False Belief Understanding Research Articles

Altered Connectivity During a False-Belief Task in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder

BackgroundDeficits in social communication are one of the main features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Adults with ASD show atypical brain activity during false-belief understanding, an aspect of social communication involving the ability to infer that an individual can have an incorrect belief about a situation. Our study is the first to investigate whether adults with ASD exhibit differences in frequency-specific functional connectivity patterns during false-belief reasoning. MethodsWe used magnetoencephalography to contrast functional connectivity underlying false-belief understanding between 40 adults with ASD and 39 control adults. We examined whole-brain phase synchrony measures during a false-belief task in 3 frequency bands: theta (4–7 Hz), alpha (8–14 Hz), and beta (15–30 Hz). ResultsAdults with ASD demonstrated reduced theta-band connectivity compared with control adults between several right-lateralized and midline regions such as the medial prefrontal cortex, right temporoparietal junction, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right superior temporal gyrus. During false-belief trials, they also recruited a network in the beta band that included primary visual regions such as the bilateral inferior occipital gyri and the left anterior temporoparietal junction. ConclusionsReduced theta-band synchrony between areas associated with mentalizing, inhibition, and visual processing implies some difficulty in communication among these functions in ASD. This impairment in top-down control in the theta band may be counterbalanced by their engagement of a beta-band network because both the left anterior temporoparietal junction and beta-band oscillations are associated with attentional processes. Thus, adults with ASD demonstrate alternative neural mechanisms for successful false-belief reasoning.

The Situational Mental File Account of the False Belief Tasks: A New Solution of the Paradox of False Belief Understanding

How can we solve the paradox of false-belief understanding: if infants pass the implicit false belief task (FBT) by nonverbal behavioural responses why do they nonetheless typically fail the explicit FBT till they are 4 years old? Starting with the divide between situational and cognitive accounts of the development of false-belief understanding, we argue that we need to consider both situational and internal cognitive factors together and describe their interaction to adequately explain the development of children’s Theory of Mind (ToM) ability. We then argue that a further challenge is raised for existing accounts by helping behaviour versions of the FBT. We argue that the common two-stage accounts are inadequate: we need to allow for three central stages in a continuous development. Furthermore, drawing on Perner et al.’s (Cognition 145: 77–88, 2015) and Perner and Leahy’s (Review of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (2): 491–508, 2016) recent mental files account, we provide a new account of the development of these three stages of ToM ability by describing the changes of the structure and organisation of mental files including the systematic triggering role of types of situations. Thereby we aim to establish a situational mental file (SMF) account as a new and adequate solution to the paradox of false-belief understanding.

Does attachment security predict children’s thinking-about-thinking and thinking-about-feeling? A meta-analytic review

Previous research presents no clear picture of the association between caregiver–child attachment and the two hallmarks of children’s mentalizing abilities: false-belief understanding (FBU) and emotion understanding (EU). The present meta-analytic study investigated four questions: (a) what is the pooled correlation between attachment and children’s mentalizing abilities, as indicated by FBU and EU?; (b) are there differences in the magnitude of correlations between attachment and FBU on the one hand, and attachment and EU on the other hand?; (c) does children’s verbal ability mediate the relation between attachment and children’s FBU and EU?; (d) is the relation between attachment and children’s mentalization moderated by the attachment assessment approach (behavioral vs. representational) and/or instrument? A total of 64 effect sizes (N = 1734 children) were subjected to multilevel analyses. The results showed that the association between attachment and EU, r = 0.31, was significantly larger than the association between attachment and FBU, r = 19. Language ability partially mediated the association between attachment and FBU, but not attachment and EU. Studies using behavioral measures of attachment reported lower correlations compared to studies using representational measures. The findings suggest that the association between attachment and FBU is indirect, and that methodological differences between the different attachment measures may partially explain the significant relations between attachment and children’s mentalizing abilities.

Fourteen- to Eighteen-Month-Old Infants Use Explicit Linguistic Information to Update an Agent's False Belief.

