Theory Of Mind Performance Research Articles

From mind to mind: Understanding the role of mothers in children’s theory of mind

Theory of mind (ToM) enables children to comprehend mental states of themselves and others. In this first study investigating the mediating role of mothers' mental state talk between mothers' sociocognitive skills (i.e., mothers' ToM and parental reflective functioning) and children's ToM, 89 children (M(SD)age = 57.0 months (5.49)) and their mothers from Türkiye participated. Results revealed that mothers with higher prementalization scores used fewer affective and desire words. Mothers exhibiting greater interest and curiosity in mental states used more cognitive words, while those with more proficient ToM skills tended to use more mental state terms indicating certainty (e.g., ‘perhaps’). Furthermore, mothers' use of certainty words mediated the relationship between mothers' ToM and children's ToM. These cross-sectional findings underscore the significant role of mothers' socio-cognitive abilities in mother-child interactions regarding mental states and the development of children's ToM skills, and call for a longitudinal investigation into these relationships.

Neural correlates of preschoolers' passive-viewing false belief: Insights into continuity and change and the function of right temporoparietal activity in theory of mind development.

Behavioral research demonstrates a critical transition in preschooler's mental-state understanding (i.e., theory of mind; ToM), revealed most starkly in performance on tasks about a character's false belief (e.g., about an object's location). Questions remain regarding the neural and cognitive processes differentiating children who pass versus fail behavioral false-belief tasks and the extent to which there is continuity versus change in the ToM neural network. To address these questions, we analyzed event-related spectral power in the electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate how preschoolers' neural activity during passive viewing of false-belief scenarios related to their explicit behavioral ToM performance. We found that neural activity during passive viewing of false-belief events (6-9Hz EEG 'alpha' suppression in right temporoparietal [RTP] electrodes) strongly related to children's explicit ToM. However, children's RTP alpha suppression differed depending on their explicit behavioral ToM performance: Children who did better on a broad battery of standard ToM tasks and who passed explicit behavioral false-belief tasks showed greater RTP alpha suppression when the character's belief first became false (during the 'location-change' event); whereas children who did worse on the ToM battery and who failed explicit behavioral false-belief tasks showed greater RTP alpha suppression only later when they could evaluate the character's behavior in the context of prior events (during the 'active-search' event). Findings shed light on what differentiates preschoolers who pass versus fail explicit false-belief tasks and raise questions about how to interpret existing neuroscience data from ToM tasks across infancy to adulthood. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Preschool children's neural activity (EEG 6-9Hz suppression in right temporoparietal [RTP] electrodes) during passive-viewing of false-belief events was related to their explicit behavioral theory-of-mind performance. Children who did better on a theory-of-mind (ToM) battery and passed explicit false-belief tasks showed greater RTP alpha suppression when the character's belief first became false. Children who performed worse on the ToM battery and failed explicit false-belief tasks showed greater RTP alpha suppression later when observing the character's search behavior. Findings reveal change in preschoolers' ToM neural correlates and suggest that the presence of RTP activity does not necessarily indicate 'mature' theory of mind.

Training self-other distinction: Effects on emotion regulation, empathy, and theory of mind.

Navigating our social environment requires the ability to distinguish ourselves from others. Previous research suggests that training interventions have the potential to enhance the capacity for self-other distinction (SOD), which then may impact various sociocognitive domains, including imitation-inhibition, visual perspective taking, and empathy. Importantly, empirical research on the role of SOD in emotion regulation remains scarce. In this study, we aim to investigate the impact of training SOD on emotion regulation and also replicate findings on empathy and the attribution of mental states to others. Using a pre-post design, participants (N = 104) were assigned to either the imitation-inhibition or general inhibitory control training. Compared to general inhibitory control training, participants trained to inhibit imitation displayed a significant increase in posttest emotion regulation levels compared to pretest levels, indicating that imitation-inhibition training increased self-reported emotion regulation. Notably, emotional interference remained unaffected by either form of training. Both training interventions resulted in diminished self-reported empathic concern, while only general inhibitory control training led to a reduction in personal distress. Moreover, neither type of training had an impact on self-reported perspective taking or theory of mind performance. This study provides novel empirical evidence of the positive impact of imitation-inhibition training on emotion regulation. Furthermore, our findings make significant contributions to the advancement of research in this area and offer further support for the advantages of behavioral training as a methodological approach to studying sociocognitive abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Grandpa, tell me a story! Narrative ability in healthy aging and its relationship with cognitive functions and Theory of Mind

