Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

New Scaling of Theory of Mind Tasks: Where Can the Intentional Aspect Be Scaled?

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Activitas Nervosa Superior

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to develop a new theory of mind tasks, test its reliability and validity, and scale the intentional aspect of theory of mind. The study was designed as survey research, one of the quantitative research traditions. One hundred and fifty-eight children whose age ranged between 4 and 10 years were included in the research sample through quota sampling. Data were dichotomous so Rasch analysis was used to analyse the data. As result of Rasch analysis, it was found that the separation index is 7; reliability coefficient is 98; and the battery of the theory of mind task has robust model fit based on RMSE, infit mean-square and outfit mean-square. Difficulty analysis indicated that false belief tasks and real vs. disclosed intention are the hardest tasks, while diverse desires, implicit false beliefs, and diverse beliefs are the easiest tasks in the battery.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

There is no availability of data and material.

Abbreviations

ToM :

Theory of mind

SD :

Standard deviation

Infit MNSQ :

Infit mean square

Outfit MNSQ :

Outfit mean square

PTMC :

Point measurement correlation

RMSE :

Root Mean square error

EC :

Expected correlation

SI :

Separation index

F :

Frequency

M :

Mean

References

  • Aichhorn, M., Perner, J., Weiss, B., Kronbichler, M., Staffen, W., & Ladurner, G. (2009). Temporo-parietal junction activity in theory-of-mind tasks: falseness, beliefs, or attention. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(6), 1179–1192.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”. Cognition, 21(1), 37–46.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Ring, H. A., Wheelwright, S., Bullmore, E. T., Brammer, M. J., Simmons, A., & Williams, S. C. (1999). Social intelligence in the normal and autistic brain: An fMRI study. European Journal of Neuroscience, 11(6), 1891–1898.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bartsch, K. (1996). Between desires and beliefs: Young children’s action predictions. Child Development, 67(4), 1671–1685.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bhatt, M., & Camerer, C. F. (2005). Self-referential thinking and equilibrium as states of mind in games: fMRI evidence. Games and Economic Behavior, 52(2), 424–459.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blakemore, S. J., Sarfati, Y., Bazin, N., & Decety, J. (2003). The detection of intentional contingencies in simple animations in patients with delusions of persecution. Psychological Medicine, 33(8), 1433–1441.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brunet, E., Sarfati, Y., Hardy-Baylé, M. C., & Decety, J. (2000). A PET investigation of the attribution of intentions with a nonverbal task. Neuroimage, 11(2), 157–166.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Castelli, F., Happé, F., Frith, U., & Frith, C. (2000). Movement and mind: A functional imaging study of perception and interpretation of complex intentional movement patterns. Neuroimage, 12(3), 314–325.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, L., & Holliday, M. (1979). Statistics for social scientists. London: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2000). Research methods in education. London: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crowley, K. (2014). Child development. London: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, R., Völlm, B., Drury, A., McKie, S., Richardson, P., & Deakin, J. F. (2006). Co-operation with another player in a financially rewarded guessing game activates regions implicated in theory of mind. Social Neuroscience, 1, 385–395.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fabricius, W. V., & Khalil, S. L. (2003). False beliefs or false positives? Journal of Cognition and Development, 4(3), 239–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flavell, J. H., Flavell, E. R., Green, F. L., & Moses, L. J. (1990). Young children’s understanding of fact beliefs versus value beliefs. Child Development, 61(4), 915–928.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E., & Hyun, H. H. (2012). How to design and evaluate research in education. New York: McGraw Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, O., Griffin, R., Brownell, H., & Winner, E. (2003). Problems with the seeing= knowing rule. Developmental Science, 6(5), 505–513.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. (2001). The practice of mind. Theory, simulation or primary interaction? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(5–6), 83–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gopnik, A., & Slaughter, V. (1991). Young children’s understanding of changes in their mental states. Child Development, 62(1), 98–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gopnik, A., Slaughter, V., & Meltzoff, A. (1994). Changing your views: How understanding visual perception can lead to a new theory of mind. In C. Lewis & P. Mitchell (Eds.), Children’s early understanding of mind: Origins and development (pp. 157–181). Hove: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (1988). On the logic of social sciences. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Happé, F. G. (1994). An advanced test of theory of mind: Understanding of story characters' thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally handicapped, and normal children and adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24(2), 129–154.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Happé, F. G. (1996). Studying weak central coherence at low levels: children with autism do not succumb to visual illusions. A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37(7), 873–877.

  • Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, P. L., Johnson, C. N., Hutton, D., Andrews, G., & Cooke, T. (1989). Young children’s theory of mind and emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 3(4), 379–400.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hogrefe, G. J., Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1986). Ignorance versus false belief: a developmental lag in attribution of epistemic states. Child Development, 57(3), 567–582.

