A theory of the child's theory of mind

Vision is an important source of information about other minds for sighted children, especially prior to the onset of language. Visually observed actions, eye gaze, and facial expressions of others provide information about mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. Does such experience contribute causally to the development of cortical networks supporting social cognition? To address this question we compared functional development of brain regions supporting theory of mind (ToM), as well as behavioral ToM reasoning, across congenitally blind (n=17) and sighted (n=114) children and adolescents (4–17 years old). We find that blind children in this age range show slightly lower ToM behavioral performance relative to sighted children. Likewise, the functional profile of ToM brain regions is qualitatively similar, but quantitatively weaker in blind relative to sighted children. Alongside prior research, these data suggest that vision facilitates, but is not necessary for, ToM development.

The human mind is a mosaic composed of multiple selves with conflicting desires. How can coherent actions emerge from such conflicts? Classical desire theory argues that rational action depends on maximizing the expected utilities evaluated by all desires. In contrast, intention theory suggests that humans regulate conflicting desires with an intentional commitment that constrains action planning towards a fixed goal. Here, we designed a series of 2D navigation games in which participants were instructed to navigate to two equally desirable destinations. We focused on the critical moments in navigation to test whether humans spontaneously commit to an intention and take actions that would be qualitatively different from those of a purely desire-driven agent. Across four experiments, we found three distinctive signatures of intentional commitment that only exist in human actions: “goal perseverance” as the persistent pursuit of an original intention despite unexpected drift making the intention suboptimal; “self-binding” as the proactive binding of oneself to a committed future by avoiding a path that could lead to many futures; and “temporal leap” as the commitment to a distant future even before reaching the proximal one. These results suggest that humans spontaneously form an intention with a committed plan to quarantine conflicting desires from actions, supporting intention as a distinctive mental state beyond desire. Additionally, our findings shed light on the possible functions of intention, such as reducing computational load and making one's actions more predictable in the eyes of a third-party observer.

This cross-cultural study compared family environments and performance on theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF) in 236 3- to 6-year-old children in Japan (N = 117, M_age = 5.14, SD =0.82, 56 boys and 61 girls) and the UK (N = 119, M_age = 5.09, SD =0.86, 55 boys and 64 girls). Matched for age, verbal ability, gender, SES, and family structure (family size, solo vs. dual parenting, no sibling, no older sibling vs. older sibling), Japanese children showed worse ToM but better EF performance, although not across all measures or ages. This study used carefully matched samples and is the first direct comparison of children from Japan and the UK to examine both ToM and EF. Findings are discussed in relation to sociocultural factors (especially variation in the nature of SES across countries) and the complexity of the development of mind in diverse cultural contexts.

A wealth of research and theorizing has been dedicated to the idea that children’s theory of mind (ToM) development is contingent upon qualities of their social contexts (e.g., parents’ mental-state language use, the presence of siblings). We highlight the importance of considering the child as an active observer and participant in these social contexts, and thus an agent in their own ToM development. Drawing on research and theory that emphasizes the child’s active role in ToM development, we identify child-level social factors that may be critical in explaining individual differences in this development. Specifically, we focus on variability in children’s ‘social tendencies’—how they attend to social contexts, and how they interact within and shape those contexts. These tendencies may influence the social information that children garner from social contexts—information that they use to construct a ToM. We review and integrate a growing body of research that has established empirical links between individual differences in children’s ToM and their social tendencies—specifically, factors such as their social attentiveness, shyness, anxious-withdrawal, and aggressiveness. Taken together, these findings inform continued debates on whether and how social contexts and children’s participation in those contexts influence children’s ToM, particularly with regard to how children construct their ToM. We conclude with suggestions for continued research on these topics.