ABSTRACT Healthy aging affects the linguistic and cognitive abilities involved in narrative production. However, few studies provided a comprehensive assessment of narrative skills in aging and their association with cognitive and Theory of Mind (ToM) functions. We explored how aging influences narrative skills, at both micro- (i.e. lexical and grammatical) and macrolinguistic (i.e. pragmatic and discourse) levels. Sixty healthy adults divided into three age-groups (20–40, 65–75, 76–86 years old) were administered tasks assessing narrative production skills, executive functions (EFs), and ToM. A network approach was used to explore how micro- and macrolinguistic skills were associated to different cognitive and ToM functions. The analyses revealed age-related effects on various aspects of language production, including phonology, semantic retrieval, sentence complexity, coherence, cohesion, and lexical informativeness. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between linguistic measures, ToM skills and cognitive functions such as working and long-term memory and inhibition.

Human-Social Robot Interaction in the Light of ToM and Metacognitive Functions

Theory of Mind (ToM) and Metacognition constitute two superior mental mechanisms that promote the smooth integration and adaptation of the individual in society. In particular, the ability to read minds introduces the individual into the social world, contributing to understanding oneself and others. Metacognition focuses on individual knowledge, control, regulation, and readjustment regarding the cognitive mechanism and its influence on cognitive performance and the mental and social development of the individual. At the basis of the development of the two mechanisms is the activation of social interaction, which determines their levels of development. The innovative approaches and great expectations of technology and Artificial Intelligence for improving the artificial mind brought social robots to the fore. Robots with social action are gradually entering human life. Their interaction with the human factor is anticipated to become more and more frequent, expanded, and specialized. Hence, the investigation of equipping artificial systems with integrated social-cognitive and metacognitive capabilities was necessary, constituting the subject of study of the current narrative review. Research findings show that intelligent systems with introspection, self-evaluation, and perception-understanding of emotions, intentions, and beliefs can develop safe and satisfactory communication with humans as long as their design and operation conform to the code of ethics.

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.

The Relationship Between Theory of Mind and Listening Comprehension Among Chinese Preschoolers with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The study aimed to examine the performance on linguistic and cognitive tasks among Chinese preschool children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and explore the direct and indirect relationships between theory of mind (ToM) and literal and inferential listening comprehension. Forty-nine (N = 49) children with ASD and fifty-two (N = 52) age- and gender-matched typically developing (TD) children participated in the study. All participants were administered tasks evaluating their listening comprehension of literal and inferential statements, ToM, as well as verbal and nonverbal IQ. Results showed that the ASD group performed statistically worse on listening comprehension, ToM abilities, verbal IQ, and nonverbal IQ than their TD peers. Further, we found statistically significant correlations between general ToM performance and overall listening comprehension among Chinese preschool children with and without ASD. More specifically, ToM abilities of children with ASD had an indirect effect on their literal listening comprehension via the mediation of verbal IQ, whereas ToM performance among TD children predicted their literal listening comprehension via the mediation of nonverbal IQ. The major findings were discussed in detail based on the situation model. The research facilitated insights into listening comprehension among Chinese preschool children with and without ASD, providing their caregivers and teachers with viable strategies to improve their listening comprehension.

Cognitive and affective theory of mind in young and elderly patients with multiple sclerosis.

