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Mind Tasks (mind + task)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Psychology60%

Selected Abstracts

Social Cognitive and Emotion Processing Abilities of Children With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: A Comparison With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

ALCOHOLISM, Issue 10 2009
Rachel L. Greenbaum
Background:, Although children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) are at high risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), direct comparisons show distinct cognitive phenotypes in the 2 diagnoses. However, these groups have not been directly compared for social problems or social cognition, nor has social cognition been directly examined in FASDs. Objectives:, To compare FASDs and ADHD groups on social cognition tasks and determine whether deficient social cognition and emotion processing predict behavioral problems and social skills. Methods:, Studied were 33 children with FASDs, 30 with ADHD, and 34 normal controls (NC). All received tasks of social cognition and emotion processing. Parents and teachers rated children on measures of completed questionnaires assessing child's behavioral problems and social skills using the Child Behavior Checklist, Teacher Report Form, and Social Skills Rating Scale. Children received 3 subtests from the Saltzman-Benaiah and Lalonde (2007) Theory of Mind Task as a measure of social cognition and 4 subtests from the Minnesota Test of Affective Processing (Lai et al., 1991) to assess emotion processing. Results:, Parents and teachers reported more behavior problems and poorer social skills in children in FASD and ADHD than NC groups. FASDs demonstrated significantly weaker social cognition and facial emotion processing ability than ADHD and NC groups. Regression analyses identified social cognition as a significant predictor of behavior problems and emotion processing as a significant predictor of social skills. Conclusions:, Children with FASDs show a distinct behavioral profile from children with ADHD. Difficulties in social cognition and emotion processing in children with FASDs may contribute to their high incidence of social behavioral problems. [source]

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CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 2 2007
Investigating social cognition in young offenders
Aim,This small study was designed to assess the nature and severity of social-cognitive deficits in antisocial adolescents. Method,Thirty-seven boys aged 15,18 from a Young Offenders Institute and Community College participated. They were asked to complete a test of general intellectual ability and self-rating of social competence as well as tasks from the Skuse Schedules for the Assessment of Social Intelligence. Results,Young offenders were poor at recognizing the facial expression of anger, regardless of intellectual ability. They could not accurately identify the direction of another's eye gaze. Their performance on theory of mind tasks, however, was unimpaired. Conclusion,These preliminary findings imply selective impairment in the cognitive appraisal of threat, which may contribute to social maladjustment. Further such study of social cognition among young offenders is indicated. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Children's understanding of idioms and theory of mind development

DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 5 2008
Stéphanie Caillies
The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis according to which theory of mind competence was a prerequisite to ambiguous idioms understanding. We hypothesized that the child needs to understand that the literal interpretation could be a false world representation, a false belief, and that the speaker's intention is to mean something else, to correctly process idiomatic expressions. Two kinds of ambiguous idioms were of interest: decomposable and nondecomposable expressions (Titone & Connine, 1999). An experiment was designed to assess the figurative developmental changes that occur with theory of mind competence. Five-, 6- and 7-year-old children performed five theory of mind tasks (an appearance,reality task, three false-belief tasks and a second-order false-belief task) and listened to decomposable and nondecomposable idiomatic expressions inserted in context, before performing a multiple choice task. Results indicated that only nondecomposable idiomatic expression was predicted from the theory of mind scores, and particularly from the second-order competences. Results are discussed with respect to theory of mind and verbal competences. [source]

,Theory of Mind' and Tracking Speakers' Intentions

MIND & LANGUAGE, Issue 1-2 2002
Francesca Happé
Typical theory of mind tasks assess children's ability to attribute a false belief in order to predict or explain an action. According to these standard tasks, young children do not represent the independent (mistaken) beliefs of others until the fourth year,yet long before this, children are able to track speakers' intentions in order to learn new words. Might communication be a privileged domain for theory of mind? In the present study we explored pre-schoolers' ability to track a false belief in order to acquire a novel word. A puppet labeled a novel object in a false belief condition (contents of a box had been switched without her knowledge), and a true belief condition (contents switched in her presence). Children were significantly better at tracking the puppet's false belief in the word-learning task than in a standard false belief test. Possible reasons for this advantage are discussed, and the suggestion made that representation of mental states may emerge precociously in the service of communication. [source]

Young Children's Recognition of the Intentionality of Teaching

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2008
Margalit Ziv
Two studies examined the role of intention in preschoolers' understanding of teaching. Three- to 5-year-olds judged stories in which there was an intention to teach or not (teaching vs. imitation) for 4 different learning outcomes (successful, partial, failed, and unknown). They also judged 2 stories with embedded instructional intent (e.g., guided discovery learning) and several standard theory of mind tasks. There was an age-related change in the understanding of teaching. Five-year-olds distinguished teaching from imitation and recognized guided discovery learning. Understanding of imitation and false belief was related. The findings indicate that theory of mind is relevant to other means of knowledge acquisition besides perceptual access and that understanding intention could help young children to recognize instruction and identify its different forms. [source]