The current research examined how infants exploit linguistic information to update an agent’s false belief about an object’s location. Fourteen- to eighteen-month-old infants first watched a series of events involving two agents, a ball, and two containers (a box and a cup). Agent1 repeatedly acted on the ball and then put it in the box in the presence of agent2. Then agent1 disappeared from the scene and agent2 switched the ball’s location from the box to the cup. Upon agent1’s return, agent2 told her, “The ball is in the cup!” Agent1 then reached for either the cup (cup event) or the box (box event). The infants looked reliably longer if shown the box event as opposed to the cup event. However, when agent2 simply said, “The ball and the cup!” – which does not explicitly mention the ball’s new location – infants looked significantly longer if shown the cup event as opposed the box event. These findings thus provide new evidence for false-belief understanding in infancy and suggest that infants expect an agent’s false belief to be updated only by explicit verbal information.

Great apes use self-experience to anticipate an agent’s action in a false-belief test

Human social life depends on theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others. A signature of theory of mind, false belief understanding, requires representing others' views of the world, even when they conflict with one's own. After decades of research, it remains controversial whether any nonhuman species possess a theory of mind. One challenge to positive evidence of animal theory of mind, the behavior-rule account, holds that animals solve such tasks by responding to others' behavioral cues rather than their mental states. We distinguish these hypotheses by implementing a version of the "goggles" test, which asks whether, in the absence of any additional behavioral cues, animals can use their own self-experience of a novel barrier being translucent or opaque to determine whether another agent can see through the same barrier. We incorporated this paradigm into an established anticipatory-looking false-belief test for great apes. In a between-subjects design, apes experienced a novel barrier as either translucent or opaque, although both looked identical from afar. While being eye tracked, all apes then watched a video in which an actor saw an object hidden under 1 of 2 identical boxes. The actor then scuttled behind the novel barrier, at which point the object was relocated and then removed. Only apes who experienced the barrier as opaque visually anticipated that the actor would mistakenly search for the object in its previous location. Great apes, therefore, appeared to attribute differential visual access based specifically on their own past perceptual experience to anticipate an agent's actions in a false-belief test.

Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane.

The mentalistic view of early theory of mind posits that infants possess a robust and sophisticated understanding of false belief that is masked by the demands of traditional explicit tasks. Much of the evidence supporting this mentalistic view comes from infants' looking time at events that violate their expectations about the beliefs of a human agent. We conducted a replication of the violation-of-expectation procedure, except that the human agent was replaced by an inanimate agent. Infants watched a toy crane repeatedly move toward a box containing an object. In the absence of the crane, the object changed location. When the crane returned, 16-month-old infants looked longer when it turned toward the object's new location, consistent with the attribution of a false belief to the crane. These results suggest that infants spontaneously attribute false beliefs to inanimate agents. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/qqEPPhd9FDo.

Relations between verb factivity and first-order and second-order false belief understanding: Evidence from Mandarin-speaking typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorders

ABSTRACT Previous studies have shown that factivity is closely related to first-order false belief (FB). However, whether the role of factivity in first-order FB extends to second-order FB remains unclear. Investigations of verb factivity and second-order FB would contribute to our knowledge of the role of language in theory of mind (ToM) development. This study examined relations between verb factivity and first-order and second-order FB reasoning in 156 four- to seven-year-old typically developing (TD) Mandarin-speaking children, and in 17 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 17 TD matched controls. Children’s understanding of a factive zhīdào ‘know’, a non-factive juédé ‘think’ and a counter-factive jiǎzhuāng ‘pretend’ was assessed by a truth value judgement task. For TD children, zhīdào ‘know’ (factive) significantly predicted their first-order and second-order FB performances, and jiǎzhuāng ‘pretend’ (counter-factive) significantly predicted their first-order FB performance. For autistic children, they performed significantly poorer than their TD counterparts on complementation, verb factivity, first-order and second-order FB, and their first-order FB performance was significantly related to jiǎzhuāng ‘pretend’ (counter-factive). The findings suggest that verb factivity relates to both first-order and second-order FB, and verbs differing in factuality and mental state status contribute differently to ToM development.

