The Development of Advanced Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood: A Longitudinal Study From Age 5 to 10 Years

Abstract

This 5-year longitudinal study investigated advanced theory-of-mind (AToM) development in 161 German 5to 10-year-olds (89 females, 72 males). Core aspects of AToM developed nonlinearly, with children reaching a milestone at the age of 7 years, around when they attained the conceptual insight that mental states can be recursive. In late elementary school, a multicomponent battery was used. Performance on many aspects of AToM was predicted by information-processing skills (intelligence and language at 6 years), but not by the age when children acquired the basic conceptual insight; only some naturalistic, social-interpretative tasks were correlated with children's age at acquisition. This study documents significant developmental progressions in middle-childhood AToM and suggests that different mechanisms may underlie diverse aspects of social cognition. the study because the host institution, the Freiburg University of Education, did not have an established IRB.

Editorial: Misunderstanding Others: Theory of Mind in Psychological Disorders

“…The affective ToM involves thinking about feelings and is distinct from the affective empathy system, which involves sharing the emotional experiences of others (Shamay-Tsoory, 2011). Important developmental ToM milestones are in preschool, school-age, and early adolescence (Rakoczy, 2017;Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2020;Wellman, 2020;Devine and Lecce, 2021;Osterhaus and Koerber, 2021). Childhood adversity can disrupt ToM development (Benarous et al, 2015).…”

Machine learning and deep learning systems for automated measurement of ‘advanced’ theory of mind: Reliability and validity in children and adolescents.

“…Second, advanced ToM tasks target different skills including emotion recognition (Cassels & Birch, 2014), perspective taking (Tamnes et al, 2018), recursive reasoning (Osterhaus et al, 2016), and predicting, interpreting or explaining behavior (Banerjee et al, 2011). Third, advanced ToM tasks use both forcedchoice (Osterhaus & Koerber, 2021) and open-ended response formats (Devine & Hughes, 2013). Despite task differences, studies show age-related gains in performance across a range of advanced ToM tasks in middle childhood and adolescence (e.g., Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2020;Osterhaus & Koerber, 2021).…”

“…Third, advanced ToM tasks use both forcedchoice (Osterhaus & Koerber, 2021) and open-ended response formats (Devine & Hughes, 2013). Despite task differences, studies show age-related gains in performance across a range of advanced ToM tasks in middle childhood and adolescence (e.g., Meinhardt-Injac et al, 2020;Osterhaus & Koerber, 2021). Unlike measures of false belief understanding, advanced ToM measures appear to show weak correlations with each other, undermining the view that these tasks capture the same ability (e.g., Hayward & Homer, 2017).…”

A systematic review and meta-analysis of social cognition training success across the healthy lifespan

“…ToM is necessary in order to understand and predict the behavior of others 5 and is a prerequisite for successful social interaction 6 . However, there is substantial variability in ToM development and other socio-cognitive skills and different mechanisms may underlie the diverse aspects of social cognition 7 . Neuroanatomical correlates involve for example the medial prefrontal cortex structures, the superior temporal sulcus region, the temporal poles, and the amygdala 8 .…”