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The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges
Although an explicit Theory of Mind (ToM) has been found to develop around 4 years of age in Western societies, recent work showing that 4- and 5-year-olds fail modified versions of False Belief tasks as well as seemingly easier True Belief tasks calls into question the robustness of preschoolers’ b...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7672026/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33250820 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.581117 |
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author | Pesch, Annelise Semenov, Andrei D. Carlson, Stephanie M. |
author_facet | Pesch, Annelise Semenov, Andrei D. Carlson, Stephanie M. |
author_sort | Pesch, Annelise |
collection | PubMed |
description | Although an explicit Theory of Mind (ToM) has been found to develop around 4 years of age in Western societies, recent work showing that 4- and 5-year-olds fail modified versions of False Belief tasks as well as seemingly easier True Belief tasks calls into question the robustness of preschoolers’ belief understanding. Some have argued these findings illustrate children’s conceptual limitations in their understanding of belief that are masked by standard False Belief tasks. However, others claim these examples of children’s failure can be explained by pragmatics of the testing situation, rather than conceptual limitations. Given the documented relation between ToM and executive function, an unexamined possibility is that children’s failure can be explained by certain executive demands. In the current study, we examined the relation between typically developing 4- (n = 43) and 5-year-olds’ (n = 42) performance on traditional and modified False Belief tasks, True Belief tasks, and one component of executive functioning - working memory. We found that children performed worse on modified False Belief tasks and True Belief tasks compared to standard 2-option False Belief tasks, and that working memory was related to modified 3-option contents False Belief performance. These results suggest that a fully representational ToM, one that is stable in the context of increased conceptual, executive, and pragmatic demands, may develop later than traditional accounts have assumed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7672026 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-76720262020-11-26 The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges Pesch, Annelise Semenov, Andrei D. Carlson, Stephanie M. Front Psychol Psychology Although an explicit Theory of Mind (ToM) has been found to develop around 4 years of age in Western societies, recent work showing that 4- and 5-year-olds fail modified versions of False Belief tasks as well as seemingly easier True Belief tasks calls into question the robustness of preschoolers’ belief understanding. Some have argued these findings illustrate children’s conceptual limitations in their understanding of belief that are masked by standard False Belief tasks. However, others claim these examples of children’s failure can be explained by pragmatics of the testing situation, rather than conceptual limitations. Given the documented relation between ToM and executive function, an unexamined possibility is that children’s failure can be explained by certain executive demands. In the current study, we examined the relation between typically developing 4- (n = 43) and 5-year-olds’ (n = 42) performance on traditional and modified False Belief tasks, True Belief tasks, and one component of executive functioning - working memory. We found that children performed worse on modified False Belief tasks and True Belief tasks compared to standard 2-option False Belief tasks, and that working memory was related to modified 3-option contents False Belief performance. These results suggest that a fully representational ToM, one that is stable in the context of increased conceptual, executive, and pragmatic demands, may develop later than traditional accounts have assumed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-11-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7672026/ /pubmed/33250820 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.581117 Text en Copyright © 2020 Pesch, Semenov and Carlson. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Pesch, Annelise Semenov, Andrei D. Carlson, Stephanie M. The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges |
title | The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges |
title_full | The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges |
title_fullStr | The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges |
title_full_unstemmed | The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges |
title_short | The Path to Fully Representational Theory of Mind: Conceptual, Executive, and Pragmatic Challenges |
title_sort | path to fully representational theory of mind: conceptual, executive, and pragmatic challenges |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7672026/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33250820 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.581117 |
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