Understanding Of Mental States Research Articles

Morally-relevant theory of mind is related to viewing gender inequalities as unacceptable

Previous research has shown that morally-relevant theory of mind enables children to avoid blaming a peer for an accidental transgression. The current study investigated whether this form of theory of mind helps children recognize that gender inequalities are unfair and create negative emotional experiences. Further, the study examined this ability across three perspectives (for themselves, for those who have been advantaged by inequality, and for those who have been disadvantaged by inequality). Participants were 141 children (MAge = 6.67 years, 49% female, 32% ethnic/racial minority) recruited from the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. Experience with the negative consequences of gender bias and more advanced mental state understanding was associated with more negative evaluations of gender inequalities and more neutral attributions of others’ emotions. These findings shed light on the role of different forms of mental state understanding in children’s evaluations of inequalities based on gender.

Theory of mind and metacognition in migraine patients

Objective: Theory of Mind (ToM) and metacognition are distinct psychological constructs, involving the understanding of emotions and mental states in oneself and others. Despite their relevance, these concepts have been poorly investigated in adult migraine groups and the findings in the existing literature are inconsistent. Our objective was to assess the hypothesis that theory of mind skills and metacognitive abilities are impaired in individuals with migraine. Material-Method: We included 23 individuals with Episodic Migraine (EM), 19 with Chronic Migraine (CM) and 30 Healthy Controls (HCs). To assess Theory of Mind (ToM) skills and metacognitive abilities, participants, including both EM and CM patients in an attack-free period, as well as HCs, underwent the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Reading Mind in the Eyes test (RMET) and Metacognition Scale (MCQ). Results: Patients with CM exhibited higher BDI scores compared to both EM patients and HCs (p=.018, p=.032, respectively). Furthermore, the RMET scores of CM patients were significantly lower than those of the HCs (p=.011). MCQ scores did not show significant differences between the groups (p=.288). Notably, MCQ scores were positively correlated with BDI scores (r=0.42, p<0.0001), and RMET scores were negatively correlated with the duration of migraine (r=-0.46, p=0.003). Conclusion: Our findings highlight the presence of ToM skills impairments in adult migraine patients, particularly associated with the chronicity of the disease. Managing migraine in patients should consider addressing the observed low ToM skills as part of the overall approach.

The relationship between Theory of Mind and Executive Functioning in typically developing children: A systematic review

The development of Theory of Mind (ToM) constitutes a central topic in the study of human cognitive development. During the last decades, researchers representing different theoretical approaches have been trying to explore the emergence and development of mental state understanding and the potential contribution of other complex cognitive mechanisms in this developmental process. The relationship between ToM and Executive Functions (EFs) has been assessed in the context of various experimental designs. Despite the significant number of existing studies and the variety of relevant theories proposed, there is still no agreement about the exact nature of the ToM-EFs relationship. The main aim of this paper is to review relevant research results on typically developing children. It attempts to disentangle the factors that can potentially explain the contradictory findings reported in the literature. The results, overall, support the ToM-EFs relationship and suggest EFs’ important role in ToM development. However, the exact nature of this relationship seems obscured by the diversity of approaches, operationalization of the theoretical constructs, methods and ages included in the studies. It is, therefore, suggested that for building a unified picture and an explanatory account of the dynamic developmental relationship between these two complex theoretical constructs, a refinement in the conceptual definitions and methodological approaches is crucial.

The Chinese "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test: A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism.

We developed a 28-item Chinese Eyes Test and tested its psychometric properties with a mixed sample of high-functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome and neurotypical adults. The Chinese Eyes Test showed good convergent and divergent validity, satisfactory known-group discrimination, and acceptable internal consistency. The identified cutoff score of 18 or below (Sensitivity: 66.7%; Specificity: 84.0%) should be useful for identifying clinically significant levels of social cognitive deficits, in terms of difficulty with the perceptual understanding of others' mental states, in high-functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome.

