ToM Tasks Research Articles

Theory of mind in Portuguese school children: An exploratory study

Introduction and objectivesTheory of mind (ToM) has been studied as well as children's mental states in relation to their everyday behaviour and is indispensable for skilled communication. Considering the importance of measuring ToM in school children, the aim of this exploratory investigation was to apply a preliminary Portuguese version of the ToM Picture Stories Task in a sample of school children aged from 6 to 8 years and to analyze the impact of individual differences (e.g. gender, parent's age, educational level, number of siblings) on task performance. PurposeThis article analyses ToM performance in a sample of 103 Portuguese school children in a public school. MethodTwo stories of the ToM Pictures Sequencing Task were used to assess ToM competence in a sample of 103 participants (54 females and 49 males) aged from 6 to 8 years. Individual differences (e.g., gender, number of siblings, parents educational levels and age) were also considered. ResultsThe results showed good performances in story 1, but not as good in story 2. Positive correlations were found between age and year of schooling and performance in ToM tasks. ConclusionFuture research is needed regarding the influence of cognitive and linguistic skills in high-order ToM skills in school children.

S55. PRAGMATIC INFERENCES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA: RELATIONSHIP WITH SYMPTOM DOMAINS, THEORY OF MIND AND NEUROCOGNITIVE FUNCTIONS

BackgroundSevere impairment in interpersonal functioning is a common feature of schizophrenia. Deficits in communicative abilities are likely to be among the important factors contributing to social dysfunction in schizophrenia. Difficulties in pragmatic language abilities including understanding intended meaning, beyond explicit and literal content of conversational statements can significantly hamper interpersonal and occupational functioning.An important aspect of pragmatic inference is the ability to derive scalar implicatures (SIs), which are based on linguistic expressions like some, or, often etc. For deriving SIs, one need to go beyond simple semantic and logical level. To date, only a single study has investigated SIs in schizophrenia (Wampers et al 2018). In this study, people with psychosis were less likely to derive SIs than controls. A preliminary analysis of 17 patients with schizophrenia in the same study also showed that better ToM was associated with a higher ability to derive SIsImportantly, the association with schizophrenia and abnormalities in pragmatic infererence might be mediated by clinical features of this illness including formal thought disorder and negative symptoms. Also, difficulties in pragmatic inferences might potentially be secondary to neurocognitive dysfunction rather than being primary deficits. No previous study has investigated clinical and neurocognitive correlates of impairment in ability to derive SIs in schizophrenia.MethodsThe study included 79 patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (66 schizophrenia and 13 schizoaffective disorder) and 49 healthy controls who completed a SI task. SAPS, SANS were also administered. Comprehension of irony, metaphor and faux pas were assessed using verbal story tasks. A subgroup of patients were also administered a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and two ToM tasks (Hinting task and RMET (Reading the Mind from the Eyes).ResultsThere were no significant group difference between schizophrenia and healthy controls for age (F=0.69, p=0.41) and gender (Chi square=2.2, p=0.13). The schizophrenia sample had a shorter duration of education compared to the healthy controls (F=27.2, p<0.001). The patients with schizophrenia had significant impairment in understanding the SIs (F=8.2, p=0.005). Comprension impairment of SIs were significantly associated with SANS negative symptoms (r=-0.29, p= 0.009) but not with SAPS positive formal thought disorder (r=-0.09, p=0.44) and symptoms ratings for hallucinations and delusions. Understanding SIs in schizophrenia was significantly related to better performance in RMET (r=0.34, p=0.036) and irony comprehension (r=-0.38, p=0.001).DiscussionSchizophrenia is associated with significant deficits in understanding pragmatic utterances. These deficits were significantly related to some aspects of social cognition but not neurocognition. Current findings do not support the proposed relationship between formal thought disorder and pragmatic abnormalities in schizophrenia. These findings might have implications in management of social functioning deficits in schizophrenia.

The development of narrative skills in Turkish-speaking children: A complexity approach

The present study examines the development of plot, evaluative and syntactic complexity in children's narratives and its relationship with gender, ToM, executive function and linguistic recursive ability. One hundred and five Turkish-speaking children distributed across 4 age groups (four-, five-, seven-eight-, and ten-eleven-year-olds) and 15 adults participated in (a) Elicitation of Narratives Task, (b) Emotional Stroop Task, (c) First- or Second-Order ToM Task (depending on their age), (d) Real-Apparent Emotion Task (four-year-olds), and (e) Comprehension of Complement Clauses Task. Among the three domains of complexity, only plot complexity was found to be related to gender and to develop significantly, in particular at 5 and 7 years of age. Evaluative complexity was low in children in all age groups and was not predicted by any factor. Syntactic complexity was predicted by executive function. These findings are discussed considering the cognitive, linguistic and sociocultural nature of narration.

