Executive function in middle childhood and the relationship with theory of mind

Abstract

A group of 126 typically developing children (aged 5-12 years) completed three cool executive function tasks (spatial working memory, stop signal, intra-extra dimensional shift), two hot executive function tasks (gambling, delay of gratification), one advanced theory of mind task (strange stories with high versus low affective tone), and a vocabulary test. Older children performed better than younger children, consistent with the protracted development of hot and cool executive functions and theory of mind. Multiple regression analyses showed that hot and cool executive functions were correlated but they predicted theory of mind in different ways.

Cognitive processes predicting advanced theory of mind in the broader autism phenotype

“…The link between EFs and ToM has been consistently demonstrated across the lifespan, from early childhood [Cole & Mitchell, 2000;Doenyas, Yavuz, & Selcuk, 2018;Fahie & Symons, 2003;Fisher, Happé, & Dunn, 2005;Gao, Huang, Zhang, & Chen, 2019;Gordon & Olson, 1998;Hughes, 1998a;Hughes & Graham, 2002;Joseph & Tager-Flusberg, 2004;Marcovitch et al, 2015;Powell & Carey, 2017], middle childhood [Bock, Gallaway, & Hund, 2015;Kouklari, Tsermentseli, & Auyeung, 2018;Kouklari, Tsermentseli, & Monks, 2019;Lecce et al, 2019;Wilson, Andrews, Hogan, Wang, & Shum, 2018], through adulthood [Ahmed & Miller, 2011;Bradford et al, 2015;Bull, Phillips, & Conway, 2008;German & Hehman, 2006;McKinnon & Moscovitch, 2007;Saltzman, Strauss, Hunter, & Archibald, 2000], both in Western and non-Western cultures [Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses, & Lee, 2006]. Longitudinal studies have consistently found that EFs predict ToM over time [Austin, Groppe, & Elsner, 2014;Carlson, Mandell, & Williams, 2004;Derksen, Hunsche, Giroux, Connolly, & Bernstein, 2018;Doenyas et al, 2018;Hughes, 1998b;Kouklari et al, 2019;Lecce, Bianco, Devine, & Hughes, 2017;Marcovitch et al, 2015].…”

“…Although the majority of ToM studies use false-belief tasks [Bradford et al, 2015], there is increasing evidence from behavioral studies that there are distinct subcomponents of ToM that engage unique cognitive processes [Ahmed & Miller, 2011;Bradford et al, 2015;Wilson et al, 2018]. Ahmed and Miller [2011] assessed ToM in healthy adults using different ToM tasks, and EF was measured using the Delis-Kaplin Executive Function System [D-KEFS;Delis, Kaplan, & Kramer, 2001].…”

Psychometric properties and clinical utility of the executive function inventory for children and adolescents: a large multistage populational study including children with ADHD

“…Several reasons justify the importance of assessing EF in children and in adolescents, since EF are likely to have a significant impact on the development of everyday life skills. Since EF plays an essential role in cognitive development, its relationship with emotional regulation, and inhibitory control is regarded as part of the development of key outcomes of child development (Sun & Buys, 2012), as well for mental health (Han et al, 2016;Kertz, Belden, Tillman, & Luby, 2016;Shanmugan et al, 2016;White et al, 2017;Wilson, Andrews, Hogan, Wang, & Shum, 2018), socioemotional skills (Holmes, Kim-Spoon, & Deater-Deckard, 2016;Walk, Evers, Quante, & Hille, 2018), and school achievement (Cantin, Gnaedinger, Gallaway, Hesson-McInnis, & Hund, 2016;Oberer, Gashaj, & Roebers, 2018;Viterbori, Usai, Traverso, & De Franchis, 2015).…”

The effects of fantastical television content on Chinese preschoolers’ executive function

“…The second aim was to distinguish the effects of different EF components. Mounting evidence from the field of neuropsychology has shown that the components of EF have different development trajectories and differential associations with various areas in the prefrontal cortex (V. Anderson, Levin, & Jacobs, 2002;Brookshire, Levin, Song, & Zhang, 2004;Diamond, 2001;Wilson et al, 2018). However, previous studies on the associations between television exposure and EF have primarily regarded EF as a unitary construct rather than dissociable components (Lillard et al, 2015;Lillard & Peterson, 2011;Nathanson et al, 2014).…”