Culture and Mental States

How are mental state references represented in English and Japanese picture books? An analysis of the frequency of emotional and cognitive words and their relation to the self or others

“…Our study analyzed 100 picture books (half in English and the other half in Japanese) for preschool‐aged children. Previous studies on the cultural differences in picture books analyzed 40 books in each culture (Dyer‐Seymour et al., 2004; Farkas et al., 2020) or just 10 books in each (Shatz et al., 2006; Wege et al., 2014). Therefore, our sample size of 50 books in each group provides a more robust verification than previous studies.…”

“…Picture books for toddlers under 2 years often contain simple words with few references to mental states, while those for children over 6 years vary greatly in the amount of text and frequently include complex language related to mental states. Since previous studies analyzed picture books for 3‐ to 4‐year‐olds (Farkas et al., 2020) and 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds (Dyer‐Seymour et al., 2004; Shatz et al., 2006), our age selection is appropriate. To ensure the suitability of the books for preschoolers aged 3–5, we consulted the age recommendations for each book from its original sources, the editorial suggestions of publishers, and age estimation based on grammatical structure and word richness (Fujita et al., 2017).…”

“…Cultural values are also transmitted to children during parent-child interaction (Senzaki & Shimizu, 2022), and thus perhaps cultural values are transmitted through picture books with culture-specific characteristics. Some studies examined the cultural differences in the expressions of mental states represented in picture books for preschool-aged children (Dyer-Seymour et al, 2004;Farkas et al, 2020;Shatz et al, 2006;Tsai et al, 2007;Wege et al, 2014). For example, Dyer-Seymour et al (2004) analyzed mental state expressions in American and Japanese children's books and found that both groups of books contained a similar frequency of emotional and cognition references.…”

Developing ChatGPT's Theory of Mind

“…This raises a relevant question from two points of view. Firstly, it is likely that the variability found stems from the fact that the prevalent language for the psychological literature is English and that in the translation some meanings give way to others, depending on the minority nature of the target language (Shatz et al, 2006). The second point of view concerns the cross-cultural validity of the use of ChatGPT.…”

Developing ChatGPT’s Theory of Mind

“…This raises a relevant question from two points of view. First, the variability found likely stems from the fact that the prevalent language for psychological literature is English and that during translation, some meanings give way to others, depending on the minority nature of the target language (Shatz et al, 2006). The second point of view concerns the cross-cultural validity of the use of ChatGPT.…”