Differences in self-other control as cognitive mechanism to characterize theory of mind reasoning in autistic and non-autistic adults.

In cognitive science, altered Theory of Mind is a central pillar of etiological models of autism. Yet, recent evidence, showing comparable Theory of Mind abilities in autistic and non-autistic people, draws a more complex picture and renders previous descriptions of Theory of Mind abilities in autism and their role in autistic symptomatology insufficient. Here, we addressed self-other control as a potential candidate cognitive mechanism to explain subtle Theory of Mind reasoning differences between autistic and non-autistic adults. We investigated flexible shifting between another's and one's own congruent or incongruent points of view, an ability that is important for reciprocal social interaction. Measuring response accuracy and reaction time in a multiple-trial unexpected location false belief task, we found evidence for altered self-other control in Theory of Mind reasoning in autistic adults, with a relative difficulty in flexibly considering the other's perspective and less interference of the other's incongruent viewpoint when their own perspective is considered. Our results add to previous findings that social cognitive differences are there but subtle and constitute one step further in characterizing Theory of Mind reasoning in autism and explaining communication and interaction difficulties with non-autistic people in everyday life.

Memory Monitoring and Control in Japanese and German Preschoolers.

Prior studies explored the early development of memory monitoring and control. However, little work has examined cross-cultural similarities and differences in metacognitive development in early childhood. In the present research, we investigated a total of 100 Japanese and German preschool-aged children's memory monitoring and control in a visual perception task. After seeing picture items, some of which were repeated, children were presented with picture pairs, one of which had been presented earlier and the other was a novel item. They then were asked to identify the previously presented picture. Children were also asked to evaluate their confidence about their selection, and to sort the responses to be used for being awarded with a prize at the end of the test. Both groups similarly expressed more confidence in the accurately remembered items than in the inaccurately remembered items, and their sorting decision was based on their subjective confidence. Japanese children's sorting more closely corresponded to memory accuracy than German children's sorting, however. These findings were further confirmed by a hierarchical Bayesian estimation of metacognitive efficiency. The present findings therefore suggest that early memory monitoring and control have both culturally similar and diverse aspects. The findings are discussed in light of broader sociocultural influences on metacognition.

"I know what's inside because you showed me": Training 33-month-old children to attribute knowledge and ignorance to themselves and others.

The present study investigated the role of language in two-year-old children's early understanding of knowledge and ignorance. An intense microgenetic training consisting of 12 to 14 training sessions within six to seven weeks was conducted between 33 and 36 months. One training group experienced and participated in discourse about epistemic states in theoretically relevant situations which highlighted, for instance, the relation between seeing and knowing or contrasts between different people's knowledge states. The other training group was trained on complement syntax using sentence repetition tasks. An age-matched control group received no training. The complement syntax training was not effective in improving complement syntax competence more than in the other two groups. In contrast, the mental state training led to higher improvements in the mental state training group than in the other two groups on tasks assessing comprehension of the targeted concepts (e.g., comprehension of the seeing-knowing relation). The mental state training also had an effect on children's metacognitive awareness of their own ignorance which was, however, not independent of complement syntax competence assessed at 33 months. No effect was obtained on epistemic perspective-taking skills. Our findings indicate that the use of mental state language in discourse promotes children's acquisition of epistemic concepts even before their third birthday.

Developmental Trajectories in Diagnostic Reasoning: Understanding Data Are Confounded Develops Independently of Choosing Informative Interventions to Resolve Confounded Data.

Two facets of diagnostic reasoning related to scientific thinking are recognizing the difference between confounded and unconfounded evidence and selecting appropriate interventions that could provide learners the evidence necessary to make an appropriate causal conclusion (i.e., the control-of-variables strategy). The present study investigates both these abilities in 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 57). We found both competence and developmental progress in the capacity to recognize that evidence is confounded. Similarly, children performed above chance in some tasks testing for the selection of a controlled test of a hypothesis. However, these capacities were unrelated, suggesting that preschoolers' nascent understanding of the control-of-variables strategy may not be driven by a metacognitive understanding that confounded evidence does not support a unique causal conclusion, and requires further investigation.

Study protocol of the COMPARE-Interaction study: the impact of maternal comorbid depression and anxiety disorders in the peripartum period on child development.