Social Class Predicts Emotion Perception and Perspective-Taking Performance in Adults.

"Theory of Mind" (ToM; people's ability to infer and use information about others' mental states) varies across cultures. In four studies (N = 881), including two preregistered replications, we show that social class predicts performance on ToM tasks. In Studies 1A and 1B, we provide new evidence for a relationship between social class and emotion perception: Higher-class individuals performed more poorly than their lower-class counterparts on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, which has participants infer the emotional states of targets from images of their eyes. In Studies 2A and 2B, we provide the first evidence that social class predicts visual perspective taking: Higher-class individuals made more errors than lower-class individuals in the Director Task, which requires participants to assume the visual perspective of another person. Potential mechanisms linking social class to performance in different ToM domains, as well as implications for deficiency-centered perspectives on low social class, are discussed.

Theory of Mind in multiple system atrophy: comparison with Parkinson's disease and healthy subjects.

Theory of Mind is defined as the ability to attribute mental state and emotions to other people and is relevant to social relationships. The cortical and subcortical regions involved in Theory of Mind are damaged by neurodegenerative processes of Parkinsonian syndromes, so the aim of the present study was to explore, for the first time, possible deficits of Theory of Mind and their cognitive correlates in multiple system atrophy (MSA). Twenty-six patients with MSA, 25 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 25 healthy subjects were enrolled. Cognitive and affective subcomponents of Theory of Mind, executive functions, long-term memory and apathy were evaluated. The three groups did not differ on demographic variables. MSA and PD groups performed worse than healthy subjects on both cognitive (advanced test of ToM) and affective (emotion attribution task) ToM tasks, but no significant difference was found between patients' groups. However, when using another affective ToM task (Eyes Test), MSA group had poorer performance than healthy subjects and Parkinsonian patients, whereas Parkinsonian patients had similar performance to healthy subjects. Regression analysis revealed an association between poor cognitive flexibility and dysfunctional cognitive component of Theory of Mind. Deficit of cognitive and affective components of Theory of Mind occurred in MSA. Dysfunction of cognitive component was related to executive dysfunction (i.e. cognitive rigidity). These findings might suggest the usefulness of an early evaluation of social cognition in MSA to identify individuals with impaired Theory of Mind who are at risk of social withdrawal, and reduced quality of life.

Structural brain morphometry associated with theory of mind in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar I disorder (BD) share common functional and structural brain abnormalities, as well as various degrees of social cognitive deficits, suggesting shared brain mechanisms. This study examined the relationship between social cognitive skills and structural brain integrity in 60 cases with SZ, 65 cases with psychotic BD, and 61 healthy controls (HCs). All participants underwent structural MRI and completed The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT). Associations between social cognitive performance on each task of the TASIT (Emotion Recognition, Theory of Mind [ToM], and Complex ToM) and indices of gray matter volume and cortical thickness were investigated within three separate groups comprising (a) all cases with a history of psychosis (independently of their diagnostic status), (b) each diagnostic category separately, and (c) an HC group. Cases with psychosis showed worse social cognitive performance compared to the HC group, and SZ cases performed worse than BD on all ToM tasks, but not the Emotion Recognition subtest. Poor ToM performance was associated with thinner anterior temporal lobe in the combined group of cases with psychosis, and with decreased volume of the left fusiform gyrus/cerebellum in the HC group. In the BD group alone, poor ToM performance was associated with similar pattern of thinner anterior temporal lobe, as well as with increased volume in the mid- and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus. However, there were no associations between brain morphometry and social cognition in the SZ group when considered alone. Taken together, ToM behavioral deficits were associated with thinner right anterior temporal lobe, a critical region from a larger affective ToM network among all cases with psychosis, but aberrant morphology of brain regions key for self-processing were specific to the BD group. These findings may have important implications for targeted interventions for the affective social brain network in BD.

Cognitive processes predicting advanced theory of mind in the broader autism phenotype.