14-Month-olds anticipate others' actions based on their belief about an object's identity.

Past research has accumulated evidence regarding infants' false-belief understanding, measuring their gaze patterns or active helping behaviors. However, the underlying mechanisms are still debated, specifically, whether young infants can compute that others represent the world under a certain aspect. Such performance requires holding in mind two representations about the same object simultaneously and attributing only one to another person. While 14-month-olds can encode an object under different aspects when forming first-person representations, it is unclear whether infants at this very age could also predict others' behavior based on their beliefs about an object's identity. Here, we investigate this question in a novel eye-tracking-based unexpected-identity task. We measured 14-month-olds' anticipatory looks combined with their looking time, using a violation-of-expectation paradigm. Results show that 14-month-olds look longer to an actor's reach that is incongruent with her false belief about the identity of an object compared to a congruent reach. Furthermore, infants correctly anticipated the actor's reach based on her false belief. Thus, as soon as infants represent dual identities they can integrate them in belief attributions and use them for consequent behavioral predictions. Such data provide evidence for the flexibility of false-belief attributions and support proposals arguing for infants' rich theory-of-mind abilities.

Progressing from an implicit to an explicit false belief understanding: A matter of executive control?

In a longitudinal study (N = 54), we investigated the developmental relation between children’s implicit and explicit theory of mind and executive functions. We found that implicit false belief understanding at 18 months was correlated with explicit false belief understanding at 4 to 5 years of age, with the latter being closely related to second-order false belief understanding at 5 years of age. Also, replicating a number of studies, explicit first- and second-order false belief understanding, in contrast to implicit false belief understanding, were related to executive functioning. This indicates that executive functions play a role in standard explicit false belief tasks, but not in implicit false belief understanding. We argue that spontaneous, implicit false belief understanding does not require conscious control, whereas explicit false belief understanding is based on conscious, reflective processing. In sum, we suggest a developmental enrichment account of theory of mind development, with belief processing becoming increasingly reflective and controlled with advancing age.

Developmental continuity between social-cognitive skills at age 2 and false belief understanding at age 4

A number of studies have examined the developmental continuity between early social-cognitive skills present in infancy and later theory of mind (ToM). However, less is known about the relation between social-cognitive skills present at age 2 and false belief understanding that emerges around 4 to 5 years of age. The present longitudinal study examined the predictive relation between visual perspective taking, pretend play, and internal state language at age 2, and false belief understanding at age 4 in 82 children. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that children’s Level-1 visual perspective taking ability at age 2 was a significant, unique predictor of false belief understanding at age 4, after controlling for verbal ability and executive functioning.

The development of false belief understanding in Indian Children: A preliminary report

Background: Development of false belief understanding is considered a universal phenomenon. However cross-cultural research on Theory of Mind is relatively recent and raises doubt on its universal development. There is paucity of empirical research on false belief understanding from India. The aim of the present study was to examine false belief understanding in Indian children. Method: The study sample consisted of 77 typically developing children between the age range of 3 and 7 years (mean age of 5 years). Tools consisted of semi-structured interview schedule, Binet Kamat Test of Intelligence and Theory of Mind task (false belief task). Results: Findings of the present study indicated that none of the 3-year-old children could pass the first order false belief task and only 12% of 4 years old could pass first order false belief task. Fifty percent of 5 years old, 73% of 6 years old and all of the 7 years old passed the false belief task. Results in our study have suggested delayed developmental trajectory in false belief understanding. Conclusion: We found that Indian children attained understanding of first order false belief relatively late in comparison to their peer as reported from other studies. Our study showed that mastery in the understanding of false belief develops at 6 to 7 years. Lower performance on false belief task may not necessarily imply neurocognitive impairment. Our findings support the view that both cultural as well as individual factors play an important role in the development of Theory of Mind.

