An assessment of age differences in theory of mind using the virtual assessment of mentalizing ability

Grainger, Sarah A.; Rakunathan, Vidhya; Adams, Alexandra G.; Canty, Allana L.

doi:10.1080/13825585.2020.1713290

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Old age is known to affect theory of mind performances related to both mentalizing during person perception and in virtual settings in the absence of neurodegenerative disorders (4,16,17). Lower activity in mPFC and PC has been reported across a variety of social cognitive tasks in healthy elders (18,19).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality Factors' Impact on the Structural Integrity of Mentalizing Network in Old Age: A Combined PET-MRI Study

et al. 2020

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The mentalizing network (MN) treats social interactions based on our understanding of other people's intentions and includes the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), temporoparietal junction (TPJ), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), precuneus (PC), and amygdala. Not all elders are equally affected by the aging-related decrease of mentalizing abilities. Personality has recently emerged as a strong determinant of functional connectivity in MN areas. However, its impact on volumetric changes across the MN in brain aging is still unknown. To address this issue, we explored the determinants of volume decrease in MN components including amyloid burden, personality, and APOE genotyping in a previously established cohort of 130 healthy elders with a mean follow-up of 54 months. Personality was assessed with the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory-Revised. Regression models corrected for multiple comparisons were used to identify predictors of volume loss including time, age, sex, personality, amyloid load, presence of APOE epsilon 4 allele, and cognitive evolution. In cases with higher Agreeableness scores, there were lower volume losses in PCC, PC, and amygdala bilaterally. This was also the case for the right mPFC in elders displaying lower Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. In multiple regression models, the effect of Agreeableness was still observed in left PC and right amygdala and that of Conscientiousness was still observed in right mPFC volume loss (26.3% of variability, significant age and sex). Several Agreeableness (Modesty) and Conscientiousness (order, dutifulness, achievement striving, and self-discipline) facets were positively related to increased volume loss in cortical components of the MN. In conclusion, these data challenge the beneficial role of higher levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness in old age, showing that they are associated with an increased rate of volume loss within the MN.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality Factors' Impact on the Structural Integrity of Mentalizing Network in Old Age: A Combined PET-MRI Study

et al. 2020

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“…be evident for both components of ToM. Prior literature has shown that older adults often exhibit greater social cognitive difficulties than younger adults ( Grainger et al, , 2020Henry et al, 2013;Sun et al, 2017). Because of this, age was included as a predictor variable in the meta-regression analyses.…”

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confidence: 99%

Empathy and Theory of Mind in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Meta-analysis

Demichelis

Coundouris

Grainger

et al. 2020

J Int Neuropsychol Soc

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Objective: A large literature now shows that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) disrupts a number of social cognitive abilities, including social perceptual function and theory of mind (ToM). However, less well understood is how the specific subcomponents of ToM as well as both the broader and specific subcomponents of empathic processing are affected. Method: The current study provides the first meta-analytic review of AD that focuses on both empathy and ToM as broad constructs, as well as their overlapping (cognitive empathy and affective ToM) and distinct (affective empathy and cognitive ToM) subcomponents. Results: Aggregated across 31 studies, the results revealed that, relative to controls, AD is associated with large-sized deficits in both cognitive ToM (g = 1.09) and affective ToM/cognitive empathy (g = 0.76). However, no statistical differences were found between the AD participants and controls on affective empathic abilities (g = 0.36). Conclusions: These data point to a potentially important disconnect between core aspects of social cognitive processing in people with AD. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

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“…For example, we used the school context to ensure it would make sense to the participants in terms of a common intergroup bullying context, but our ToM measure did not involve such social conflicts scenarios in the school context. Recently, online ToM (e.g., VAMA) tasks have been created to measure advanced mental state understanding that can be applied to different social settings to provide a more naturalistic environment which in turn leads to an increase in ecological validity ( Canty et al, 2017 ; Grainger et al, 2020 ). Such tasks would be useful to measure ToM abilities in intergroup contexts that involve social conflicts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theory of Mind as a Correlate of Bystanders’ Reasoning About Intergroup Bullying of Syrian Refugee Youth

Gönültaş

Mulvey

2022

Front. Psychol.

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The current study examined how ingroup and outgroup Theory of Mind (ToM) predicts children’s and adolescents’ reasoning for their acceptability judgments of intergroup bullying of Syrian refugee peers and group support of intergroup bullying. Participants included 587 Turkish middle (n = 372, Mage = 12.19, SD = 1.01; 208 girls) and high school (n = 215, Mage = 14.81, SD = 0.97; 142 girls) students. Participants read a bias-based bullying story with a Syrian refugee peer targeted by an ingroup Turkish peer. Then, participants rated the acceptability of bullying and group support of bullying and were presented with a reasoning question (Why?) after each acceptability question (bullying and group support of bullying). Reasoning codes included Fairness, Refugee Status/War, Prejudice and Discrimination, Harm, Prescriptive Norms, Group Functioning, and Relationship with the Bully. Participants’ ingroup and outgroup ToM abilities (measured using the Strange Stories) were evaluated as predictors of reasoning. Results documented that middle school students were more likely to attribute mental states to their ingroup members compared to outgroup members while high school students’ ToM performance did not differ across contexts. Further, the more unacceptable participants judged bullying to be, the more they reasoned about the bullying by referencing fairness, refugee status, discrimination, and harm. Results also documented that ingroup and outgroup ToM were positively related to attribution to fairness and participants’ usage of multiple reasoning judgments while only outgroup ToM was a significant predictor of reasoning around refugee status/war, discrimination, and prejudice. The findings provide implications for intervention programs that tackle intergroup bullying by examining bystanders’ social cognitive skills in a specific context.

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An assessment of age differences in theory of mind using the virtual assessment of mentalizing ability

Cited by 12 publications

References 25 publications

Personality Factors' Impact on the Structural Integrity of Mentalizing Network in Old Age: A Combined PET-MRI Study

Personality Factors' Impact on the Structural Integrity of Mentalizing Network in Old Age: A Combined PET-MRI Study

Empathy and Theory of Mind in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Meta-analysis

Theory of Mind as a Correlate of Bystanders’ Reasoning About Intergroup Bullying of Syrian Refugee Youth

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