Little is known about executive functions (EFs) associated with advanced theory of mind (ToM) abilities. We aimed to determine if advanced ToM abilities were reduced in individuals with subclinical traits of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), known as the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (BAP), and identify the EFs that predicted unimpaired performance on an advanced ToM task, the faux pas test. We assessed 29 participants (13 males) with the BAP who were relatives of children with ASD. Thirteen participants showed reduced ability to understand a faux pas. A discriminant function analysis correctly classified 79% of cases as impaired or unimpaired, with high sensitivity (80%) and specificity (77%), which was best predicted by language-mediated EFs, including verbal generativity, working memory, cognitive inhibition, and flexibility. Autism Res 2020, 13: 921-934. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Little is known about the complex cognitive processes that enable accurate interpretation of another person's thoughts and emotions, known as "theory of mind." In relatives of individuals with autism, who had mild traits of autism themselves, approximately half had difficulty interpreting situations involving a social faux pas. Cognitive inhibition and flexibility, working memory, and verbal generativity were related to, and appeared to be protective for, unimpaired understanding of a faux pas.

Habilidades de persuasión en niños y niñas de 6 a 12 años. El papel de la teoría de la mente y de la competencia lingüística

Los objetivos de este estudio son: a) analizar la habilidad persuasiva (egoísta y prosocial) de los niños/as de Educación Primaria y b) su relación con la competencia lingüística y la comprensión de la mente. Método. A 103 niños/as de 6 a 12 años se les administró dos tareas de producción persuasiva (una egoísta y una prosocial), el test PPVT-III y una batería de tareas de ToM. Resultados. En la persuasión prosocial los niños/as producen más argumentos distintos y de valencia positiva; en cambio, en cuanto a la calidad, es similar la producción de argumentos mentalistas en ambos tipos de persuasión. Además, los niños con mayor competencia lingüística y mentalista (especialmente atribución de estados emocionales, más que epistémicos) producen argumentos persuasivos más variados y de mayor calidad (la valencia sólo se relaciona con la competencia mentalista); concretamente, la atribución de emociones vinculadas a creencias está relacionada con la variedad de argumentos de persuasión egoísta, y la atribución de emoción a la víctima de una metedura de pata con la variedad y la valencia en la persuasión prosocial. Estos datos pueden ser útiles para guiar la promoción de la influencia prosocial entre iguales en la edad escolar.

Cross-cultural differences in children’s theory of mind in Iran and New Zealand: The role of caregiver mental state talk

We examined the effect of parent–child conversations about the mind on cross-cultural differences in theory-of-mind sequencing and performance. Mothers from Iran (n = 60) and New Zealand (n = 60) described a wordless picture book and completed the ‘describe your child task’, and the children completed the 5-step ToM task battery. New Zealand children conformed to the Anglo-Western sequence and scored higher on their total ToM. There were similarities between the two groups in the extent to which mothers referred to mental states and used mindminded attributes when describing their children. There was specificity however, in the relative use of different types of mental states and the referent of these mental states. Iranian mothers referred more to desires, and to others' mental states, whereas New Zealand mothers referred more to cognitions, and to child-directed mental states. Child-directed mental state talk (and not mindmindedness) explained cultural differences in total ToM performance, and children who passed knowledge access before diverse beliefs tasks had mothers who referred more to their own mental states.

Testing the Role of Verbal Narration in Implicit Theory of Mind Tasks

ABSTRACTTheory of Mind (ToM), the ability to attribute mental states to agents, has usually been measured with explicit verbal tasks and found to develop slowly during the preschool years. New implicit ToM measures have lately revolutionized the field by suggesting that ToM may be present much earlier in development. However, recent replication studies of implicit ToM present a complex pattern of failed, partial and successful attempts. The big challenge is to identify an underlying system to this pattern that can explain why some tasks replicate while others do not. The rationale of the present study was to address this challenge by investigating one potential factor that may explain patterns of (non-)replications of implicit measures, namely elements of verbal narration in anticipatory looking tasks. Sixty-seven 4- to 5-year-old children completed modified versions of two different anticipatory looking implicit false belief tasks which recently proved difficult to replicate. The main modification was that verbal narration was added to the original stimulus videos. Results revealed that original looking patterns could still not be replicated. There was no improvement in one task, while a slight improvement was observed in the other task. In conclusion, adding verbal narration does not necessarily improve the replicability of anticipatory ToM tasks, suggesting either that these measures might not be sufficiently sensitive to tap implicit ToM, or that other factors are crucial for successful replications.