The influence of an older sibling on preschoolers’ lie‐telling behavior

AbstractIn the present study, children’s (2‐ to 5‐years old) lie‐telling was examined in relation to theory of mind (first‐order false belief understanding), executive functioning (measuring inhibitory control in conjunction with working memory), and presence of siblings in the home (no siblings vs. siblings; younger siblings vs. older siblings). Lie‐telling was observed using a temptation resistance paradigm. Overall, of the 152 (74.9%) children who peeked at the toy, 73 (48%) lied during the temptation resistance paradigm. Children with higher scores on measures of first‐order false belief understanding, and measures that relied on inhibitory control, were more likely to lie compared to their truthful counterparts. Additionally, children with older siblings were more likely to lie to the research assistant, and this relationship was independent of performance on cognitive tasks. Overall, results demonstrate that having an older sibling has an independent, direct effect on the development of young children’s lie‐telling abilities, irrespective of cognitive ability. These findings support the argument that lie‐telling is a behavior that is facilitated by both cognitive and social factors.

Theory of mind and preschoolers' understanding of misdeed and politeness lies.

We told ninety-nine 4- and 5-year-olds stories in which speakers told lies and truths in two contexts: those told to deny a transgression (misdeeds) and those told to spare another's feelings (politeness). Participants identified each statement as a lie or as the truth, morally judged it as good or bad, and decided whether or not to assign punishment to the speaker. All children received measures of first- and second-order false-belief understanding. Although 4-year-olds were above chance in their identification accuracy, they did not differentiate between lies and truths in their moral judgments or punishments. Five-year-olds outperformed 4-year-olds in their identification accuracy, morally judged lies more negatively than truths, and assigned speakers of lies more punishment than those who told truths. Five-year-olds also treated lies about misdeeds more negatively than politeness lies in their moral judgments and punishments. Children's identification of both lies and truths related to their first-order false-belief understanding, while their moral judgments and punishment of lies related to their second-order false-belief understanding. These findings suggest that different considerations are made when children reason about the conceptual and moral differences between lies and truths. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Maternal depression and children’s false belief understanding

AbstractChildren of depressed mothers show substantial social impairment, which increases their risk for developing depression. Theory of mind understanding forms the basis of social functioning, and is impaired in children of currently depressed mothers. Models of risk emphasize that a history of any maternal depression confers risk to later psychopathology. Therefore, we tested a novel model of the impact of lifetime maternal depression on children’s false belief understanding that accounts for three primary factors that scaffold this understanding: maternal mental state talk, and children’s executive functioning and language abilities. Children aged 41–48 months with a maternal lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD; n = 19) performed significantly more poorly on the false belief battery compared to those without (n = 44). Further, lower levels of mental state talk, child executive functioning, and child language ability were significantly associated with poorer false belief scores. However, the relation between maternal MDD and children’s false belief performance was not mediated by any of these factors. These results indicate that maternal depression predicts poorer false belief understanding independently of other crucial scaffolding variables, and may be a social cognitive mechanism underlying the intergenerational transmission of depression.

Speaking Your Mind: Language and Narrative in Young Children's Theory of Mind Development.

Research consistently finds that language and theory of mind are interrelated. The content and qualities of language that specifically predict theory of mind remain under investigation and the question of why language might impact theory of mind development is open. In this chapter we analyze and highlight current findings and theory addressing theory of mind and language. The principal focus is upon typically developing children between ages 2 and 5, a period characterized by extensive development in language and social understanding. We propose that the study of young children's narrative development can inform how and why language and theory of mind are connected. False belief understanding and narrative comprehension share many similarities and this association provides a promising avenue for future work.

Developing Theory of Mind Twenty-Five Years After the Publication of “Z Badań Nad Kompetencją Komunikacyjną Dziecka” (Edited by B. Bokus and M.Haman)

Abstract Twenty-five years ago, a book “Z badań nad kompetencją komunikacyjną dziecka”, edited by Barbara Bokus and Maciej Haman, was issued containing, among else, the first Polish review of the studies on the development of Theory of Mind. During these 25 years, the area developed extensively and a new “state-of-the-arts” paper is necessary. The current paper does not pretend to the role of a complete review, instead it focusses on two live issues in the Theory of Mind (ToM) research progress: early (before the age of four years) competences in false-belief understanding, which leads to the question of continuity versus discontinuity (e.g., “Two-system theory”) between early and later ToM abilities, and neuroimaging studies of Theory-of-Mind, which may also contribute to the continuity debate.

