Individual Differences In Theory Of Mind Research Articles

Linearly integrating speed and accuracy to measure individual differences in theory of mind: Evidence from autistic and neurotypical adults.

It has long been theorised that there is a direct link between individual differences in social cognition and behaviour. One of the most popular tests of this theory has involved examination of Theory of Mind (ToM) difficulties in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, evidence for associations between ToM and social behaviour is mixed, both when testing the ToM explanation of ASD and when investigating individual differences in ToM in the general population. We argue that this is due to methodological limitations of many ToM measures, such as a lack of variability in task performance, inappropriate non-ToM control tasks, and a failure to account for general mental ability. To overcome these issues, we designed a novel task, which probed individual differences in ToM fluency through mental state attribution in response to cartoons (Cartoons Theory of Mind [CarToM] task). This task, enabling the linear combination of speed and accuracy, was used to quantify ToM ability and its association with self-reported (a)typical social behaviour in adults with and without ASD. In a large sample (N = 237), we found that having an ASD diagnosis and higher autistic traits predicted lower ToM ability, even after accounting for performance on a well-matched non-ToM condition and general mental ability. Overall, our findings provide fresh support for the existence of a link between individual differences in social cognition (specifically, ToM) and behaviour (specifically, autism). This has implications for social-cognitive theory and research, allowing large-scale, online assessment of individual differences in ToM in clinical groups and the general population.

Bilingualism and Healthy Aging: Onset Age of Bilingualism as a Predictor of Older Adult Theory of Mind

The ability to understand and speak more than one language (i.e., bilingualism) may protect against age-related cognitive deterioration (Abutalebi et al., 2015). While there is mounting evidence suggesting that bilingualism confers advantages in domain-general cognitive abilities in late adulthood (see Bialystok, 2017, for a review), few studies have investigated the influences of bilingualism on socio-cognitive abilities such as theory of mind (ToM) in the normal aging process. Thus, in this study, we examine how bilingualism factors (i.e., onset age of bilingualism, language balance, and diversity in language use) are associated with individual differences in ToM in healthy older adult bilinguals aged 58-79 (N=44). ToM abilities were assessed using the Theory-of-Mind Task Battery (Hutchins et al., 2008), where participants viewed vignettes and answered questions about the protagonists’ cognitive and affective mental states. All participants completed a self-report language background questionnaire and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test as a measure of general cognitive ability. Results revealed that better ToM was negatively correlated with participants’ chronological age (r=-.43, p=.004) and the onset age of second-language acquisition (r=-.41, p=.006), but not language balance and diversity (ps>.40). Partial regression analyses showed that earlier onset age of bilingualism predicted better ToM performance (β=-.40, p=.009), even after controlling for age, education, and general cognitive ability. These findings suggest that bilingual language experience, particularly earlier exposure to a second language, may provide benefits to older adults in preserving their ability to understand others’ mental states, acting as a cognitive reserve against age-related declines in socio-cognitive functions.

The Relationship between Theory of Mind and Intelligence: A Formative g Approach.

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability understand that other people’s mental states may be different from one’s own. Psychometric models have shown that individual differences in ToM can largely be attributed to general intelligence (g) (Coyle et al. 2018). Most psychometric models specify g as a reflective latent variable, which is interpreted as a general ability that plays a causal role in a broad range of cognitive tasks, including ToM tasks. However, an alternative approach is to specify g as a formative latent variable, that is, an overall index of cognitive ability that does not represent a psychological attribute (Kovacs and Conway 2016). Here we consider a formative g approach to the relationship between ToM and intelligence. First, we conducted an SEM with reflective g to test the hypothesis that ToM is largely accounted for by a general ability. Next, we conducted a model with formative g to determine whether the relationship between ToM and intelligence is influenced by domain-specific tasks. Finally, we conducted a redundancy analysis to examine the contribution of each g variable. Results suggest that the relationship between ToM and intelligence in this study was influenced by language-based tasks, rather than solely a general ability.

How self-other control determines individual differences in adolescents’ theory of mind

Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to infer others’ mental states, undergoes an ongoing development from adolescence to early adulthood. The present study investigated how self-other control (SOC), the ability to distinguish self- and other-related representations, contributed to individual differences in false-belief inference (a common measure of ToM) in young adults (Study 1) and adolescents (Study 2). Although previous studies have suggested that inhibitory control (IC), the ability to suppress own prepotent responses to help overcome egocentricity, is a crucial determinant to the development of ToM, the present results showed that in both samples, SOC worked as a moderator on the effect of IC when participants inferred others’ false beliefs. Specifically, IC predicted the performance of false-belief inference only in participants with higher SOC. These findings indicate that apart from IC, SOC is also an indispensable determinant to individual differences in ToM of both young adults and adolescents. In addition, the ability to integrate SOC and IC may play an essential role in the development of adolescents’ ToM.