Attribution of intentions and context processing in psychometric schizotypy

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Impairment in Theory of mind (TOM) has frequently been associated with schizophrenia and with schizotypy. Studies have found that a tendency to over-attribute intentions and special meaning to events and to people is related to positive psychotic symptoms. Further, it has been suggested that this intentionality bias may be due to a broader deficit in context processing (CP). The aim of the present study was thus to investigate the relationship between positive schizotypy and both over-attribution of intentions and contextual processing.Methods: One-hundred and nineteen healthy individuals completed the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire and were assessed with tasks measuring contextual treatment and ToM.Results: Results revealed that positive schizotypy was significantly related to an over-attribution of intentions on the ToM task and with a faster processing of implicit context. Partial correlational analyses indicated that the association between the attribution of intentions and positive schizotypy was not explained by a deficit of CP. In contrast, stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that both an over-attribution of intentions and a faster processing of implicit context significantly predicted positive schizotypy.Conclusions: These results show that an over-attribution of intention is independent from a broader deficit in context information processing and that they both possibly contribute to the development and maintenance of positive psychotic symptoms.

Enhancing theory of mind in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia with transcranial direct current stimulation.

Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a form of frontotemporal degeneration characterized by early changes in personality, emotional blunting, and/or loss of empathy. Recent research has highlighted that these features may be at least partially explained by impairments in the theory of mind (ToM; i.e., the ability to understand and predict other people's behaviour by attributing independent mental states to them). The aim of this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was to test the hypothesis that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the medial frontal cortex (MFC) selectively enhances communicative intention processing, a specific ToM ability. Using a single-session online design, we administered a ToM task that measures the ability to represent other people's private and communicative intentions during active or sham tDCS to 16 bvFTD patients. To assess the impact of dementia on performance on the ToM task, we included 16 age-matched healthy volunteers who were asked to perform the entire experimental ToM task. BvFTD is characterized by an impairment in the comprehension of both communicative and private intentions relative to a healthy control group and by a disproportional impairment in communicative intention compared with private intention processing. Significant and selective accuracy improvement in the comprehension of communicative intentions after active stimulation was observed in patients with bvFTD. This is the first study that analyses ToM ability in patients with bvFTD using tDCS stimulation. Our findings could potentially contribute to the development of an effective, noninvasive brain stimulation treatment of ToM impairments in patients with bvFTD.

Good social skills despite poor theory of mind: exploring compensation in autism spectrum disorder.

BackgroundIt is proposed that some individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can ‘compensate’ for their underlying difficulties (e.g. in theory of mind; ToM), thus demonstrating relatively few behavioural symptoms, despite continued core cognitive deficits. The mechanisms underpinning compensation are largely unexplored, as is its potential impact on mental health. This study aimed to estimate compensation patterns in ASD, by contrasting overt social behaviour with ToM task performance, in order to compare the characteristics of ‘Low’ and ‘High’ Compensators.MethodsA total of 136 autistic adolescents, from the ongoing Social Relationships Study, completed a range of cognitive tasks, the Autistic Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) and a self‐report anxiety questionnaire. Participants were assigned compensation group status; High Compensators demonstrated good ADOS scores despite poor ToM performance, while Low Compensators demonstrated similarly poor ToM, accompanied by poor ADOS scores.ResultsHigh Compensators demonstrated better IQ and executive function (EF), but greater self‐reported anxiety, compared with Low Compensators. Such differences were not found when comparing individuals who had good versus poor ADOS scores, when ToM performance was good. Other core autistic characteristics (weak central coherence, nonsocial symptoms) did not differentiate the High and Low Compensators.ConclusionsIQ, EF and anxiety appear to be implicated in the processes by which certain autistic young people can compensate for their underlying ToM difficulties. This tendency to compensate does not appear to reflect the severity of ‘hit’ for ASD per se, suggesting that well‐compensated individuals are not experiencing a milder form of ASD. The construct of compensation in ASD has implications for research and clinical practice.