Classifying human emotions in HRI: applying global optimization model to EEG brain signals.

Significant efforts have been made in the past decade to humanize both the form and function of social robots to increase their acceptance among humans. To this end, social robots have recently been combined with brain-computer interface (BCI) systems in an attempt to give them an understanding of human mental states, particularly emotions. However, emotion recognition using BCIs poses several challenges, such as subjectivity of emotions, contextual dependency, and a lack of reliable neuro-metrics for real-time processing of emotions. Furthermore, the use of BCI systems introduces its own set of limitations, such as the bias-variance trade-off, dimensionality, and noise in the input data space. In this study, we sought to address some of these challenges by detecting human emotional states from EEG brain activity during human-robot interaction (HRI). EEG signals were collected from 10 participants who interacted with a Pepper robot that demonstrated either a positive or negative personality. Using emotion valence and arousal measures derived from frontal brain asymmetry (FBA), several machine learning models were trained to classify human's mental states in response to the robot personality. To improve classification accuracy, all proposed classifiers were subjected to a Global Optimization Model (GOM) based on feature selection and hyperparameter optimization techniques. The results showed that it is possible to classify a user's emotional responses to the robot's behavior from the EEG signals with an accuracy of up to 92%. The outcome of the current study contributes to the first level of the Theory of Mind (ToM) in Human-Robot Interaction, enabling robots to comprehend users' emotional responses and attribute mental states to them. Our work advances the field of social and assistive robotics by paving the way for the development of more empathetic and responsive HRI in the future.

Outcomes for Adaptive Mentalization Based Integrative Treatment informed care for adolescents using a deployment-based approach.

Adolescent mentalisation-based integrative therapy (AMBIT) is a whole-systems approach designed to enhance the effectiveness and coordination of care for clients experiencing severe and pervasive difficulties in social and health care settings, who have not responded to traditional clinical approaches. AMBIT is a team-based manualised method that primarily aims to bolster mental state understanding and discourse focused on the client within and between teams. Over 300 teams worldwide have been trained in and adhere to AMBIT principles. In this paper, we review and summarise the outcomes reported by eight AMBIT-informed teams that have published their findings with young people. Each report is discussed, and limitations of the data provided are identified. A synthesis of the findings across the studies suggests a generally positive impact of teams informed by AMBIT with moderate to large effect sizes on reducing symptoms and improving functionality. This study suggests that AMBIT may be a promising approach for young people with multiple problems but further research is needed to identify the active mechanisms of change in complex helping systems.

Favoring Inequalities and Mind-Reading: Social Dominance Orientation Relates to Poor Mentalizing.

Although studies have so far investigated social dominance orientation (SDO) in relation to its association with prejudice and discrimination toward outgroups, it is not known whether SDO's link with poor intergroup relations might be underlined by specific socio-cognitive factors such as reduced mind-reading motivation (MRM) and poor mind-reading performance. The present study tested whether endorsement of SDO is associated with decreased MRM and mind-reading accuracy toward both ingroup and outgroup targets. We randomly assigned one hundred and 20 Turkish university students (Mage = 22.02) into two target groups for mind-reading, Turkish ingroup (N = 60) and Syrian outgroup (N = 60), and asked them to infer minds of either ingroup or outgroup members depending on their target group. Participants also reported their level of MRM and SDO through questionnaires. When the target was a Turkish ingroup member, SDO negatively and directly predicted mind-reading, when the target was an outgroup member, however, higher SDO indirectly predicted lower mind-reading through reduced MRM. These results pointed that favoring intergroup hierarchies relates to poor understanding of others' mental states although the mechanism of the relation changes depending on the group membership of the target.