Theory of mind (ToM) deficits have been reported in persons with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). However, most studies have used pictures or written scenarios as stimuli without distinguishing between cognitive and affective ToM, and no studies have investigated older pwMS. We recruited 13 young healthy controls (HC), 14 young pwMS, 14 elderly HC and 15 elderly pwMS. ToM was measured using an adaptation of the Conversations and Insinuations task (Ouellet etal., J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc., 16, 2010, 287). In this ecological video-based task, participants watch four 2-minute videos of social interactions, which are interrupted by multiple choice questions about either the emotional state (affective ToM) or the intention (cognitive ToM) of the characters. They also underwent a short neuropsychological battery including cognitive, executive and social cognition tasks and questionnaires. We observed a significant interaction between the ToM conditions and the groups regarding ToM performance. Elderly pwMS scored significantly lower than elderly HC and young pwMS in cognitive ToM, but not in affective ToM. They also showed the largest discrepancy between their cognitive and affective ToM. Young pwMS showed relatively preserved ToM in both conditions. Both cognitive and affective ToM correlated with global cognition and executive abilities, but not with social cognitive measures (emotion recognition, real-life empathy). This study suggests that decline in cognitive ToM might be accentuated by advancing age in pwMS. These impairments are most likely underlied by cognitive and executive difficulties, but not by core social cognitive impairments. Future studies should investigate the real-life impacts of ToM impairments in pwMS.

Bilingualism Predicts Affective Theory of Mind in Autistic Adults.

This study examined the impact of bilingualism on affective theory of mind (ToM) and social prioritization (SP) among autistic adults compared to neurotypical comparison participants. Fifty-two (25 autistic, 27 neurotypical) adult participants (ages 21-35 years) with varying second language (L2) experience, ranging from monolingual to bilingual, completed an affective ToM task. A subset of this sample also completed a dynamic eye-tracking task designed to capture differences in time spent looking at social aspects of a scene (SP). Four language groups were compared on task performance (monolingual autism and neurotypical, bilingual autism and neurotypical), followed by analyses examining the contribution of L2 experience, autism characteristics, and social face prioritization on affective ToM, controlling for verbal IQ. Finally, we conducted an analysis to identify the contribution of SP on affective ToM when moderated by autism status and L2 experience, controlling for verbal IQ. The monolingual autism group performed significantly worse than the other three groups (bilingual autism, monolingual neurotypical, and bilingual neurotypical) on the affective ToM task; however, there were no significant differences between the bilingual autism group compared to the monolingual and bilingual neurotypical groups. For autistic individuals, affective ToM capabilities were positively associated with both verbal IQ and L2 experience but did not relate to autism characteristics or SP during eye tracking. Neurotypical participants showed greater SP during the eye-tracking task, and SP did not relate to L2 or autism characteristics for autistic individuals. SP and verbal IQ predicted affective ToM performance across autism and neurotypical groups, but this relationship was moderated by L2 experience; SP more strongly predicted affective ToM performance among participants with lower L2 experience (e.g., monolingual) and had less of an impact for those with higher L2 experience. This study provides support for a bilingual advantage in affective ToM for autistic individuals. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25696083.

Development and validation of the newly developed Preschool Theory of Mind Assessment (ToMA-P).

Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to understand and attribute mental states to oneself and others. A ToM measure is warranted for preschool children to assess their ToM development from a multidimensional perspective (i.e., cognitive and affective dimensions). This study aimed to develop the Preschool Theory of Mind Assessment (ToMA-P) and to evaluate its construct validity and applicability. The ToMA-P was developed based on comprehensive literature review and revised with expert panel feedback. Its psychometric properties were evaluated in 205 typically developing preschoolers with Rasch analysis for its dimensionality, item difficulties, and convergent validity. The results indicated that all ToMA-P items, except for one, fit the hypothesized two-dimensional construct. The item difficulties in the cognitive and affective dimensions followed developmental sequences. The ToMA-P scores exhibited good convergent validity, as evidenced by its significant correlations with age, verbal comprehension, adaptive functions, and daily ToM performance (p < 0.05). Children's responses and behaviors also showed that the ToMA-P has good applicability. This study provides empirical evidence that the ToMA-P measures cognitive and affective ToM following developmental sequences, and that it has potential as a clinical tool for assessing ToM in preschool children.

Risk factors for internalizing symptoms: The influence of empathy, theory of mind, and negative thinking processes.