Intranasal oxytocin does not reduce age-related difficulties in social cognition

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that plays a key role in social processing and there are several studies suggesting that intranasally administered oxytocin may enhance social cognitive abilities and visual attention in healthy and clinical groups. However, there are very few studies to date that have investigated the potential benefits of intranasal oxytocin (iOT) on older adults' social cognitive abilities. This is a surprising omission, because relative to their younger counterparts, older adults also exhibit a range of social cognitive difficulties and also show differences in the way they visually attend to social information. Therefore, we tested the effect of iOT (24 IU) versus a placebo spray on 59 older and 61 younger adults' social cognitive abilities and visual attention using a double-blind placebo-controlled within-groups design. While iOT provided no overall age-related benefit on social cognitive abilities, the key finding to emerge was that iOT improved ToM ability in both age-groups when the task had minimal contextual information, but not when the task had enriched contextual information. Interestingly, iOT had gender specific effects during a ToM task with minimal context. For males in both age-groups, iOT reduced gazing to the social aspects of the scenes (i.e., faces & bodies), and for females, iOT eliminated age differences in gaze patterns that were observed in the placebo condition. These effects on eye-gaze were not observed in a very similar ToM task that included more enriched contextual information. Overall, these findings highlight the interactive nature of iOT with task related factors (e.g., context), and are discussed in relation to the social salience hypothesis of oxytocin.

Do individualism and collectivism on three levels (country, individual, and situation) influence theory-of-mind efficiency? A cross-country study

This study investigated whether individualism and collectivism (IC) at country, individual, and situational level influence how quickly and accurately people can infer mental states (i.e. theory of mind, or ToM), indexed by accuracy and reaction time in a ToM task. We hypothesized that collectivism (having an interdependent self and valuing group concerns), compared to individualism (having an independent self and valuing personal concerns), is associated with greater accuracy and speed in recognizing and understanding the thoughts and feelings of others. Students (N = 207) from individualism-representative (the Netherlands) and collectivism-representative (Vietnam) countries (Country IC) answered an individualism-collectivism questionnaire (Individual IC) and were randomly assigned to an individualism-primed, collectivism-primed, or no-prime task (Situational IC) before performing a ToM task. The data showed vast differences between the Dutch and Vietnamese groups that might not be attributable to experimental manipulation. Therefore, we analyzed the data for the groups separately and found that Individual IC did not predict ToM accuracy or reaction time performance. Regarding Situational IC, when primed with individualism, the accuracy performance of Vietnamese participants in affective ToM trials decreased compared to when primed with collectivism and when no prime was used. However, an interesting pattern emerged: Dutch participants were least accurate in affective ToM trials, while Vietnamese participants were quickest in affective ToM trials. Our research also highlights a dilemma faced by cross-cultural researchers who use hard-to-reach populations but face the challenge of disentangling experimental effects from biases that might emerge due to an interaction between cultural differences and experimental settings. We propose suggestions for overcoming such challenges.

Affective and cognitive theory of mind abilities in youth with borderline personality disorder or major depressive disorder

BackgroundTheory of mind (ToM) is an important social cognitive ability that has been investigated in BPD, with inconsistent findings indicating impaired, comparable, and enhanced ToM in BPD. This study aimed to clarify and extend previous findings by investigating affective and cognitive ToM abilities in youth early in the course of BPD, by including a clinical comparison group of youth with major depressive disorder (MDD). MethodsFemale participants aged 15–24 years diagnosed with BPD (n = 41) or MDD (n = 37) completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) and Happé’s Cartoon Task, measures of affective and cognitive dimensions of ToM, respectively. ResultsThe BPD group performed significantly worse than the MDD group on the affective ToM task, even after controlling for age, intelligence and depressive symptoms. Results for cognitive ToM were not significantly different. ConclusionsFinding of poorer performance on a measure of affective ToM, in BPD youth, relative to youth with MDD early in the course of BPD suggest a developmental failure of sociocognitive abilities needed for mentalising and which are theorised as giving rise to core features of BPD. Future research should employ more naturalistic paradigms to study social cognition and should assess individuals even earlier in the course of BPD.

A Comparison of Children's Ability to Read Children's and Adults' Mental States in an Adaptation of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task.

The ability to read mental states from subtle facial cues is an important part of Theory of Mind, which can contribute to children's daily life social functioning. Mental state reading performance is influenced by the specific interactions in which it is applied; familiarity with characteristics of these interactions (such as the person) can enhance performance. The aim of this research is to gain insight in this context effect for mental state reading in children, assessed with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) task that originally consists of pictures of adults' eyes. Because of differences between children and adults in roles, development and frequency of interaction, children are more familiar with mental state reading of other children. It can therefore be expected that children's mental state reading depends on whether this is assessed with children's or adults' eyes. A new 14 item version of the RME for children was constructed with pictures of children instead of adults (study 1). This task was used and compared to the original child RME in 6–10 year olds (N = 718, study 2) and 8–14 year olds (N = 182, study 3). Children in both groups performed better on the new RME than on the original RME. Item level findings of the new RME were in line with previous findings on the task and test re-test reliability (in a subgroup of older children, n = 95) was adequate (0.47). This suggests that the RME with children's eyes can assess children's daily life mental state reading and supplement existing ToM tasks.

