs) to evaluate the reliability and validity of the instrument in the Indian (Bengali) population.Results:We obtained moderate internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.6) and test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.64, P < 0.001). Positive correlations were found between RMET-R and Wechsler picture arrangement (r = 0.60, P < 0.001), picture completion (r = 0.54, P < 0.001), and comprehension subtests (r = 0.48, P < 0.001). Patients with SCZ (M = 49.7, standard deviation [SD] = 16.5) scored significantly lower than HCs (M = 68.9, SD = 13.8) (P = 0.008; Cohen's d = 1.3) on the RMET-R. Thus this tool could discriminate patients who are reported to have Theory of Mind deficits from healthy controls.Conclusion:The Bengali version of the RMET-R is a reliable and valid tool for assessing first-order ToM insofar as the original RMET-R measures this construct.

Emotional Education in Early Onset Schizophrenia and Asperger's Syndrome.

In this study, we aim to verify how emotional training can improve empathy and theory of mind (ToM) in patients diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia and Asperger’s syndrome. The study design includes 100 subjects divided into two experimental groups and two control groups. The two experimental groups followed a rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) protocol. The two control groups instead underwent cognitive behavioral psychotherapy training. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was applied to analyze the difference between the Asperger’s syndrome (AS) and early onset schizophrenia (EOS) groups, pre and post training. Our analysis shows that the AS group improved post emotional training but only when emotions were internalized, as demonstrated by the improvement of the scores in the post-treatment eye test (ET) but not in the emotional quotient (EQ) test. The EOS group instead showed post-training improvement, not only concerning skills leading to internalizing emotions but also in empathy, as demonstrated by the improvement of EQ and Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ) test scores. These scores remained lower than in the control group. Finally, our findings reveal that the value of the treatment was more considerable for the EOS group than for the AS group due to the improvement in first- and second-order ToM skills and an improvement of empathic skills in the first group, followed by the group comprising AS subjects. In the AS group, the treatment only favored the enhancement of first-order ToM skills; however, this improved quality of life and social adaptation.

Theory of Mind Deficits and Their Influence on Functional Impairment in Remitted Phase of Bipolar Disorder.

Background:Functional impairment has been convincingly established in the euthymic/ remitted phase of bipolar disorder (BD). Though deficits in social cognition, especially theory of mind (ToM), predict functional impairment, the association has not been consistently proven.Methods:Thirty remitted subjects with BD (as per DSM 5) and 30 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were screened for eligibility and the sociodemographic details and ToM scores, that is, first-order ToM, second-order ToM, and Faux pas, were collected. In subjects with BD, functioning was assessed using Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) and illness variables were collected.Results:No significant difference was found in occupation or education between the groups. Remitted subjects with BD had statistically significant deficits in all domains of ToM, that is, first-order ToM (r = 0.65), second-order ToM (r = 0.69), and Faux pas (r = 0.75). Significant correlations existed between first-order ToM and FAST total score, as well as second-order ToM and FAST total score, but the correlations dropped after controlling for duration of illness and number of depressive episodes. Quantile regression analysis showed that the only factors which predicted global functional impairment was a higher number of episodes (βτ= –0.45, SE = 3.51, t = 0.13, P = 0.04), while all other illness variables and ToM failed to predict the global functioning.Conclusion:Though there seems to be an association between ToM and functioning, only illness variables predicted functional impairment in subjects with BD. We need prospective studies to delineate the contributors to functional impairment.

Social cognition in patients with first episode of psychosis in remission.

Aim:The present study aimed to compare the social cognition (SC) deficits in patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) and healthy controls and evaluate the association of SC deficits with socio-occupational functioning, insight, quality of life, and stigma.Methods:This study included 30 patients with FEP in remission phase and 26 healthy controls matched for age, gender, education, and intelligent quotient. SC was assessed on the domains of theory of mind (ToM), social perception, and attributional bias.Results:Compared to healthy controls, patients with FEP had significantly higher deficits in the domains of second-order ToM (unpaired t = 4.447, P < 0.001) and Faux Pas Composite Index (unpaired t = 2.824, P = 0.007). In the correlation analysis, higher age of patients with FEP was significantly associated with more externalizing bias (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.38, P = 0.039) and those with lower level of education had more social cognitive deficits in the domains of Faux Pas Composite Index (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.43, P = 0.018), Social Perception Index (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.38, P = 0.04), and Nonsocial Perception Index (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.5, P = 0.005). Duration of untreated psychosis was associated with higher deficits in the first-order ToM (Pearson's correlation coefficient = −0.38, P = 0.04) and Externalizing Bias Index (Pearson's correlation coefficient = −0.49, P = 0.006). Longer duration of treatment was associated with higher impairment in first-order ToM index (Pearson's correlation coefficient = −0.42, P = 0.02). General psychopathology and total Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total score correlated significantly with externalizing bias, with a higher level of psychopathology associated with more severe deficits in this domain. There was no correlation of SC with the quality of life, cognitive insight, and stigma (except for occasional correlation of stereotype endorsement and externalizing bias).Conclusion:The present study suggests that compared to healthy controls, patients with FEP have impairment in the domains of second-order ToM and Faux Pas Composite Index. However, social cognitive deficits have only a few correlations with various psychosocial outcomes of FEP.