The relationship between theory of mind and children’s moral judgment: A scoping review

"Theory of mind is the ability that allows us to decipher human behavior by understanding the desires, beliefs, intentions, and motivations of others and our own. It also permits us to predict others’ behavior and model our own in order to act morally toward others. Moral judgment (the ability to appraise whether an intention or the outcome of an action is good or bad) involves mental state understanding, especially when detecting other’s intentions. Because the relationship between theory of mind and moral judgment in early and middle childhood is far from being clearly understood, we conducted a scoping review that allowed us to advance valuable avenues for future research. Of the 34 papers initially identified in five databases (Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycInfo, and ResearchGate), 20 studies were eligible and analyzed concerning their main results and the assessments used for both theory of mind and moral judgment. Most studies reported a direct relationship (one study identifying even bidirectional links) between the two variables of interest. A discussion regarding the implications and future directions is put forward to advance research in children’s understanding of their worlds (internal and external) in a socio-moral way. Keywords: theory of mind, moral judgment, children, autism, scoping review "

Development of representational theory of mind: Concepts of mental states, awareness of thinking, and self-permanence.

In a recent monograph, my students, colleagues, and I reported on a comprehensive set of tests of the theory of Perceptual Access Reasoning (PAR), a new theory of the development of representational theory of mind (ToM). The central tenet of the theory is that young children acquire a hitherto undetected non-representational ToM (i.e., PAR), the use of which allows them to pass standard false belief tasks without understanding false beliefs. Thus, PAR theory capitalizes on an unrecognized flaw in all standard false belief tasks. In what follows, I present an overview of PAR theory, the tests that we have conducted of the theory, and logical arguments for how PAR explains the classic findings in the ToM literature. Next, I evaluate two recent alternate accounts that have been offered by critics, and I discuss some of the issues raised by three invited commentaries on the monograph. Finally, I consider the question, "What is the development of representational ToM the development of?" Insights from philosophy of mind point to the primacy of children's understanding of mental states in themselves, leading to a new concept of self-permanence that can provide the basis for a unified theory of the development of children's understanding of the mental and physical worlds. As a final thought, I consider how PAR was able to hide in plain sight for so long.

Sex and age differences in “theory of mind” across 57 countries using the English version of the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test

The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test (Eyes Test) is a widely used assessment of "theory of mind." The NIMH Research Domain Criteria recommends it as one of two tests for "understanding mental states." Previous studies have demonstrated an on-average female advantage on the Eyes Test. However, it is unknown whether this female advantage exists across the lifespan and across a large number of countries. Thus, we tested sex and age differences using the English version of the Eyes Test in adolescents and adults across 57 countries. We also tested for associations with sociodemographic and cognitive/personality factors. We leveraged one discovery dataset (N = 305,726) and three validation datasets (Ns = 642; 5,284; and 1,087). The results show that: i) there is a replicable on-average female advantage in performance on the Eyes Test; ii) performance increases through adolescence and shallowly declines across adulthood; iii) the on-average female advantage is evident across the lifespan; iv) there is a significant on-average female advantage in 36 out of 57 countries; v) there is asignificant on-average female advantage on translated (non-English) versions of the Eyes Test in 12 out of 16 countries, as confirmed by a systematic review; vi) D-scores, or empathizing-systemizing, predict Eyes Test performance above and beyond sex differences; and vii) the female advantage is negatively linked to "prosperity" and "autonomy," and positively linked to "collectivism,"as confirmed by exploratory country-level analyses. We conclude that the on-average female advantage on the Eyes Test is observed across ages and most countries.