    Google Scholar 

  • Imuta, K., Henry, J. D., Slaughter, V., Selcuk, B., & Ruffman, T. (2016). Theory of mind and prosocial behavior in childhood: a meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology, 52(8), 1192.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kana, R. K., Libero, L. E., Hu, C. P., Deshpande, H. D., & Colburn, J. S. (2014). Functional brain networks and white matter underlying theory-of-mind in autism. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(1), 98–105.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Krill, A. L., & Platek, S. M. (2012). Working together may be better: Activation of reward centers during a cooperative maze task. PLoS One, 7(2), e30613.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, J., Quintana, J., Nori, P., & Green, M. F. (2011). Theory of mind in schizophrenia: Exploring neural mechanisms of belief attribution. Social Neuroscience, 6, 569–581.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Linacre, J. M. (2002). Optimizing rating scale category effectiveness. Journal of Applied Measurement, 3(1), 85–106.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Linacre, J. M. (2019) Misfit diagnosis: infit outfit mean-square standardized. Retrieved October, 01, 2014, from http://590vwww.winsteps.com/winman/diagnosingmisfit.htm

  • Liverta Sempio, O., Marchetti, A., Castelli, I., Lecciso, F., & Pezzotta, C. (2005). Mentalizzazione e competenza sociale. La comprensione della falsa credenza nello sviluppo normale e patologico [Mentalizing and social competence. Understanding false belief in typical and atypical development]. Milano: Franco Angeli.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lorenz, K. (1976). Behind the mirror. Methuen.

  • Ma, N., Vandekerckhove, M., Van Overwalle, F., Seurinck, R., & Fias, W. (2011). Spontaneous and intentional trait inferences recruit a common mentalizing network to a different degree: Spontaneous inferences activate only its core areas. Social Neuroscience, 6(2), 123–138.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, A., & Weisberg, J. (2003). Neural foundations for understanding social and mechanical concepts. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 20(3–6), 575–587.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, J. P., Macrae, C. N., & Banaji, M. R. (2005). Forming impressions of people versus inanimate objects: Social-cognitive processing in the medial prefrontal cortex. Neuroimage, 26, 251–257.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, C. O., & Davidshofer, C. O. (2005). Psychological testing: Principles and applications. Upper Saddle River: Pearson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perner, J. (1991). Learning, development, and conceptual change. Understanding the representational mind. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinto, G., Tarchi, C., Accorti Gamannossi, B., & Bigozzi, L. (2016). Mental state talk in children’s face-to-face and telephone narratives. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 44, 21–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rasch, G. (1960). Studies in mathematical psychology: I. probabilistic models for some intelligence and attainment tests. Oxford: Nielsen & Lydiche.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, D., & Leslie, A. (1998). Solving belief problems: Toward a task analysis. Cognition, 66(1), 1–31.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ruffman, T. (2014). To belief or not belief: Children’s theory of mind. Developmental Review, 34(3), 265–293.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruffman, T., Slade, L., & Crowe, E. (2002). The relation between children’s and mothers’ mental state language and theory-of-mind understanding. Child Development, 73(3), 734–751.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2003). People thinking about thinking people: the role of the temporo-parietal junction in “theory of mind”. Neuroimage, 19(4), 1835–1842.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schaafsma, S. M., Pfaff, D. W., Spunt, R. P., & Adolphs, R. (2015). Deconstructing and reconstructing theory of mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(2), 65–72.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schofield, W. (1996). Survey sampling. In R. Sapsford & V. Jupp (Eds.), Data collection and analysis. London: Sage publications and Open University press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schurz, M., Radua, J., Aichhorn, M., Richlan, F., & Perner, J. (2014). Fractionating theory of mind: a meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 42, 9–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sodian, B. (2005). Theory of mind: The case for conceptual development. In W. Schneider, R. Schumann-Hengsteler, & B. Sodian (Eds.), Young children’s cognitive development: Interrelationships among executive functioning, working memory, verbal ability and theory of mind (pp. 95–130). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

  • Sripada, C. S., Angstadt, M., Banks, S., Nathan, P. J., Liberzon, I., & Phan, K. L. (2009). Functional neuroimaging of mentalizing during the trust game in social anxiety disorder. Neuroreport, 20(11), 984–989.

  • Sullivan, K., & Winner, E. (1991). When 3-year-olds understand ignorance, false belief and representational change. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9(1), 159–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, K., & Winner, E. (1993). Three-year-old’s under- standing of mental states: The influence of trickery. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56(2), 135–148.

  • Surian, L., & Leslie, A. M. (1999). Competence and performance in false belief understanding. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17(1), 141–155.