INTRODUCTION: To date, there are only few studies that compare the consequences of peripartum maternal depressive disorders (PD) versus depressive with comorbid anxiety disorders (PDCA) for infant and child development. As comorbidity is associated with greater impairment and symptom severity related to the primary diagnosis, comorbidity in mothers might raise their offspring's risk of developing internalising or externalising disorders even more than has been noted in conjunction with PD alone. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This study aims to analyse the impact of parental psychopathology, particularly peripartum depression in mothers with and without comorbid anxiety disorders according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) on child cognitive and socioemotional development. Maternal/paternal psychopathology, mother-infant/father-infant interaction and child development are assessed at four measurement points over the first 2 years (T1: 3-4 months postpartum, T2: 12 months postpartum, T3: 18 months postpartum and T4: 24 months postpartum). The mediating role of mother-infant/father-infant interaction and infant stress reactivity in the relationship between PD/PDCA and infant cognitive and socioemotional development will be analysed. In the ongoing study, 174 families (n=58 mothers with PD, n=58 mothers with PDCA and n=58 healthy controls) will be recruited in inpatient and outpatient centres as well as maternity hospitals in Munich and Heidelberg. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study is implemented in accordance with the current guidelines of the World Medical Association (revised Declaration of Helsinki) and the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union. The study procedures were approved by the independent ethics committees of the Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (74_Reck_b) and of the Medical Faculty, University Heidelberg (S-446/2017). Participation is voluntary. A signed written informed consent form must be obtained from each study subject prior to any study-specific procedure. Participants can withdraw from the study at any point in time without giving a reason or being subjected to any future disadvantages. In case of withdrawal from the study, the subject's data and material will be kept unless the participant asks for data removal. Results will be published and disseminated to further the discussion on the effects of maternal PD and PDCA on parent-infant interaction, infant stress reactivity and child development. Furthermore, study results will be presented at international congresses and expert conferences.

Evidence for goal- and mixed evidence for false belief-based action prediction in 2- to 4-year-old children: A large-scale longitudinal anticipatory looking replication study.

Unsuccessful replication attempts of paradigms assessing children's implicit tracking of false beliefs have instigated the debate on whether or not children have an implicit understanding of false beliefs before the age of four. A novel multi-trial anticipatory looking false belief paradigm yielded evidence of implicit false belief reasoning in 3- to 4-year-old children using a combined score of two false belief conditions (Grosse Wiesmann, C., Friederici, A. D., Singer, T., & Steinbeis, N. [2017]. Developmental Science, 20(5), e12445). The present study is a large-scale replication attempt of this paradigm. The task was administered three times to the same sample of N = 185 children at 2, 3, and 4 years of age. Using the original stimuli, we did not replicate the original finding of above-chance belief-congruent looking in a combined score of two false belief conditions in either of the three age groups. Interestingly, the overall pattern of results was comparable to the original study. Post-hoc analyses revealed, however, that children performed above chance in one false belief condition (FB1) and below chance in the other false belief condition (FB2), thus yielding mixed evidence of children's false belief-based action predictions. Similar to the original study, participants' performance did not change with age and was not related to children's general language skills. This study demonstrates the importance of large-scaled replications and adds to the growing number of research questioning the validity and reliability of anticipatory looking false belief paradigms as a robust measure of children's implicit tracking of beliefs.

Theory of Mind in Pre-school Aged Children: Influence of Maternal Depression and Infants' Self-Comforting Behavior.

A milestone of child development is theory of mind (ToM): the ability to attribute mental states, especially beliefs and desires, to other persons and to understand that their behavior is guided by mental states. The learning process about the mental world also takes place in social communication and interaction, beginning in infancy. Infancy is assumed to be a sensitive period for the development of social skills through interaction. Due to limited self-regulatory skills, infants depend on sensitive behavior of their caregivers to regulate affective states and physiological arousal, and in turn, mutually regulated affects allow the infant to gradually acquire the capability to self-regulate negative affective states. Effective and adequate affect regulation is an important prerequisite for environmental interaction and thus for the development of socio-emotional skills. The present study investigated the relation of self-regulatory abilities in infancy and later ToM in pre-school aged children of clinically depressed mothers and healthy controls. The sample comprised of N = 55 mother-child dyads, n = 22 diagnosed with postpartum or lifetime depression according to DSM-IV and n = 33 healthy controls. Mother-infant-interaction was videotaped during the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm. At 3 and 42 months postpartum mothers were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) to evaluate maternal psychopathological status according to DSM-IV. At the age of M = 4.0 years, children's ToM abilities were assessed using content-false-belief and location-false-belief tasks. The results of this study show that contrary to our hypotheses, maternal depression did not impair the development of children's ToM-abilities per se. Rather, an interaction effect highlights the role of infant's self-comforting behavior during mother-infant interaction in infancy (3 months postpartum) for ToM-development at pre-school age assessed with the Maxi-task; this association was distinct for female in comparison to male children. The results of this longitudinal study shed light on the discussion, how maternal depression influences child development and point in the direction that self-comforting behaviors in infancy can also be seen as a resource.

Does syntax play a role in Theory of Mind development before the age of 3 years?

