Against a long tradition of childhood realism (Piaget, 1929), A. S. Lillard and J. H. Flavell (1990) found that 3-year-olds prefer to characterize people by their mental states (beliefs, desires, emotions) than by their visible behaviors. In this exploratory study, we extend this finding to a new cohort of 3-year-olds, examine how these preferences change from 3-4 years, and explore relationships with theory of mind and parental mind-mindedness. The results showed a developmental change and a possible cohort difference: at 3 years, children in the sample preferred behavioral descriptions, although by 4 years of age, they preferred mentalistic ones. Interestingly, mentalistic preferences were unrelated to theory of mind or parental mind-mindedness, concurrently or over time. Perspective-taking skills at 3 years, however, predicted an increase in mentalistic responses from 3 years to 4 years. Possible explanations for each finding are discussed.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2013.805712DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

theory mind
8
mind parental
8
parental mind-mindedness
8
years
6
children prefer
4
mentalistic
4
prefer mentalistic
4
mentalistic descriptions?
4
descriptions? long
4
long tradition
4

Similar Publications

Objective: In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in reports upon social-cognition impairments in bipolar disorder. This study aimed to compare the characteristics of social cognition domains in bipolar I (BD I) and II (BD II) based on the findings to date.

Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted on Web of Science and PubMed from inception to 28 August 2024.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Impairments in social cognition in bipolar disorder (BD) have been extensively described in the last decade but few treatment strategies have been studied to address this issue. This study presents findings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) investigating the efficacy of metacognitive training for bipolar disorder (MCT-BD) compared to Treatment as Usual (TAU) among individuals with BD in remission. The aim was to determine whether MCT-BD could improve social cognition and overall functioning in this population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Speech sound disorder (SSD) is one of the major speech disorders in school-age children. Given the heterogeneity in terms of subtypes within SSD, there is a need to develop techniques for a quick identification of these subtypes. Furthermore, given the paucity of studies from children with SSD from Cantonese-speaking homes and a noted prevalence of SSDs in Cantonese-speaking children, it becomes even more important to investigate the subtypes of SSDs in Cantonese-speaking children.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The ability to infer a speaker's utterance within a particular context for the intended meaning is central to communication. Yet, little is known about the underlying neurocomputational mechanisms of pragmatic inference, let alone relevant differences among individuals. Here, using a reference game combined with model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we showed that an individual-level pragmatic inference model was a better predictor of listeners' performance than a population-level model.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Default mode network functional connectivity as a transdiagnostic biomarker of cognitive function.

Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging

January 2025

Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Brain and Cognitive Science at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Psychology, Northeastern University. Electronic address:

The default mode network (DMN) is intricately linked with processes such as self-referential thinking, episodic memory recall, goal-directed cognition, self-projection, and theory of mind. Over recent years, there has been a surge in examining its functional connectivity, particularly its relationship with frontoparietal networks (FPN) involved in top-down attention, executive function, and cognitive control. The fluidity in switching between these internal and external modes of processing-highlighted by anti-correlated functional connectivity-has been proposed as an indicator of cognitive health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!