    Google Scholar 

  • Target, M., & Fonagy, P. (1996). Playing with reality II: the development of psychic reality from a theoretical perspective. International Journal o f Psycho-Analysis, 77, 459–479.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomlin, D., Kayali, M. A., King-Casas, B., Anen, C., Camerer, C. F., Quartz, S. R., & Montague, P. R. (2006). Agent-specific responses in the cingulate cortex during economic exchanges. Science, 312, 1047–1050.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Villareal, M. F., Fridman, E. A., & Leiguarda, R. C. (2012). The effect of the visual context in the recognition of symbolic gestures. PLoS One, 7, e29644.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walter, H., Adenzato, M., Ciaramidaro, A., Enrici, I., Pia, L., & Bara, B. G. (2004). Understanding intentions in social interaction: the role of the anterior paracingulate cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(10), 1854–1863.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wellman, H. (1990). Children’s Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wellman, H. M., & Bartsch, K. (1988). Young children’s reasoning about beliefs. Cognition, 30(3), 239–277.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wellman, H. M., & Liu, D. (2004). Scaling of theory-of-mind tasks. Child Development, 75(2), 523–541.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wellman, H. M., & Woolley, J. D. (1990). From simple desires to ordinary beliefs: the early development of everyday psychology. Cognition, 35(3), 245–275.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wellman, H. M., Hollander, M., & Schult, C. A. (1996). Young children’s understanding of thought-bubbles and of thoughts. Child Development, 67(3), 768–788.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: the truth about false belief. Child Development, 72(3), 655–684.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Primary Education, Artvin Coruh University, Sehir Kampusu, 08000, Artvin, Turkey

    Kerem Coşkun & Cihan Kara

  2. Artvin Coruh University Vocational High School Department of Design, Seyitler Kampusu, 08000, Artvin, Turkey

    Meral Coskun

Authors
  1. Kerem Coşkun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Cihan Kara
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Meral Coskun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Each of the authors has contributed to the present submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kerem Coşkun.

Ethics declarations

Ethics, Approval, and Consent to Participate

Data were collected upon receiving informed consent from the participant children.

Consent for Publication

The participant children were informed the process of research report.

Competing Interests

There is no competing or conflict of interest among the authors.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix: 1

Appendix: 1

Task 1: Explicit False Belief 1

Requirements: Before the task is begun, the setting is established which consists of a house with furniture, eggs, a wheel, and tree models. Three puppets are taken out, Ali, the hawker, and Ali’s mother, and are introduced the participant child.

Protagonist 1: Ali

Protagonist 2: Ali’s mother

Protagonist 3: The Hawker

Protagonists explain: Ali is now at home. It is about mid-day and his mother calls home from her workplace and asks him to buy eggs. Ali goes out to buy eggs. Ali buys several eggs from a hawker standing under a tree who is shouting that he has fresh eggs. When he comes back home, the hawker moves from the tree to in front of a park. While Ali puts the eggs into the fridge, he realizes that the eggs have gone off. He immediately decides to leave home in order to find the hawker and give the eggs back.

This is the target question: When he leaves his home, where would he look for the hawker? Under the tree or in front of the park?

The correct answer is “under the tree”.

Task 2: Explicit False Belief 2

Requirements: The setting consists of a road leading to a home and a puppet whose name is Ali, a key, and a park model.

Protagonist 1: Ali.

Protagonist explains and acts as: Ali watched TV and did his homework but he got bored. He decides to go the park which is close to his home. Ali wears his coat and shoes, locks the door and places the key into his pocket. He arrives at the park and has fun but he realizes he is bored. He decides to go home. While he is walking on the road to his home, the key falls on the road. However, Ali does not realize this.

This is the target question: The children are asked when he arrives the door of his home where he will look for the key? On the road or in his pocket?

The correct answer is “He will look for it in his pockets”.

Task 3: Real Apparent Emotion

Requirements: Before the task commences, a model of a classroom with ten children and puppets for the teacher and Ali are present.

Protagonist 1: Ali.

Protagonist: 2: The Teacher.

The protagonist tells that “Ali goes to school but Ali does not like maths. When the lesson is maths, he always gets bored. However, Ali pretends as if he enjoys the maths course and listens to his teacher and keeps concealing his feelings because he does not want to worry his teacher. One day, Ali was too bored with the math activities of his teacher whereas he was trying to look like as if he likes the math activities.

This is the target question: How did Ali look? How did Ali feel? After the target questions are asked, two facial expressions are shown and the children are asked to select one of the facial expressions.

The correct responses for the question of” How did Ali look?” is the facial expression indicating” pleased”.

Task 4: Real Intention versus Disclosed Intention

Requirements: Before the task commences, a model of classroom with ten children and puppets for teacher, for the Father, and for Ali is present.

