Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome

People with Williams syndrome (WS) are characterized by hyper sociability, fluency in languages, and advantageous face-processing skills, leading to the proposal of a social module. Previous studies on the mentalizing abilities of people with WS using two-dimensional pictures, including normal-like,...

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Autores principales: Hsu, Ching-Fen, Rao, Shi-Yu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10216331/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37239194
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13050722
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author Hsu, Ching-Fen
Rao, Shi-Yu
author_facet Hsu, Ching-Fen
Rao, Shi-Yu
author_sort Hsu, Ching-Fen
collection PubMed
description People with Williams syndrome (WS) are characterized by hyper sociability, fluency in languages, and advantageous face-processing skills, leading to the proposal of a social module. Previous studies on the mentalizing abilities of people with WS using two-dimensional pictures, including normal-like, delayed, and deviant behaviors, have yielded mixed results. Thus, this study examined the mentalizing ability of people with WS through structured computerized animations of false belief tasks to investigate whether inferences about other people’s minds can be improved in this population. Participants were shown animations containing unexpected location and content changes. After viewing each animation, participants had to answer four types of questions relating to character identification, reality, memory, and false belief. Their responses were recorded and analyzed. A comprehension of false belief was observed in 4-year-old healthy children, whereas children with WS showed enhanced comprehension of false belief (until they attained a chronological age [CA] of 5.9 years), suggesting an improvement in the theory of mind resulting from viewing structured computerized animations. This age is earlier than that reported by previous studies for using theory of mind to pass false belief tests (CA 9 years), even challenging the age at which individuals failed to pass the tests (CA 17.11 years). Structured computerized animations enhanced the mentalizing ability of people with WS to a certain extent. Compared to the typically developing controls, people with WS presented with a lower developmental level in processing false belief tasks. This study has educational implications for the development of computerized social skills interventions for people with WS.
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spelling pubmed-102163312023-05-27 Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome Hsu, Ching-Fen Rao, Shi-Yu Brain Sci Article People with Williams syndrome (WS) are characterized by hyper sociability, fluency in languages, and advantageous face-processing skills, leading to the proposal of a social module. Previous studies on the mentalizing abilities of people with WS using two-dimensional pictures, including normal-like, delayed, and deviant behaviors, have yielded mixed results. Thus, this study examined the mentalizing ability of people with WS through structured computerized animations of false belief tasks to investigate whether inferences about other people’s minds can be improved in this population. Participants were shown animations containing unexpected location and content changes. After viewing each animation, participants had to answer four types of questions relating to character identification, reality, memory, and false belief. Their responses were recorded and analyzed. A comprehension of false belief was observed in 4-year-old healthy children, whereas children with WS showed enhanced comprehension of false belief (until they attained a chronological age [CA] of 5.9 years), suggesting an improvement in the theory of mind resulting from viewing structured computerized animations. This age is earlier than that reported by previous studies for using theory of mind to pass false belief tests (CA 9 years), even challenging the age at which individuals failed to pass the tests (CA 17.11 years). Structured computerized animations enhanced the mentalizing ability of people with WS to a certain extent. Compared to the typically developing controls, people with WS presented with a lower developmental level in processing false belief tasks. This study has educational implications for the development of computerized social skills interventions for people with WS. MDPI 2023-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10216331/ /pubmed/37239194 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13050722 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hsu, Ching-Fen
Rao, Shi-Yu
Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome
title Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome
title_full Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome
title_fullStr Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome
title_full_unstemmed Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome
title_short Computerized False Belief Tasks Impact Mentalizing Ability in People with Williams Syndrome
title_sort computerized false belief tasks impact mentalizing ability in people with williams syndrome
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10216331/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37239194
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13050722
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