Internalizing symptoms such as elevated stress and sustained negative affect can be important warning signs for developing mental disorders. A recent theoretical framework suggests a complex interplay of empathy, theory of mind (ToM), and negative thinking processes as a crucial risk combination for internalizing symptoms. To disentangle these relationships, this study utilizes neural, behavioral, and self-report data to examine how the interplay between empathy, ToM, and negative thinking processes relates to stress and negative affect. We reanalyzed the baseline data of N = 302 healthy participants (57% female, Mage = 40.52, SDage = 9.30) who participated in a large-scale mental training study, the ReSource project. Empathy and ToM were assessed using a validated fMRI paradigm featuring naturalistic video stimuli and via self-report. Additional self-report scales were employed to measure internalizing symptoms (perceived stress, negative affect) and negative thinking processes (rumination and self-blame). Our results revealed linear associations of self-reported ToM and empathic distress with stress and negative affect. Also, both lower and higher, compared to average, activation in the anterior insula during empathic processing and in the middle temporal gyrus during ToM performance was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms. These associations were dependent on rumination and self-blame. Our findings indicate specific risk constellations for internalizing symptoms. Especially people with lower self-reported ToM and higher empathic distress may be at risk for more internalizing symptoms. Quadratic associations of empathy- and ToM-related brain activation with internalizing symptoms depended on negative thinking processes, suggesting differential effects of cognitive and affective functioning on internalizing symptoms. Using a multi-method approach, these findings advance current research by shedding light on which complex risk combinations of cognitive and affective functioning are relevant for internalizing symptoms.

Enhancing social-emotional functioning in adolescents with developmental language disorder or deaf or hard of hearing through a Theory of Mind intervention.

This study examines the effect of a Theory of Mind (ToM) intervention on ToM abilities and social-emotional functioning in adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) or who are deaf/hard of hearing (D/HH). It emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and measurement for personal growth. The research design incorporates both subjective and objective measures to evaluate the intervention's efficacy. To investigate the impact of the ToM intervention on ToM abilities and social-emotional functioning in adolescents with DLD or who are D/HH. It hypothesizes that participants in the intervention groups will show improved ToM and social-emotional functioning compared with those in the control groups. Adolescents with DLD or who are D/HH were recruited through collaboration with educational institutions. The study utilized a pre-/post-test design, assigning participants to either the intervention or the control group. The ToM intervention involved targeted activities to enhance ToM abilities. ToM abilities and social-emotional functioning were assessed using standardized tests and self-report questionnaires. Statistical analyses compared outcomes between the intervention and no intervention groups. The findings reveal subjective improvements in social-emotional functioning among the D/HH intervention group. However, no significant effects on objective ToM measures were observed. These results highlight the need for further investigation and refinement of interventions in these areas. Future research should focus on improving intervention strategies and exploring additional objective measures to gain a comprehensive understanding of the intervention's impact on ToM and social-emotional functioning in this population. The ToM intervention shows subjective benefits in improving social-emotional functioning among D/HH adolescents. However, it does not yield significant effects on objective ToM measures. These findings emphasize the ongoing need to refine interventions targeting ToM abilities and social-emotional functioning in this population. Future studies should explore alternative strategies and incorporate additional objective measures to enhance understanding and outcomes. What is already known on this subject Before this study, it was known that ToM interventions have the potential to enhance ToM abilities. However, the specific effects of such interventions on subjective and objective measures for ToM and social-emotional functioning in adolescents with DLD or who are D/HH remained unclear, necessitating further research. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge This study adds to the existing knowledge by demonstrating subjective improvements in social-emotional functioning among adolescents who are D/HH and underwent a ToM intervention. However, no significant effects on objective ToM measures were observed. These findings highlight the need for refining interventions and exploring additional measures to better understand the intervention's impact. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The subjective improvements in social-emotional functioning observed in this study have important clinical implications. They suggest that ToM interventions can positively impact the social well-being of adolescents who are D/HH. However, the lack of significant effects on objective ToM measures emphasizes the need for further research and intervention refinement to address specific areas of improvement in this population.

Assessing Theory of Mind in Children: A Tablet-Based Adaptation of a Classic Picture Sequencing Task.

