Syntactic Recursion Facilitates and Working Memory Predicts Recursive Theory of Mind

Arslan, Burcu; Hohenberger, Annette; Verbrugge, Rineke

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169510

Cited by 41 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…One potential source is suggested by recent work on working memory and its interaction with the development of recursion in the thought domain. The research question examined in Arslan et al (2017) is strikingly similar to ours, although it targets a different domain: "Why do children need some years to pass second-order false belief tasks once they are able to pass first-order false belief?" (p. 2).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

On Recursive Modification in Child L1 French

2018

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This paper investigates nominal recursive modification (RM) in the L1 acquisition of French. Although recursion is considered the fundamental property of human languages, recursive self-embedding is found to be difficult for children in a variety of languages and constructions. Despite these challenges, the acquisition of RM proves to be resilient; acquirable even under severely degraded input conditions. From a minimalist perspective on the operations of narrow syntax, recursive embedding is essentially the application of a sequence of Merge operations (Chomsky 1995; Trotzke and Zwart 2014); therefore, given the universality of Merge, we do not expect to find cross-linguistic differences in how difficult recursion is. But if the challenging nature of recursion stems from factors which might differ from language to language, we expect different outcomes cross-linguistically. We compare new data from French to existing English data (Pérez-Leroux et al. 2012) in order to examine to what extent language-specific properties of RM structures determine the acquisition path. While children's production differs significantly from their adult's counterparts, we find no differences between French-speaking and English-speaking children. Our findings suggest that the challenging nature of recursion does not stem from the grammar itself and that what shapes the acquisition path is the interaction between universal properties of language and considerations not specific to language, namely computational efficiency.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

On Recursive Modification in Child L1 French

2018

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“… According to the paper by van de Pol et al. (), “Higher‐order thinking could still be a source of difficulty for performing theory of mind for other reasons than computational complexity (e.g., due to limited working‐memory).” In this connection we remark that working memory has been shown to play a significant role in higher‐order false belief reasoning (cf.Arslan, Hohenberger, & Verbrugge, ); and also our own work: (Polyanskaya, Braüner, & Blackburn, ). …”

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confidence: 80%

Being Deceived: Information Asymmetry in Second‐Order False Belief Tasks

Braüner

Blackburn

Polyanskaya

2019

Topics in Cognitive Science

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We analyze four well‐known second‐order false belief tasks. Superficially, all four tasks share a common logical structure: All are based around a principle of inertia, which says that an agent's beliefs are preserved over time, unless the agent receives information to the contrary. However, a deeper analysis reveals details that are both suggestive and puzzling. First, the four tasks exemplify all four possibilities inherent in the two dimensions of being‐deceived versus not‐being‐deceived and change‐in‐world versus change‐in‐belief‐only. Second, there is a feature common to all four tasks: All come with a “built in” first‐order false belief. We call these inner first‐order false beliefs. They introduce an informational asymmetry that has the same logical form in all four tasks, but whose role is unclear. We do two things in this paper. First, we show that inner first‐order false beliefs play an important (though seemingly unremarked) role in the experimental design of the tasks. Second, we present some empirical results (for both typically developing children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder) on the effects of being‐deceived versus not‐being‐deceived and change‐in‐world versus change‐in‐belief‐only on second‐order reasoning ability.

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“…The relation between evaluative complexity and ToM has also been PLOS ONE studied on the level of second-order ToM. Developmental studies indicated that second-order ToM reasoning develops around age 5 or 6 [22,23,33]. Findings on ToM and its relation to evaluative devices were contradictory, though.…”

Section: Social Cognitive and Linguistic Processes Underlying Narratmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The experimenter presented the 2nd order false-belief question ('Where does his sister think that the boy will look for the chocolate?'). The second story, the birthday present story, was adapted from Sullivan et al's [23] set of stories to Turkish by Arslan et al [33]. Participants' responses were evaluated separately for each story.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

The development of narrative skills in Turkish-speaking children: A complexity approach

Balaban

Hohenberger

2020

PLoS ONE

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The present study examines the development of plot, evaluative and syntactic complexity in children's narratives and its relationship with gender, ToM, executive function and linguistic recursive ability. One hundred and five Turkish-speaking children distributed across 4 age groups (four-, five-, seven-eight-, and ten-eleven-year-olds) and 15 adults participated in (a) Elicitation of Narratives Task, (b) Emotional Stroop Task, (c) First-or Second-Order ToM Task (depending on their age), (d) Real-Apparent Emotion Task (four-year-olds), and (e) Comprehension of Complement Clauses Task. Among the three domains of complexity, only plot complexity was found to be related to gender and to develop significantly, in particular at 5 and 7 years of age. Evaluative complexity was low in children in all age groups and was not predicted by any factor. Syntactic complexity was predicted by executive function. These findings are discussed considering the cognitive, linguistic and sociocultural nature of narration.

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Syntactic Recursion Facilitates and Working Memory Predicts Recursive Theory of Mind

Cited by 41 publications

References 62 publications

On Recursive Modification in Child L1 French

On Recursive Modification in Child L1 French

Being Deceived: Information Asymmetry in Second‐Order False Belief Tasks

The development of narrative skills in Turkish-speaking children: A complexity approach

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