Reading minds and reading texts: Evidence for independent and specific associations

We investigated the specificity and direction of the associations between Theory of Mind (ToM) and reading comprehension (RC) via two studies. In Study 1, measures of ToM and RC were gathered alongside measures of verbal ability (VA), working memory (WM) and family affluence in 157 children (mean age = 9;7 years). Results showed that the relationship between ToM and RC remained significant when more general effects of VA, WM and family affluence were taken into account. In Study 2, a new sample of 60 children (mean age = 9;8 years at T1) was followed over a 6-month period, with children completing tests of ToM, RC and mathematical ability at both timepoints. Individual differences in ToM were unrelated to variation in mathematical ability, but showed a bidirectional developmental association with variation in RC. These results extend the knowledge on the relation between ToM and academic achievement in older children and show the existence of a specific relationship between ToM and RC in middle childhood.

Absorption, Mentalizing, and Mysticism

Research suggests trait absorption, individual differences in Theoryof Mind (ToM), and orthopraxical training are importantfor explaining a variety of extraordinary experiences typicallyassociated with religion. However, no studies exist quantifyingToM ability or testing its relationship with trait absorption inthe prediction of what is arguably the most ubiquitous type ofextraordinary experience-the mystical experience. To addressthis, two exploratory studies were conducted using a sample ofmeditators (N = 269) and undergraduate students (N = 123). Instudy one, regression analyses revealed weekly religious/spiritualpractice, absorption, and mentalizing predict increased mysticalexperiences. Moreover, moderation analysis indicated theabsorption-mysticism relationship is stronger among individualswith lower mentalizing ability. Study two only replicated therelationship of absorption and weekly practice with mysticism.These studies highlight the robust contribution of absorption inmystical experiences and suggest a more dynamic role for mentalizingthan is accounted for in the current literature.

Individual Differences in Theory of Mind Predict Inequity Aversion in Children.

Early in human development, children react negatively to receiving less than others, and only later do they show a similar aversion to receiving more. We tested whether theory of mind (ToM) can account for this developmental shift we see in middle childhood. We conducted a face-to-face fairness task that involved a ToM manipulation, measured individual differences in ToM, and collected parent-ratings of children's empathy, a construct related to ToM. We find that greater ToM capacities lead to more rejections of unequal offers, regardless of the direction of inequality, demonstrating that children with greater ToM are more likely to engage in costly compliance with fairness norms. Moreover, drawing attention to mental states sufficiently elicits aversion to advantageous inequity in younger children. These findings contribute to our growing understanding that people's concerns for fairness rely not just on their own thoughts and beliefs but on the thoughts, beliefs, and expectations of others.

Neural correlates of infant action processing relate to theory of mind in early childhood.

The mechanisms that support infant action processing are thought to be involved in the development of later social cognition. While a growing body of research demonstrates longitudinal links between action processing and explicit theory of mind (TOM), it remains unclear why this link emerges in some measures of action encoding and not others. In this paper, we recruit neural measures as a unique lens into which aspects of human infant action processing (i.e., action encoding and action execution; age 7months) are related to preschool TOM (age 3years; n=31). We test whether individual differences in recruiting the sensorimotor system or attention processes during action encoding predict individual differences in TOM. Results indicate that reduced occipital alpha during action encoding predicts TOM at age 3. This finding converges with behavioral work and suggests that attentional processes involved in action encoding may support TOM. We also test whether neural processing during action execution draws on the proto-substrates of effortful control (EC). Results indicate that frontal alpha oscillatory activity during action execution predicted EC at age 3-providing strong novel evidence that infant brain activity is longitudinally linked to EC. Further, we demonstrate that EC mediates the link between the frontal alpha response and TOM. This indirect effect is specific in terms of direction, neural response, and behavior. Together, these findings converge with behavioral research and demonstrate that domain general processes show strong links to early infant action processing and TOM.

Measuring theory of mind in schizophrenia research: Cross-cultural validation

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to understand mental states of others and it is crucial for building sensitivity to other persons or events. Measuring ToM is important for understanding and rehabilitating social cognitive impairments in persons with schizophrenia. The Social Attribution Task-Multiple Choice (SAT-MC) has been successfully employed to measure ToM between individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls (HC) in North America. Given that the SAT-MC uses geometric shapes, is nonverbal and less culturally loaded than other social cognition measures, it may serve for measuring ToM in schizophrenia across cultures.A total of 120 participants (30 per group; Korean SZ; Korean HC; North American SZ; North American HC) were selected from existing databases to examine the reliability and validity of the SAT-MC. Internal consistency, factor structure, measurement invariance, discriminant validity, and convergent/divergent validity were examined.The SAT-MC had good internal consistency regardless of the clinical and cultural group as evidence by Cronbach's α ≥ 0.78 in all groups. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the one-factor model with a good model fit (χ2 = 188.122, TLI = 0.958, CFI = 0.963, RMSEA = 0.045). The SAT-MC was sensitive to detect individual differences in ToM of SZ and HC, regardless of culture (p < 0.001), and significantly correlated with other social cognition tasks (Hinting and Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test) among Korean and North American patients.The SAT-MC is a reliable measure for evaluating ToM in both Koreans and North Americans with or without schizophrenia, supporting its potential utility in diverse language and cultures for schizophrenia research.

