Neurodevelopmental correlates of theory of mind in preschool children.

Baseline electroencephalogram (EEG) data were collected from twenty-nine 4-year-old children who also completed batteries of representational theory-of-mind (RTM) tasks and executive functioning (EF) tasks. Neural sources of children's EEG alpha (6-9 Hz) were estimated and analyzed to determine whether individual differences in regional EEG alpha activity predicted children's RTM performance, while statistically controlling for children's age and EF skills. Results showed that individual differences in EEG alpha activity localized to the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) and the right temporal-parietal juncture (rTPJ) were positively associated with children's RTM performance. These findings suggest that the maturation of dMPFC and rTPJ is a critical constituent of preschoolers' explicit theory-of-mind development.

[1]  S. M. Carlson,et al.  Less Is More , 2005, Psychological science.

[2]  P. Rochat,et al.  Synchrony in the Onset of Mental-State Reasoning , 2005, Psychological science.

[3]  Kenneth H. Rubin,et al.  Frontal activation asymmetry and social competence at four years of age. , 1995, Child development.

[4]  D. Stuss,et al.  Principles of frontal lobe function , 2002 .

[5]  J. Perner,et al.  What fMRI can tell us about the ToM-EF connection , 2005 .

[6]  P. Nunez,et al.  Neocortical Dynamics and Human EEG Rhythms , 1995 .

[7]  Robert W. Thatcher,et al.  Cyclic cortical reorganization during early childhood , 1992, Brain and Cognition.

[8]  K. R. Ridderinkhof,et al.  The Role of the Medial Frontal Cortex in Cognitive Control , 2004, Science.

[9]  A. Karmiloff-Smith.  Crucial differences between developmental cognitive neuroscience and adult neuropsychology , 1997 .

[10]  H. Wellman,et al.  Infant attention to intentional action predicts preschool theory of mind. , 2008, Developmental psychology.

[11]  R D Pascual-Marqui,et al.  Standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA): technical details. , 2002, Methods and findings in experimental and clinical pharmacology.

[12]  Ori Friedman,et al.  Core mechanisms in ‘theory of mind’ , 2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[13]  Lindsey J. Powell,et al.  It's the Thought That Counts , 2006, Psychological science.

[14]  L. Moses,et al.  Demographics, Parenting, and Theory of Mind in Preschool Children , 2003 .

[15]  Josef Perner,et al.  Do visual perspective tasks need theory of mind? , 2006, NeuroImage.

[16]  Josef Perner,et al.  Theory of mind and self-control: more than a common problem of inhibition. , 2002, Child development.

[17]  N. Freeman,et al.  Social influences on false belief access: specific sibling influences or general apprenticeship? , 1996, Child development.

[18]  L J Moses,et al.  Executive accounts of theory-of-mind development. , 2001, Child development.

[19]  Claire Hughes,et al.  Executive function in preschoolers: Links with theory of mind and verbal ability , 1998 .

[20]  J. Flavell,et al.  Cognitive development: children's knowledge about the mind. , 1999, Annual review of psychology.

[21]  A. Lillard,et al.  Young children's conceptualization of pretense: action or mental representational state? , 1993, Child development.

[22]  T. Ruffman,et al.  The relation between children's and mothers' mental state language and theory-of-mind understanding. , 2002, Child development.

[23]  J. Decety,et al.  Effect of subjective perspective taking during simulation of action: a PET investigation of agency , 2001, Nature Neuroscience.

[24]  N. Fox,et al.  Development of the EEG from 5 months to 4 years of age , 2002, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[25]  Jeffrey B. Henriques,et al.  Frontal Brain Asymmetry and Reward Responsiveness , 2005, Psychological science.

[26]  D. Barr,et al.  Limits on theory of mind use in adults , 2003, Cognition.

[27]  D. Sperber,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article Attribution of Beliefs by 13-Month-Old Infants , 2022 .

[28]  Rebecca Saxe,et al.  Reading minds versus following rules: Dissociating theory of mind and executive control in the brain , 2006, Social neuroscience.

[29]  Michael Siegal,et al.  Signposts to development: theory of mind in deaf children. , 2002, Child development.

[30]  S. Baron-Cohen.  Theory of mind and autism: A review , 2000 .

[31]  Paul Bloom,et al.  The Curse of Knowledge in Reasoning About False Beliefs , 2007, Psychological science.

[32]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  Resting anterior cingulate activity and abnormal responses to errors in subjects with elevated depressive symptoms: A 128‐channel EEG study , 2006, Human brain mapping.

[33]  C. Frith,et al.  Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition , 2006, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[34]  G. Dawson,et al.  Human behavior and the developing brain , 1994 .

[35]  Alison Gopnik,et al.  Children's understanding of representational change and its relation to the understanding of false belief and the appearance-reality distinction. , 1988 .