Theory of mind plasticity in aging: The role of baseline, verbal knowledge, and executive functions

ABSTRACTTheory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to attribute mental states to the self and others in order to explain and predict social behaviour. Meta-analytic results have shown a decline in ToM abilities in healthy older adults. Recent research has also highlighted the possibility of enhancing older adults’ ToM performance through group conversations focused on mental states. Our aim was to determine whether the extent to which older people benefited from a ToM training was predicted by performance on a battery of executive functioning tasks, on baselines in ToM tasks, on verbal knowledge. Forty-three older adults (60–84 years) participated in a three-session ToM training programme that has previously shown to be effective in improving ToM ability. Results showed that verbal knowledge predicted training gains in practiced ToM tasks. In addition, age, executive functions and baseline performance predicted training gains in non-practiced ToM tasks. Results are discussed in light of the amplification model.

P170 Impact of high definition transcranial direct current stimulation over the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex on social cognition

Question The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) is considered a key component of the “social brain” and has been associated with self-other distinctions across a variety of “theory of mind” (ToM) tasks. Objective To assess the impact of high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the dmPFC on a low-level visual perspective taking task (VPT), high-level affective ToM task (Mind in the Eyes), and on the self-reference effect in episodic memory. Methods Using a within-subjects, cross-over design, twenty healthy young subjects (18–35 yrs) received 1 mA excitatory (anodal) tDCS for 20 min or sham-tDCS whilst completing three socio-cognitive tasks. tDCS was administered using a one-channel DC-stimulator and two concentric round rubber electrodes. The Mind in the Eyes task (MITE) involved selecting the emotion or cognitive state represented in a set of eyes. The subjects were then asked how often they, or another (Barack Obama), felt that way. Age and gender judgements acted as a low-level social judgement control condition. After approximately 30 min, subjects were asked to recall as many chosen emotion/cognitive state words they could remember, followed by a recognition task. In between, subjects completed a task able to measure implicit, level-1 (line of sight judgment), and level-2 (location of objects relative to other’s perspective) VPT. Results There was no effect of anodal-tDCS on MITE performance. Anodal-tDCS increased the impact of the other agent’s perspective during self-perspective judgements in level 1 and level 2 VPT, but not during implicit VPT. Specifically, during anodal-tDCS, there was a greater difference in reaction time between scenes congruent or incongruent with the perspective of the other agent. During the recognition memory task, anodal-tDCS increased memory for other-encoded emotion words with no impact on self-encoded emotion words. Conclusions The findings demonstrate for the first time that high-definition tDCS over the dmPFC can improve social cognition, especially concerning the salience of other encoded memories or the perspective of others. This proof of concept study paves the way for assessing the impact of HD-tDCS in clinical populations who may benefit from improved social cognition.

Sincere, Deceitful, and Ironic Communicative Acts and the Role of the Theory of Mind in Childhood

The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship among age, first- and second-order Theory of Mind and the increasing ability of children to understand and produce different kinds of communicative acts – sincere, ironic, and deceitful communicative acts – expressed through linguistic and extralinguistic expressive means. To communicate means to modify an interlocutor’s mental states (Grice, 1989), and pragmatics studies the inferential processes that are necessary to fill the gap, which often exists in human communication, between the literal meaning of a speaker’s utterance and what the speaker intends to communicate to the interlocutor. We administered brief video-clip stories showing different kinds of pragmatic phenomena – sincere, ironic, and deceitful communicative acts - and first- and second-order ToM tasks, to 120 children, ranging in age from 3 to 8 years. The results showed the existence of a trend of difficulty in children’s ability to deal with both linguistic and extralinguistic pragmatic tasks, from the simplest to the most difficult: sincere, deceitful, and ironic communicative acts. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that age plays a significant role in explaining children’s performance on each pragmatic task. Furthermore, the hierarchical regression analysis revealed that first-order ToM has a causal role in explaining children’s performance in handling sincere and deceitful speech acts, but not irony. We did not detect any specific role for second-order ToM. Finally, ToM only partially explains the observed increasing trend of difficulty in children’s pragmatic performance: the variance in pragmatic performance explained by ToM increases between sincere and deceitful communicative acts, but not between deceit and irony. The role of inferential ability in explaining the improvement in children’s performance across the pragmatic tasks investigated is discussed.