Theory of mind in middle childhood: Longitudinal associations with executive function and social competence.

The vast majority of studies on theory of mind (ToM) have focused on the preschool years. Extending the developmental scope of ToM research presents opportunities to both reassess theoretical accounts of ToM and test its predictive utility. The twin aims of this longitudinal study were to examine developmental relations between ToM, executive function (EF), and teacher-rated social competence in middle childhood. One hundred thirty-seven children (69 males) were followed across a 4-year period spanning middle childhood (M ages at Waves 1 and 2 = 6.05, SD = .35, and 10.81, SD = .35, respectively). Individual differences in ToM were moderately stable across middle childhood. Although there were concurrent associations between ToM and EF at both time points, there were no longitudinal links between these constructs. In contrast, there were concurrent and longitudinal links between ToM and teacher-rated social competence, such that individual differences in ToM predicted later social competence at school. These results are discussed in light of competing theories about the links between ToM and EF and the importance of individual differences in ToM for children's social lives. (PsycINFO Database Record

Theory of Mind and social relationships in older adults: the role of social motivation

Objectives: Previous research has shown that individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM) are crucial for people's social relationships. However, very few studies have investigated this issue in ageing. The present study was designed to fill this gap and examine the associations between ToM and social relationships in elderly adults. In doing so, this study considered people's relationships with their relatives and friends, and examined the possible moderating role of social motivation.Method: The study involved 53 healthy older adults (age: M = 67.91; SD = 6.93; range: 60--85 years). All participants were tested collectively during a 2-hr session and completed a demographic questionnaire as well as a battery of tests assessing verbal ability (vocabulary and word fluency), ToM and social relationships. They also answered a social motivation question.Results: Results showed that individual differences in older people's ToM were overall significantly associated with those in relationships with friends, but not relatives. In addition, the Hayes moderating procedure showed that individual differences in ToM were related to those in friendships only for those people who had a high or medium level of social motivation.Conclusion: These findings underline the importance of motivation in guiding the use of ToM in everyday social interactions.

Beyond Sally's missing marble: further development in children's understanding of mind and emotion in middle childhood.

Research on the development of theory of mind (ToM), the understanding of people in relation to mental states and emotions, has been a vibrant area of cognitive development research. Because the dominant focus has been addressing when children acquire a ToM, researchers have concentrated their efforts on studying the emergence of psychological understanding during infancy and early childhood. Here, the benchmark test has been the false-belief task, the awareness that the mind can misrepresent reality. While understanding false belief is a critical milestone achieved by the age of 4 or 5, children make further advances in their knowledge about mental states and emotions during middle childhood and beyond. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of children's sociocognitive abilities in older age groups is necessary to understand more fully the course of ToM development. The aim of this review is to outline continued development in ToM during middle childhood. In particular, we focus on children's understanding of interpretation-that different minds can construct different interpretations of the same reality. Additionally, we consider children's growing understanding of how mental states (thoughts, emotions, decisions) derive from personal experiences, cohere across time, and interconnect (e.g., thoughts shape emotions). We close with a discussion of the surprising paucity of studies investigating individual differences in ToM beyond age 6. Our hope is that this chapter will invigorate empirical interest in moving the pendulum toward the opposite research direction-toward exploring strengths, limitations, variability, and persistent errors in developing theories of mind across the life span.

The Children's Social Understanding Scale: construction and validation of a parent-report measure for assessing individual differences in children's theories of mind.