[36]  H. Wellman,et al.  Theory of mind development in Chinese children: a meta-analysis of false-belief understanding across cultures and languages. , 2008, Developmental psychology.

[37]  K. Zilles,et al.  Mind Reading: Neural Mechanisms of Theory of Mind and Self-Perspective , 2001, NeuroImage.

[38]  A. Diamond.  Normal development of prefrontal cortex from birth to young adulthood: Cognitive functions, anatomy, and biochemistry. , 2002 .

[39]  L. Moses,et al.  Executive functioning and preschoolers' understanding of false beliefs, false photographs, and false signs. , 2006, Child development.

[40]  Sunny Shin,et al.  Do 15-Month-Old Infants Understand False Beliefs ? , 2005 .

[41]  R. Mitchell,et al.  Children's understanding of their own and others' mental states. Part B. Understanding of others precedes self‐understanding for some false beliefs , 2005 .

[42]  Rebecca Elliott,et al.  Neuronal correlates of theory of mind and empathy: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study in a nonverbal task , 2006, NeuroImage.

[43]  D. Lehmann,et al.  Functional imaging with low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA): a review. , 2002, Methods and findings in experimental and clinical pharmacology.

[44]  Amanda L. Woodward,et al.  Infants’ developing understanding of the link between looker and object , 2003 .

[45]  C. Lewis,et al.  Korean preschoolers' advanced inhibitory control and its relation to other executive skills and mental state understanding. , 2008, Child development.

[46]  C. Frith,et al.  Functional imaging of ‘theory of mind’ , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[47]  R. Thatcher,et al.  Human cerebral hemispheres develop at different rates and ages. , 1987, Science.

[48]  J. Decety,et al.  A PET Investigation of the Attribution of Intentions with a Nonverbal Task , 2000, NeuroImage.

[49]  P. Harris,et al.  In Cinderella's slippers? Story comprehension from the protagonist's point of view. , 2000, Developmental psychology.

[50]  D. Yarnitsky,et al.  Neurophysiology of the cortical pain network: revisiting the role of S1 in subjective pain perception via standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA). , 2008, Journal of Pain.

[51]  J. Neely,et al.  Thickness of the Lateral Surface of the Temporal Bone in Children , 1989, The Annals of otology, rhinology, and laryngology.

[52]  R. Saxe.  Uniquely human social cognition , 2006, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[53]  H. Wellman,et al.  Scaling of theory-of-mind tasks. , 2004, Child development.

[54]  A. Gopnik,et al.  Children's understanding of representational change and its relation to the understanding of false belief and the appearance-reality distinction. , 1988, Child development.

[55]  Robert W. Thatcher,et al.  Cyclic cortical reorganization: Origins of human cognitive development. , 1994 .

[56]  J. Flavell,et al.  Development of knowledge about the appearance-reality distinction. , 1986, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[57]  Annette M. E. Henderson,et al.  Executive Function and False-Belief Understanding in Preschool Children: Two Tasks Are Harder Than One , 2003 .

[58]  H. Wellman,et al.  Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: the truth about false belief. , 2001, Child development.

[59]  Jason P. Mitchell.  Activity in right temporo-parietal junction is not selective for theory-of-mind. , 2008, Cerebral cortex.

[60]  J. Perner.  Understanding the Representational Mind , 1993 .

[61]  H. Wimmer,et al.  Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception , 1983, Cognition.

[62]  C. Peterson,et al.  Factors influencing the development of a theory of mind in blind children , 2000 .

[63]  M. Reed,et al.  Inhibitory Self-Control in Preschool Children. , 1984 .

[64]  S. M. Carlson.  Developmentally Sensitive Measures of Executive Function in Preschool Children , 2005, Developmental neuropsychology.

[65]  L. Moses,et al.  Individual differences in inhibitory control and children's theory of mind. , 2001, Child development.

[66]  G. Glover,et al.  Children's and adults’ neural bases of verbal and nonverbal ‘theory of mind’ , 2007, Neuropsychologia.

[67]  H. Wellman,et al.  Steps in theory-of-mind development for children with deafness or autism. , 2005, Child development.

[68]  Jonathan M. Campbell,et al.  Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test , 2010 .

[69]  B. J. Casey,et al.  Structural and functional brain development and its relation to cognitive development , 2000, Biological Psychology.

[70]  R. Mitchell,et al.  Children's Understanding of Their Own and Others' Mental States. Part A. Self-Understanding Precedes Understanding of Others in Pretence. , 2005 .

[71]  Philip David Zelazo,et al.  The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS): a method of assessing executive function in children , 2006, Nature Protocols.

[72]  H. Wellman,et al.  Infant social attention predicts preschool social cognition. , 2004, Developmental science.

[73]  S. Kosslyn,et al.  The role of area 17 in visual imagery: convergent evidence from PET and rTMS. , 1999, Science.

[74]  B. Bower.  A Child's Theory of Mind , 1993 .