Development of Meta-Representations: Procedural Metacognition and the Relationship to Theory of Mind

Abstract

In several studies it was shown that metacognitive ability is crucial for children and their success in school. Much less is known about the emergence of that ability and its relationship to other meta-representations like Theory of Mind competencies. In the past years, a growing literature has suggested that metacognition and Theory of Mind could theoretically be assumed to belong to the same developmental concept. Since then only a few studies showed empirically evidence that metacognition and Theory of Mind are related. But these studies focused on declarative metacognitive knowledge rather than on procedural metacognitive monitoring like in the present study: N = 159 children were first tested shortly before making the transition to school (aged between 5 1 / 2 and 7 1 / 2 years) and one year later at the end of their first grade. Analyses suggest that there is in fact a significant relation between early metacognitive monitoring skills (procedural metacognition) and later Theory of Mind competencies. Notably, language seems to play a crucial role in this relationship. Thus our results bring new insights in the research field of the development of meta-representation and support the view that metacognition and Theory of Mind are indeed interrelated, but the precise mechanisms yet remain unclear.

Executive function and metacognition: Towards a unifying framework of cognitive self-regulation

“…Specifically, while Carlson and colleagues found significant links between preschoolers' EF and their theory-of-mind skills (Carlson et al, 2015;Carlson, White, & Davis-Unger, 2014), other researchers report links between theory-of-mind skills and either declarative (Lecce, Caputi, & Pagnin, 2015;Lecce, Demichelli, Zocchi, & Palladino, 2015;Lockl & Schneider, 2006 or procedural monitoring skills (Feurer, Sassu, Cimeli, & Roebers, 2015).…”

Thinking about thinking: A longitudinal investigation of the developmental link between metacognition, self-control and theory of mind.

“…Lecce et al (2014) also found that ToM at age 5 predicted children`s understanding of learning processes at age 8. However, researchers focused on more basic forms of metacognitive monitoring (reporting level of certainty in a memory) find that early metacognition predicts later ToM (Feurer et al, 2015). Most recently, Kloo et al (2021) found that children's ToM at 5 years was related to their ability to report on their uncertainty of the contents of a box which their were unsure or ignorant of the contents of at 5.9 years.…”

“…There were 10 test trials in total. Following Ghetti (2011, 2013) and Feurer et al (2015), we calculated the proportion of sure trials on which the child had accurately selected the target, and subtracted from this to the proportion of sure trials when they were inaccurate to provide a measure of metacognition. Successful certainty-monitors should be more accurate when sure, and thus higher certainty difference scores indicate superior metacognition.…”

The Impact of Teacher-Initiated Activities on Identifying and Verbalizing Ways of Metacognitive Monitoring and Control in Six-Year-Old Children

“…It has been proved that two-year-olds monitor their own knowledge states (Brinck & Liljenfors, 2013). Metacognitive monitoring strategies in children up to four years of age have not been differentiated (Feurer, Sassu, Cimeli, & Roebers, 2015). Schraw and Moshman (1995) claim that four-year-olds are able to apply several strategies of learning regulation.…”