Understanding Theory of Mind in Deaf and Hearing College Students.

Theory of Mind-the understanding that people have thoughts, wants, and beliefs that influence their interpersonal behavior-is an aspect of social cognition that develops with consistent, increasing complexity across age groups, languages, and cultures. Observed delays in theory of mind development among deaf children and others has led to a conversational account of theory of mind development and its delays in terms of the nature and amount of social communication experienced by children directly (conversationally) and indirectly (via overhearing). The present study explored theory of mind in deaf young adults by evaluating their understanding of sarcasm and advanced false belief (second-order false belief and double bluff), as well as related cognitive abilities. Consistent with previous studies, deaf participants scored significantly below hearing peers on all three theory of mind tasks. Performance was unrelated to their having had early access to social communication via either sign language (from deaf parents) or spoken language (through cochlear implants), suggesting that deaf participants' performance was not solely a function of access to social communication in early childhood. The finding of different predictors of theory of mind performance for deaf and hearing groups is discussed in terms of its language, social, and cognitive foundations.

Reliability and generalizability of an acted-out false belief task in 3-year-olds

The current study tested the reliability and generalizability of a narrative act-out false belief task held to reveal Theory of Mind (ToM) competence at 3 years of age, before children pass verbal standard false belief tasks (the “Duplo task”; Rubio-Fernández & Geurts, 2013, Psychological Science). We conducted the task across two labs with methodologically improved matched control conditions. Further, we administered an analogue intensionality version to assess the scope of ToM competence in the Duplo task. 72 3-year-olds participated in a Duplo change-of-location task, a Duplo intensionality task, and half of them in a matched verbal standard change-of-location task, receiving either false belief or matched true belief scenarios. Children performed at chance in the false belief Duplo location change and intensionality tasks as well as in the standard false belief task. There were no differences to the standard task, and performance correlated across all three false belief tasks, revealing a rather unified competence and no task advantage. In the true belief conditions of both Duplo tasks, children performed at ceiling and significantly different from the false belief conditions, while they were at chance in the true belief condition of the standard task. The latter indicates that a pragmatic advantage of the Duplo task compared to the standard task holds only for the true belief scenarios. Our study shows that the Duplo task measures the same ToM competence as the standard task and rejects a notion of earlier false belief understanding on the group level in 3-year-old children.

Relationship between Chinese children's imaginary companions and their understanding of second-order false beliefs and emotions.

We investigated relationship between Chinese children's imaginary companions (ICs) and their understanding of second-order false beliefs and emotions in 180 children, aged 5-6 years old. We examined the potential differences in second-order false belief understanding and emotion understanding between children with and without ICs, children with egalitarian IC relationships and hierarchical IC relationships, as well as children with invisible friends and personified objects. The results revealed that children with ICs had better second-order false belief understanding and emotion understanding than children without ICs. Compared with children with hierarchical relationships, children with egalitarian relationships had better second-order false belief understanding. However, children with invisible friends and personified objects did not differ on their understanding of second-order false beliefs and emotions. The results suggest that compared with IC types, IC status and child-IC relationship qualities may be more relevant to children's theory of mind. It will be interesting for the future researchers to investigate the underlying mechanism of the differences between children with egalitarian IC relationships and hierarchical IC relationships.

A model’s competence influences false-belief attribution in preschoolers

ABSTRACTThis study investigated whether 4–5-year-olds’ attribution of false beliefs is influenced by a person’s previously demonstrated competence. The children (N = 96) were presented with two protagonists who labelled familiar objects either correctly or incorrectly. Subsequently, these protagonists labelled novel objects differently and it was tested whether children trusted the competent protagonist more than the incompetent protagonist. Finally, one of the protagonists experienced a situation in which it was reasonable to attribute a false belief to this protagonist (change-of-location task). Children were more likely to identify a false belief in the incompetent protagonist, compared to the competent protagonist. This suggests that children’s false-belief understanding is susceptible to situational influences.