Correctly assessing children's theory of mind (TOM) is essential to clinical practice. Yet, most tasks heavily rely on language, which is an obstacle for several populations. Langdon and Coltheart's (Cognition 71(1):43-71, 1999) Picture Sequencing Task (PST), developed for research purposes, avoids this limitation through a minimally-verbal procedure. We thus developed a tablet adaptation of this task for individual application, engaging children's motivation and allowing response times collection. To assess this tablet-PST, we first tested a large sample of neurotypical children (6-11 years-old, N = 248), whose results confirmed the task's structural and content validity, and permitted the construction of three standardized clinical indices. In a second experiment, we applied those to previously diagnosed autistic children (N = 23), who were expected to show atypical TOM performance. Children's outcomes were consistent with what was hypothesized and confirmed the task's external validity and moderate clinical sensitivity. The tablet-PST thus appears as a suitable tool, providing detailed profiles to inform clinical decisions.

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 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.

Affective theory of mind in people with mild and moderate Alzheimer's disease.

This study compared the affective theory of mind (ToM) of people with mild and moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy older adults and also investigated the relationship between affective ToM and cognitive and clinical functioning in AD people. This cross-sectional study included 156 older adults with AD and 40 healthy older adults. We used an experimental task involving reasoning processes in different contextual situations. The affective ToM was impaired in AD groups compared with healthy group, with moderate AD group showing lower performance than mild AD group. The affective ToM task of mild AD group was significantly correlated with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and education years. Linear regression showed only education years as a predictor of ToM task performance. The neuropsychiatric symptoms and functionality were not correlated with the affective ToM. Our findings demonstrated that people with mild and moderate AD presented impairments in affective ToM that can be explained by the difficulties to infer emotion from reasoning processes. In addition, the education years variable proved to be an affective ToM performance's predictor for the mild AD group, but not for the moderate AD group, indicating that ToM abilities are affected differently in different stages of AD. Neuropsychiatric symptoms and functionality seem to have no influence on affective ToM impairments in people with AD.

Understanding the Components of Theory of Mind in Depression: An Exploratory Study

Abstract Background: Theory of mind (ToM) is the capacity to infer the mental states of others to understand and predict their behavior. As depression is characterized by prominent social and interpersonal difficulties, exploration of ToM functioning is particularly relevant in depression. ToM is a fundamental ability that consists of two distinct but connected components: socioperceptual (decoding) and sociocognitive (reasoning). However, ToM is still an underexplored and controversial area of research in depression. In this light, the present study explores the different components of ToM in individuals with depression. Materials and Methods: In this study, participants of both genders (n = 60) were pooled as per the inclusion and exclusion criterion and screened for depression through Beck Depression Inventory. The socioperceptual component of ToM was assessed using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test and the sociocognitive component of ToM was assessed using ToM Assessment Scale. Results: There were significant differences between individuals with depression and healthy controls in both the components of ToM. Healthy controls had higher means on both the measures with respect to the individuals with depression. Conclusion: The findings of the study clearly indicate that individuals with depression appear to be significantly impaired in their ability to “read” social interactions. To better understand depression and improve psychotherapeutic treatment, a more suitable method for evaluating fundamental mentalizing categories should be taken into consideration.

21 Nonverbal Assessment of Theory of Mind in Children with Down Syndrome and Typically Developing Peers: An Examination of Group Differences and Associations with Structural Language Skills