Children's theory of mind (ToM) is typically measured with laboratory assessments of performance. Although these measures have generated a wealth of informative data concerning developmental progressions in ToM, they may be less useful as the sole source of information about individual differences in ToM and their relation to other facets of development. In the current research, we aimed to expand the repertoire of methods available for measuring ToM by developing and validating a parent-report ToM measure: the Children's Social Understanding Scale (CSUS). We present 3 studies assessing the psychometric properties of the CSUS. Study 1 describes item analysis, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and relation of the scale to children's performance on laboratory ToM tasks. Study 2 presents cross-validation data for the scale in a different sample of preschool children with a different set of ToM tasks. Study 3 presents further validation data for the scale with a slightly older age group and a more advanced ToM task, while controlling for several other relevant cognitive abilities. The findings indicate that the CSUS is a reliable and valid measure of individual differences in children's ToM that may be of great value as a complement to standard ToM tasks in many different research contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Development of Teaching Skills and Relations to Theory of Mind in Preschoolers

The aims of this research were to examine the development of teaching skills in preschool children and to explore the relation between teaching and theory of mind (ToM). After learning a new board game, 3.5-, 4.5-, and 5.5-year-old children (N = 46) were asked to teach a confederate who “doesn't know how to play the game.” They also received two ToM tasks. Children's teaching skills increased significantly with age: older children taught longer, explained more rules, used more strategies when teaching, and were more likely to recognize and attempt to correct “errors” committed by the confederate. After being controlled for age, individual differences in ToM were significantly correlated with the number of strategies used when teaching. This research suggests that a dynamic teaching task is sensitive to developmental changes and that aspects of children's teaching may serve as a window into their developing understanding of mental states.

Mental playmates: Siblings, executive functioning and theory of mind

This study assessed the theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning (EF) abilities of 124 typically developing preschool children aged 3 to 5 years in relation to whether or not they had a child‐aged sibling (i.e. a child aged 1 to 12 years) at home with whom to play and converse. On a ToM battery that included tests of false belief, appearance‐reality (AR) and pretend representation, children who had at least 1 child‐aged sibling scored significantly higher than both only children and those whose only siblings were infants or adults. The numbers of child‐aged siblings in preschoolers' families positively predicted their scores on both a ToM battery (4 tasks) and an EF battery (2 tasks), and these associations remained significant with language ability partialled out. Results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that independent contributions to individual differences in ToM were made by language ability, EF skill and having a child‐aged sibling. However, even though some conditions for mediation were met, there was no statistically reliable evidence that EF skills mediated the advantage of presence of child‐aged siblings for ToM performance. While consistent with the theory that distinctively childish interaction among siblings accelerates the growth of both ToM and EF capacities, alternative evidence and alternative theoretical interpretations for the findings were also considered.

Individual differences in theory of mind ability in middle childhood and links with verbal ability and autistic traits: A twin study

Identifying the causal processes involved in theory of mind (ToM) development during childhood is an important goal for social neuroscience. This study aimed to investigate, for the first time, the extent to which individual differences in ToM are influenced by genes and environment in middle childhood, and to assess how ToM is linked to autistic-like behaviors and verbal ability. Over 600 9-year-old twin pairs from a subsample of the Twins Early Development Study were assessed on an advanced test of ToM and on verbal ability. Parents, teachers, and the children themselves provided ratings of the twins’ autistic traits (social impairments, communication impairments, and restricted repetitive behaviors and interests), using an abbreviated version of the Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test. Autistic traits, particularly communication impairments, significantly predicted ToM performance. Verbal ability showed the strongest phenotypic association with ToM. Twin model-fitting was employed to investigate the causes of this association. Much of the variation in ToM ability and in verbal ability was explained by environmental influences, with modest heritabilities for each, but their association was almost fully explained by shared genetic effects. The possible neural basis underlying this association is discussed.

Origins of Individual Differences in Theory of Mind: From Nature to Nurture?

In this study of the origins of individual differences in theory of mind (ToM), the Environmental Risk (E‐Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study sample of 1,116 sixty‐month‐old twin pairs completed a comprehensive battery of ToM tasks. Individual differences in ToM were striking and strongly associated with verbal ability. Behavioral genetic models of the data showed that environmental factors explained the majority of the variance in ToM performance in this sample. Shared environmental influences on verbal ability had a common impact on ToM and explained more than half the phenotypic correlation between these two skills. Possible underlying proximal mechanisms are discussed, including maternal speech and mind‐mindedness, sibling interactions, and peer influences.

Maternal mind-mindedness and attachment security as predictors of theory of mind understanding.

This study investigated relations between social interaction during infancy and children's subsequent theory of mind (ToM). Infant-mother pairs (N = 57) were observed in a free-play context at 6 months. Interactions were coded for (a) mothers' use of mental state language that commented appropriately on the infants' mental states, and (b) mothers' use of mental state language that did not appropriately reflect their infants' minds. A third variable was (c) security of attachment, which was assessed using the Strange Situation procedure at 12 months. Performance on a battery of ToM tasks at 45 and 48 months was positively correlated with (a), but was not related to (b) or (c). A regression analysis showed that mothers' use of appropriate mental state comments independently predicted overall ToM performance, accounting for 11% of the variance. Children's verbal ability was the only other independent predictor of ToM performance, accounting for 16% of the variance. These findings represent the earliest known social predictor of individual differences in ToM.