Protagonist 1: Ali.

Protagonist 2: The Father.

Protagonist 3: The Teacher.

Protagonists says and acts: “there is a school-wide song competition Anyone who wishes to participate in the competition should consult me to register for the competition”. Ali wants to participate in the competition. Ali comes home and demands his father train him for the song competition. Ali tells his father that he wants to win the competition so much. They practice and work hard. Several days pass and Ali has been working hard and practicing a lot with her parents. Ali intends to keep his preparation secret. One day the teacher asks whether those who registered have been working hard or not?

This is the target question: What is Ali’s intention? (intentional question) What would Ali tell the teacher (disclosed intention question)?

The correct answer for the intentional question is “keeping his preparation secret” and the correct response to disclosed intention question is “ He had not worked hard”.

Task 5: Implicit False Belief

Requirements: A birthday cake part model with half strawberry and the other half chocolate, and 4 puppets for Mevra, Ayla, Ahmet, and Ali are prepared, along with forks and plates. Before the task is begun, the participant child is asked what kind of birthday party cake they like (strawberry or chocolate). Based on the participant child’s response, Mevra, Ali, Ahmet, and Ayla are placed opposite the preference of the participant. The participant child is allowed to move around the birthday cake.

Protagonist 1: Ali.

Protagonist 2: Mevra’s Mother.

Protagonist 1 says and acts: After Ali comes back from school, he remembers that he had been invited to Mevra’s birthday. You would be invited to the birthday party too. The child is asked to take a seat based on their preferred side. Mevra, Ayla, Ahmet, and Ali sit opposite the participant. Mevra’s mother gives dishes, forks, and serves the cake.

The target question: What piece of cake will Ali taste (chocolate cake or strawberry cake)? Which cake will Ali have?

The correct answer: If the child sits on chocolate cake side, the correct answer for both of the target questions is strawberry cake. If the child prefers to sit on the side of strawberry cake, the correct response is chocolate cake.

Task 6: Diverse Desires

Requirements: The setting for the 5th task is the same as for the 6th task.

Protagonist says and acts as: Ali states that he likes chocolate cake. Two kinds of birthday cake are being offered at Mevra’s birthday party: strawberry and chocolate. “Which one would you like best?” This is the own-desire question.

The correct answer: If the child chooses the strawberry cake “Good choice but Ali will have the chocolate one as he hates strawberry cake (or if the child prefers chocolate cake, it is said that Ali hates chocolate cake and likes strawberry cake best). Then the target question is asked to the child: “Now eating time is approaching and Ali is hungry, which cake will Ali choose? Strawberry cake or chocolate cake?

To pass the task, the children must respond to the target question opposite their responses to the own-desire question.

Task 7: Knowledge Access

Requirements: A mountain model, treasure chest, and puppets for Al, and Ayse are placed on a table. A battery is put into the treasure chest. The treasure chest is put in front of the mountain model.

Protagonist 1: Ali.

Protagonist 2: Ayse. 

Protaganist 3: Mervra's Father

Protagonists say and acts: “After the birthday party ends, you go out with Ali. Mevra’s father takes you to home. While Mevra’s father is driving, in the car Ali tells Mevra’s father to stop because Ali saw a mountain and treasure chest. Mevra’s father stops the car. You and Ali draw near to the mountain. Ali states that “Just imagine you found the chest!” Can you guess what it is inside? Then the child is told to predict what will be in the chest. Then the lid of the chest is opened ”Let us look…. it is a battery”. Then the chest is closed. What it is in the chest is asked.

The target question: Then Ayse, appears from behind the mountain: Ayse has not seen what it is inside. Now she is approaches. Then the child is asked what Ayse supposes is in the chest? (the target question) and if she saw inside the chest? (the memory question).

The correct answer is “no” for both the target question and the memory question.

Task 8: Diverse Beliefs

Requirements: A hat and a puppet for Ali and for Mevra’s father.

Protagonist says and acts: You come to the car again. Mevra’s father drives the car and arrives at Ali’s home. After Ali leaves the car, he realizes that his hat is lost. He wants to find his hat. Where do you think his hat is? At the birthday home or in the car? (this is the own belief question).

If the children choose the birthday home, that sounds good, but Ali thinks that his hat is in the car (or, if the children choose the car, they are told that Ali thinks that his hat is at the birthday home).

The target question is “Where will Ali look for his hat?”

The correct answer is opposite from their answer which responds to the own belief in order to pass the task.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Coşkun, K., Kara, C. & Coskun, M. New Scaling of Theory of Mind Tasks: Where Can the Intentional Aspect Be Scaled?. Act Nerv Super 62, 78–87 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41470-020-00072-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41470-020-00072-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation