Displaying 1 - 3 of 3
Research on theory of mind increasingly encompasses apparently contradictory findings. In particular, in initial studies, older preschoolers consistently passed false-belief tasks ? a so-called ?definitive? test of mental-state understanding ? whereas younger children systematically erred. More recent studies, however, have found evidence of false-belief understanding in 3-year-olds or have demonstrated conditions that improve children's performance. A meta-analysis was conducted (N= 178 separate studies) to address the empirical inconsistencies and theoretical controversies. When organized into a systematic set of factors that vary across studies, false-belief results cluster systematically with the exception of only a few outliers. A combined model that included age, country of origin, and four task factors (e.g., whether the task objects were transformed in order to deceive the protagonist or not) yielded a multiple R of .74 and an R2 of .55; thus, the model accounts for 55% of the variance in false-belief performance. Moreover, false-belief performance showed a consistent developmental pattern, even across various countries and various task manipulations: preschoolers went from below-chance performance to above-chance performance. The findings are inconsistent with early competence proposals that claim that developmental changes are due to tasks artifacts, and thus disappear in simpler, revised false-belief tasks; and are, instead, consistent with theoretical accounts that propose that understanding of belief, and, relatedly, understanding of mind, exhibit genuine conceptual change in the preschool years.
Children aged 3?12?years (n?=?184) with typical development, deafness, autism, or Asperger syndrome took a series of theory-of-mind (ToM) tasks to confirm and extend previous developmental scaling evidence. A new sarcasm task, in the format of H. M. Wellman and D. Liu?s (2004) 5-step ToM Scale, added a statistically reliable 6th step to the scale for all diagnostic groups. A key previous finding, divergence in task sequencing for children with autism, was confirmed. Comparisons among diagnostic groups, controlling age, and language ability, showed that typical developers mastered the 6 ToM steps ahead of each of the 3 disabled groups, with implications for ToM theories. The final (sarcasm) task challenged even nondisabled 9-year-olds, demonstrating the new scale?s sensitivity to post-preschool ToM growth.
Two studies address the sequence of understandings evident in preschoolers' developing theory of mind. The first, preliminary study provides a meta-analysis of research comparing different types of mental state understandings (e.g., desires vs. beliefs, ignorance vs. false belief). The second, primary study tests a theory-of-mind scale for preschoolers. In this study 75 children (aged 2 years, 11 months to 6 years, 6 months) were tested on 7 tasks tapping different aspects of understanding persons' mental states. Responses formed a consistent developmental progression, where for most children if they passed a later item they passed all earlier items as well, as confirmed by Guttman and Rasch measurement model analyses.