Objective:Children with Down syndrome (DS) show marked differences in their early development when compared to typically developing (TD) peers. Major domains of challenge include intellectual abilities, executive functioning, and structural language. Children with DS have a unique profile of strengths and weaknesses that must be considered when comparing them to TD children, especially in terms of Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM encompasses the developmental milestones reached early in childhood when children develop the ability to conceptualize and understand others' thoughts, emotions, perspectives, and intentions. In TD children, these abilities typically begin to mature around 4-6 years of age, while in children with DS, delays are observed relative to chronological age expectations. Evidence shows that children with DS have impaired ToM abilities; however, these deficits might be more related to underlying delays in structural language, rather than a fundamental misunderstanding of social cues. The present study seeks to fill gaps in the literature by using a nonverbal assessment (The Penny Hiding Game; PHG) to evaluate a) ToM abilities in children with DS relative to younger TD peers of a similar mental ability level and b) relationships between ToM performance and structural language skills.Participants and Methods:25 children with DS (60% F, M=11.39 years) and 25 TD children (40% F, M = 5.37, range = 3 to 7) participated. Participants' structural language abilities were briefly assessed using the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test- III Listening Comprehension Test (Oral Discourse Comprehension subcomponent). ToM was assessed using the PHG.Results:Univariate analysis of covariance was used to explore differences in ToM performance between groups while controlling for mental ability level. Children with DS (M= 2.79, SD= 2.23) performed significantly worse than TD peers (M= 4.28, SD= 1.87) on the ToM task (F(1, 60)= 4.5, p= .038). Linear regression was used to assess associations between ToM and structural language abilities. When both groups were lumped together, there was a modest association between ToM and Listening Comprehension scores (R2 = .12, F (1, 55) = 7.29, p= .009). However, when groups were considered separately, significant associations were not observed (p&gt;.1).Conclusions:The DS group showed markedly diminished ToM performance compared to TD controls, as expected based on the literature. However, data did not suggest a clear association between ToM and structural language skills. While an association was observed when groups were lumped, this relationship was likely driven by group differences in both ToM and structural language skills. Future research should examine the relationship between ToM performance, different aspects of language functioning, and the cooccurrence of autistic traits among children with DS in order to augment our understanding of linguistic and social correlates of ToM performance in young children with DS.

Characteristics of theory of mind impairment and its relationship with clinical symptoms and neurocognition in patients with schizophrenia

BackgroundSchizophrenia (SCZ) is a mental disorder that can cause severe disability, including impairment of social cognition, which is considered a core feature of SCZ, and the Theory of Mind (ToM) is a core component of social cognition. Although many studies have confirmed the presence of ToM impairment in patients with SCZ, its characteristics in terms of different orders (first-order and second-order) and components remain unclear, and no studies have investigated the independent correlations between such impairment and clinical symptoms. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the characteristics of ToM impairment in patients with SCZ.MethodsThis study included 30 patients with SCZ and 30 healthy controls who were matched for age, sex, and level of education. The clinical symptoms of the patients with SCZ were evaluated using the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), and the neurocognitive ability of the subjects was evaluated using the Trail Making Test, Symbol Coding Test, and Digit Span Test. The degree of ToM impairment of the subjects at different stages (first- and second-order) and for individual components was evaluated using the Yoni task. Latent profile analysis and network analysis were conducted to identify and analyze the potential ToM performance types, and independent correlations were assessed between ToM impairment and clinical symptoms.ResultsThe patients with SCZ exhibited significant first-order and second-order impairment (P < 0.05), and the second-order affective ToM component was mainly reflected by complex affective states (P = 0.003). The latent profile analysis revealed that ToM impairments in patients with SCZ could be classified into groups with complete, second-order, and comprehensive defects, whereas it was impossible to classify patients according to differences in the cognitive and affective ToM components. The Network analysis demonstrated that the cognitive component of ToM was associated with positive symptoms, whereas the affective ToM component was associated with negative symptoms.ConclusionPatients with SCZ exhibited differences in order levels and ToM impairments, as well as different defect types. In addition, cognitive and affective ToM components may be related to different psychotic symptoms; therefore, understanding these differences could promote the rehabilitation of patients with SCZ.

Early bilingualism enhances theory of mind in children from low-income households via executive function skills

The study focuses on children in poverty and investigates whether early bilingualism enhances economically disadvantaged children’s Theory of Mind (ToM), and what role Executive Function plays in the relation between bilingualism and ToM. Sixty-eight preschool-aged children (35 English monolinguals, 51.4% boys, and 33 English-Spanish bilingual children, 57.5% boys) from low-income backgrounds completed standardized language assessments, three executive function tasks, and a five-task ToM battery. Results showed that after controlling for children’s age, income-to-needs ratio, and English proficiency, bilingual children demonstrated greater ToM competence compared to monolingual children. A higher degree of bilingualism was associated with better ToM performance in bilingual children. Mediation analyses showed that children’s working memory and attention shifting accounted for the links between bilingualism and ToM. The findings suggest that an early bilingual learning experience may facilitate preschool children’s ToM development in economically disadvantaged environments, and this relation was differentially impacted by executive function components.