The Origins of Theory of Mind in Infant Social Cognition: Investigating Longitudinal Pathways from Intention Understanding and Joint Attention to Preschool Theory of Mind

ABSTRACT A growing body of literature has established longitudinal associations between key social cognitive capacities emerging in infancy and children’s subsequent theory of mind. However, existing work is limited by modest sample sizes, narrow infant measures, and theory of mind assessments with restricted variability and generalizability. The current study aimed to extend this literature by (a) recruiting a large sample of participants (n = 116; 53 boys; 63 girls; all U.S. residents; 88 White, 8 Hispanic or Latino, 2 Black or African American, 14 two or more races/ethnicities, 4 unknown; median family income: $74-122,000), (b) examining multiple measures of infant social cognition (intentional action understanding, responding to joint attention, initiating joint attention) at Time 1 (8–12 months), and (c) using an ecologically valid theory of mind assessment designed to capture individual differences in preschoolers’ mental state understanding (the Children’s Social Understanding Scale) at Time 2 (37–45 months). Measured variable path analysis revealed a significant longitudinal association between infants’ initiating joint attention and later theory of mind: infants who engaged in more attempts to initiate joint attention with experimenters through gaze alternation or gestures went on to show better parent-reported mental state understanding as preschoolers. Notably, the paths from infants’ responding to joint attention and intentional action understanding to later theory of mind did not emerge as significant. These findings bolster and clarify existing claims about how mental state reasoning is rooted in foundational social-cognitive capacities emerging in infancy.

Visuospatial perspective-taking in social-emotional development: enhancing young children’s mind and emotion understanding via block building training

BackgroundTheory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to represent one's own and others' mental states, and emotion understanding involves appropriately comprehending and responding to others' emotional cues in social interactions. Individual differences in mind and emotion understanding have been associated strongly with verbal ability and interaction and, as such, existing training for children's ToM and emotion understanding is mostly language-based. Building on the literature on embodied cognition, this study proposes that mind and emotion understanding could be facilitated by one's visuospatial experience in simulating other's frames of reference.MethodsThis protocol consists of two training studies. Study 1 will examine if visuospatial perspective-taking training promotes ToM and emotion understanding. Participants will consist of 96 4.5-year-olds and will be randomly assigned to one of two training groups: the altercentric block building group (trained to be visuospatial perspective-takers), or the egocentric block building group (no visuospatial perspective-taking is involved). Study 2 will compare the engagement of visuospatial perspective-taking and verbal interaction in the development of mind and emotion understanding. Participants will consist of 120 4.5-year-olds. They will be randomly assigned to one of three training groups: the socialized altercentric block building (both visuospatial perspective-taking and verbal interaction), the parallel altercentric block building (visuospatial perspective-taking only), or the paired dialogic reading (verbal interaction only).ConclusionsIn terms of theoretical implications, the potential causal relationship between visuospatial perspective-taking and ToM and emotion understanding may shed new insights on what underlies the development of mental state understanding. The findings of this study also have practical implications: researchers and educators may popularize visuospatial perspective-taking training in the form of block-building games if it is found to be effective in complementing conventional language-based theory-of-mind training.

Cortisol awakening response and testosterone jointly affect adolescents' theory of mind

Adolescence is a critical period for the maturation of neurobiological processes and hormone secretion. Recent studies on the dual-hormone hypothesis have indicated that basal cortisol and testosterone jointly affect dominant and aggressive behavior among adolescents and adults. Whether this hypothesis applies to prosocial-related understanding of others' mental states remains unclear. The present study investigated associations between basal testosterone, basal cortisol (and cortisol awakening response [CAR]), and the cognitive/affective theory of mind (ToM) in 243 adolescents (67.9 % male, aged 14 to 17 years, Mage = 16.09, standard deviation = 0.62). Cognitive ToM (cToM) and affective ToM (aToM) were assessed with a cartoon story reasoning task: In the cToM condition, participants viewed a comic strip story and needed to predict what would happen based on a character's intentions, and in the aToM condition, they viewed a comic strip of two characters interacting and needed to think about what would make the protagonist feel better. The results showed that basal testosterone and basal cortisol did not interact with each other to affect the performance of ToM, either in terms of ToM accuracy or response speed. However, under the condition of low CAR, testosterone is associated with the fast performance of cToM, although the interaction of testosterone and CAR occurred only in female adolescents. Overall, our data provide new evidence for the dual-hormone hypothesis and further extend the hypothesis to social understanding.

