This research studies the relation between children’s Theory of Mind (ToM) and the communicative behaviour and strategies used in a referential communication task. A total of 46 children (aged 6 to 10) were administered 6 ToM tasks, and they also participated in pairs in a cooperative task. Each pair built 4 construction models. Results showed that several ToM skills were related to the communicative behaviours of requesting clarification and giving information. In addition, the most used communicative strategy was Joint review, in which participants reviewed together the location of their blocks. This strategy was the most related to ToM abilities and to cooperative success. The importance of ToM for developing the communicative behaviours and strategies necessary for cooperation is discussed.
This study examines the temporal effect of different trainings designed to favour the development of false belief understanding. A sample of 78 pre-school children aged between three years, five months and three years, 11 months was divided into three training conditions. After three training sessions, they were immediately evaluated in post-test 1 and again a month and a half later in post-test 2. The results showed that the efficiency of the training conditions depended both on the type of linguistic communication and on the use of deceptive objects. Also, the effect of the training was maintained for at least a month and a half after post-test 1 and it was transferred from the trained task to other false belief tasks. The results are commented according to the possibility of using language-based trainings to foster children's theory of mind understanding in educational contexts.
Previous research has found a link between theory of mind and cooperation. The aim of this study is to deepen into this relationship, to identify which theory of mind skills are more related to the cooperative ability on a referential communication task. A total of 50 children from first and fifth grade completed a battery of theory of mind tasks, and also a cooperative task where children worked in pairs to build block models. Each pair was composed by a builder and a guide, who gave instructions to his partner about how to build a replica of the model. The results show a significant relationship between the theory of mind skills and cooperation. Specifically, we found that the second-order false-belief task was the variable most related to cooperation after controlling the effect of age. In addition, we observed that the mentalist skills were more important for cooperation in the builders than in the guides. Finally, we discuss the findings of this study and make suggestions for the future.
The article Why Is Theory of Mind Important for Referential Communication?, written by Francesc Sidera, Georgina Perpiñà, Jèssica Serrano and Carles Rostan, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 10 August 2016 without open access.
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