Care to Share? Children's Cognitive Skills and Concealing Responses to a Parent.

Children begin to use methods of concealment to achieve interpersonal goals at an early age, and the ability to conceal information requires cognitive skills to be effective. Despite research on children's lie telling, there is little known about the "spectrum" of concealment methods that children use, which can range from full disclosures to active concealment through the use of deception. This study focused on children's use of concealment methods in a prosocial situation, in relation to their cognitive ability. Children aged 4-11years (N=106) completed several cognitive activities that measured theory of mind (ToM), working memory, and inhibitory control with an experimenter and created a surprise gift for a parent. After the activities were complete, children were told to keep the surprise gift a secret until it was ready, then they were sent back to their parents, who questioned them about their activities. Children were coded based on their concealment behavior (full disclosers, partial concealers, passive concealers, and active concealers) in response to their parents' questions. A discriminant function analysis indicated that age and children's cognitive scores (first-order ToM, second-order ToM, and working memory) differentiated between children who disclosed the secret about the surprise gift and children who used partial-to-active concealment methods to keep the secret. Results suggest that younger children, and children with lower ToM and working memory were more likely to disclose the secret. Findings suggest that children employ various methods of concealment to keep a prosocial secret from a parent and that higher cognitive ability is associated with the tendency to use concealment methods in social interactions.

学龄前儿童分配模式的传递效应：心理理论和共情的作用 &amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;*&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;

<p id="C2">Previous studies found that children would reciprocate those having benefited them previously, a behavior termed direct reciprocity. When there was no opportunity to reciprocate, the recipient would pay it forward to a third one. The current study aimed to find whether preschoolers would pay it forward if their absolute gains would be dependent on their allocations and its potential socio-cognitive mechanisms. We hypothesized that preschoolers would pay forward others’ selfish, fair or generous allocations, but this tendency would be stronger in the selfish and fair conditions; theory of mind (ToM) as well as empathy would play a role in it.<br/>Children aged 4 to 6 (<italic>N</italic> = 118, 63 females; <italic>M</italic>_age = 64.25 months, <italic>SD</italic> = 6.76) were randomly assigned into 3 experimental groups and 1 control group. In the experimental groups, each child was firstly asked to help an anonymous partner complete a jigsaw game (the child and the partner were to make equal contributions in the game), and then was allocated a reward of 1 token (selfish), 3 tokens (fair) or 5 tokens (generous) as the partner proposed (allocating a total of 6 tokens); subsequently, each participant completed another jigsaw game with another anonymous recipient, to whom the participant then acted as an allocator. In contrast, participants in the control group only completed the resource allocation task once as an allocator after cooperating with an anonymous partner in the jigsaw game. Participants’ abilities of ToM were measured with first-order and second-order ToM tasks. Their abilities of empathy were assessed with the Griffith Empathy Measurement (GEM), filled by their teacher-in-charge. <br/>We found that preschoolers would pay the selfish allocations forward, and even generous ones in spite that their absolute self-interests were dependent on their decisions. Specifically, compared with children in the control group, children in the selfish or generous groups were more likely to propose a similar pattern of allocation for the anonymous recipient, which indicated that others’ patterns of allocation exerted influence on children’s decisions. In contrast, there was no significant difference between the proportion of fair allocations in the control group (80%) and the fair group (80%). Moreover, children in the generous-allocation group who paid it forward had higher levels of second-order ToM and (cognitive) empathy than those who did not do so. However, there were no such differences between these two types of participants in the selfish-allocation and fair-allocation groups.<br/>It was suggested that preschoolers were sensitive to the patterns of allocations made by others, and they would pay it forward whether the allocations were advantageous or disadvantageous to themselves. Socio-cognitive abilities (e.g., ToM, empathy) could be important explanatory factors for this pay-forward effect. Besides, preschoolers in a collaborative context were more likely to comply with the norm of equity. Future studies might test other moderators, such as group membership of the partner, the way children acquire the resources, and explore other explanatory factors like executive functions.

Reading the Mind or Only the Story? Sharing Fiction to Develop ToM With Deaf Children

In literature which discusses the Theory of Mind (ToM) of deaf children, the lens is usually focused on the child. Here, the lens is directed toward the practitioners and the potential they have to support the development of ToM. In considering a practice-focused approach, we report on the strategies used by five educators of five deaf children (aged between 4 and 8 years old) while using fiction books to explore the topic of thoughts and feelings. Observation of the book-sharing activities highlighted opportunities to view ToM as a multidimensional construct and identified a plethora of strategies in use in exploring first-order ToM. However, these strategies did not automatically expose deaf children to second-order and higher order concepts. Points are raised about the need for evidence-based practice in the use of strategies to support the refining and progression of ToM in deaf children and the sharing of applied knowledge within the profession.