ToM & ASD: The interconnection of Theory of Mind with the social-emotional, cognitive development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The use of ICTs as an alternative form of intervention in ASD

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex, heterogeneous disorder that affects perception, information processing, social interaction, verbal, and nonverbal communication, and social, and cognitive behavior. Theory of Mind concerns the observation, understanding of mental states, as well as the interpretation of the behaviors that result from them. The present paper focuses on the interconnection of Mind Theory with the social-emotional, and cognitive development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The research findings give prominence to the existence of an interaction between the Theory of Mind and the function of the individual’s social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Therefore, the limited development of Mind Theory observed in children with autism is associated with deficits in their social, cognitive, and metacognitive mechanisms. As a result, the focused holistic approach to their weaknesses in combination with the use of ICTs is a promising, alternative form of therapeutic approach.

The mediating role of attachment and mentalising in the relationship between childhood maltreatment, self-harm and suicidality

BackgroundAlthough the relationship between childhood maltreatment, self-harm and suicidality is well-established, less is known about the mediating mechanisms explaining it. Based on a developmental mentalisation-based theoretical framework, childhood adversity compromises mentalising ability and attachment security, which in turn increase vulnerability to later stressors in adulthood. ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the role of attachment and mentalising as potential mechanisms in the relationship between childhood maltreatment, self-harm and suicidality. Participants and settingWe recruited 907 adults from clinical and community settings in Greater London. MethodsThe study design was cross-sectional. Participants completed self-report questionnaires on retrospectively rated childhood trauma, and current attachment to the romantic partner, mentalising, self-harm, suicidal ideation and attempt. We used structural equation modelling to examine the data and conceptualized childhood maltreatment as a general factor in a confirmatory bifactor model. ResultsThe results showed that childhood maltreatment was both directly associated with self-harm and suicidality and indirectly via the pathways of attachment and mentalising. ConclusionsThese findings indicate that insecure attachment and impaired mentalising partially explain the association between childhood maltreatment, self-harm and suicidality. Clinically, they provide support for the potential of mentalisation-based therapy or other psychosocial interventions that aim to mitigate the risk of self-harm and suicidality among individuals who have experienced childhood maltreatment via increasing understanding of self and other mental states.

Анализ показателей модели психического у детей в биологических семьях и доме ребенка

The current study addressed the role of different social contexts in theory of mind development, specifically whether the structure of the theory of mind indicators in the group of institutionalized children was different from the structure of indicators in the group of children from biological families. The relevant to the theory of mind items of the personal-social scale of the Battelle Developmental Inventory (Newborg et al., 1988) provided by expert assessors in communication with primary caregivers were used to assess young children reared in so-cially-emotionally depriving institutional environment (n = 50; M = 2.18, SD = 0.92 years) and in biological families (n = 50; M = 2.37, SD = 0.92 years). Results suggested between-group differences in the factor structure for the theory of mind indicators. The first factor for rating of children from families reflected competent understanding of the close adult, selfunderstanding, and understanding of peers and feelings towards them, while there was no such combination found in factors for rating of institutionalized children. The findings are discussed in relation to the research data how social environment shapes understanding of mental states by children. Results suggest significant difficulties in the complex and competent theory of mind formation in institutional socio-emotional environment, and emphasize the need of the training plus structural changes intervention program aimed to improve the sensitivity and consistency of primary caregiving environment for young institutionalized children. The findings indicate that information from primary caregivers might be used to study the theory of mind in children, and that the factor structure of the theory of mind indicators reflects the specificity of children's social-emotional environment.

Mentalization-Based Treatment for a Physician With Borderline Personality Disorder.

Mentalization-Based Treatment for a Physician With Borderline Personality Disorder.

The Relations among Theory of Mind, Inhibitory Control, and Aggressive Behavior in 4-Year-Old Children – A Multi-Measure Multi-Informant Approach

ABSTRACT Identifying correlates of aggressive behavior in children might help to find potential candidates for interventions in aggression reduction. While some previous studies found that children’s Theory of Mind (ToM) and inhibitory control (IC) correlate with aggressive behavior, others did not confirm this relation. One explanation for these mixed findings may lie in the application of single measures, which might not provide a comprehensive profile of children’s ToM or IC. For example, to measure children’s understanding of mental states, the majority of studies investigated their understanding of false beliefs. Another explanation is that previous studies differ in the degree to which they controlled for language abilities, which are often correlated with ToM and aggression. Here, we presented 4-year-old children (N = 80) with a broad battery of ToM and IC tasks, complemented by multi-informant assessment of their aggressive behavior. Regression analyses revealed that children’s delay of gratification correlated negatively with aggressive behavior as rated by their kindergarten teachers, even after controlling for language and ToM. After controlling for language and IC, there was no correlation between ToM and the children’s aggressive behavior as rated by the parents. These findings highlight the importance of considering multi-measure multi-informant procedures when identifying correlates of children’s aggressive behavior.

In-session reflective functioning in psychotherapies for borderline personality disorder: The emotion regulatory role of reflective functioning.

The capacity for understanding mental states (reflective functioning; RF) is considered essential for self-growth, social learning, and emotion regulation. Impaired RF is thought to play a central role in borderline personality disorder (BPD). We examined whether asking patients to consider mental states in-session has a down-regulatory effect on emotional arousal in treatments for BPD. Early-, middle- and late-phase videotaped sessions from a randomized-controlled trial of transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP; n = 30), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT; n = 29), and supportive psychodynamic therapy (SPT; n = 29) were segmented to therapist and patient talk-turns. Therapist talk-turns were rated as asking patients to consider mental state (bids for RF) or not. Patient talk-turns were rated for RF and acoustically encoded for arousal. Bids were twice as common in TFP compared to DBT and SPT. Across treatments, therapist bids for RF predicted better RF, which, in turn, predicted lower emotional arousal. Asking patients to consider mental states has a down-regulatory effect on patients' arousal in psychotherapies for BPD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Development and validation of a self-report measure of epistemic trust.

Epistemic trust (ET) refers to trust in communicated knowledge. This paper describes the development and validation of a new self-report questionnaire, the Epistemic Trust, Mistrust and Credulity Questionnaire (ETMCQ). We report on two studies (Study 1, n = 500; Study 2, n = 705) examining the psychometric properties of the ETMCQ and the relationship between EMTCQ scores (i.e., an individual’s epistemic stance) and exposure to adverse childhood experiences, mental health symptoms, attachment, mentalizing and general self-efficacy. The factor structure of the ETMCQ was examined using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses, and its reliability and test-retest reliability were tested. Both studies yielded three correlated yet distinct factors–Trust, Mistrust and Credulity–and confirmed the reliability and validity of the ETMCQ. Preregistered hypotheses were confirmed and replicated across both studies. Main findings suggest intriguing links between the ETMCQ and developmental psychopathology constructs and are consistent with thinking on the role of epistemic stance in undermining adaptation and increasing the developmental risk of mental health problems. Mistrust and Credulity scores were associated with childhood adversity and higher scores on the global psychopathology severity index and both factors partially mediated the link between early adversity and mental health symptoms. Mistrust and Credulity were positively associated with difficulties in understanding mental states and insecure attachment styles. Post-hoc analysis identified that different attachment styles were associated with differences in epistemic stance. In addition, Trust was not associated with reduced levels of mental health symptoms and did not moderate the impact of childhood adversity–findings are congruent with the suggestion that the reduction of mistrust and credulity may be crucial common factors in promoting resilience and the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions. This investigation and the ETMCQ provide an empirical measure of what until now has been largely a theoretical concept and open new avenues for future research.