Language plays an important role in Theory of Mind development. Specifically, longitudinal and training studies indicate that the acquisition of complement syntax has an effect on three- to five-year-old children's mastery of the concept of false belief. There is evidence for both a beginning explicit understanding of the mind and mastery of complement syntax in children before their third birthday. In the present study, we investigated longitudinally whether an early sensitivity to complement syntax is related to early development of Theory of Mind abilities in a sample of N = 159 German-speaking 27- to 36-month-old children. Children's sensitivity to formal properties of complement syntax at 33 months was associated with their perspective-taking skills and their metacognition of own ignorance three months later. This relation remained significant when controlling for the effects of general language abilities. Furthermore, children's sensitivity to complement syntax was concurrently related to their early false belief understanding. These findings support the view that complement syntax shares representational demands with an understanding of epistemic states and that language begins to support the acquisition of epistemic concepts earlier than was previously thought.

No links between genetic variation and developing theory of mind: A preregistered replication attempt of candidate gene studies.

Genetic variability is being discussed as a source of inter-individual differences in Theory of Mind development. Previous studies documented an association between variations in DRD4 VNTR 48 bp, OXTR rs53576, COMT rs4680, and Theory of Mind task performance. As empirical evidence on these associations is sparse, we conducted a preregistered replication attempt of a study reporting a link between DRD4 VNTR 48 bp and false belief understanding in 50-month-old children [Lackner, C., Sabbagh, M. A., Hallinan, E., Liu, X., & Holden, J. J. (2012). Developmental Science, 15(2), 272-280.]. Additionally, we attempted a replication of studies on the role of OXTR rs53576 and COMT rs4680 in Theory of Mind. In both replication attempts, we did not find any evidence for associations between the sampled genetic markers and Theory of Mind ability in a series of analyses. Extending the replication attempt of Lackner et al., we employed longitudinal data from several tasks and measurement points, which allowed us to run follow-up robustness checks with more reliable scores. These extensive analyses corroborated our null finding. This comprehensive non-replication is important to balance current research on genetic markers of Theory of Mind. In a combined evaluation of our own and previous studies, we point to substantial methodological issues that research on the genetic basis of Theory of Mind development faces. We conclude that these limitations currently prevent firm conclusions on genetic influences on Theory of Mind development.

Young children's metacognitive awareness of confounded evidence.

Young children selectively explore confounded evidence-when causality is ambiguous due to multiple candidate causes. This suggests that they have an implicit understanding that confounded evidence is uninformative. This study examined explicit understanding, or metacognitive awareness, of the informativeness of different qualities of evidence during early childhood. In two within-participants conditions, children (N = 60 5- and 6-year-olds) were presented with confounded and unconfounded evidence and were asked to evaluate and explain their knowledge of a causal relation. Children more frequently requested further information in the confounded condition than in the unconfounded condition. Nearly half of them referred to multiple candidate causes when explaining confounded evidence. Our data demonstrate that young children can reason explicitly about the informativeness of different kinds of evidence.

Knowing minds: Linking early perspective taking and later metacognitive insight.

Recent metacognitive research using a partial knowledge task indicates that a firm understanding of 'knowing about knowing' develops surprisingly late, at around 6 years of age. To reveal the mechanisms subserving this development, the partial knowledge task was used in a longitudinal study with 67 children (33 girls) as an outcome measure at 5;9 (years;months). In addition, first- and second-order false belief was assessed at 4;2, 5;0, and 5;9. At 2;6, perspective taking and executive abilities were evaluated. Metacognition at 5;9 was correlated with earlier theory of mind and perspective taking - even when verbal intelligence and executive abilities were partialled out. This highlights the importance of perspective taking for the development of an understanding of one's own mind.

Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School.

A research link between conditional reasoning and mathematics has been reported only for late adolescents and adults, despite claims about the pivotal importance of conditional reasoning, i.e., reasoning with if-then statements, in mathematics. Secondary students' problems with deductive reasoning in mathematics have been documented for a long time. However, evidence from developmental psychology shows that even elementary students possess some early conditional reasoning skills in familiar contexts. It is still an open question to what extent conditional reasoning with mathematical concepts differs from conditional reasoning in familiar everyday contexts. Based on Mental Model Theory (MMT) of conditional reasoning, we assume that (mathematical) content knowledge will influence the generation of models, when conditionals concern mathematical concepts. In a cross-sectional study, 102 students in Cyprus from grades 2, 4, and 6 solved four conditional reasoning tasks on each type of content (everyday and mathematical). All four logical forms, modus ponens (MP), modus tollens (MT), denial of the antecedent (DA), and affirmation of the consequent (AC), were included in each task. Consistent with previous findings, even second graders were able to make correct inferences on some logical forms. Controlling for Working Memory (WM), there were significant effects of grade and logical form, with stronger growth on MP and AC than on MT and DA. The main effect of context was not significant, but context interacted significantly with logical form and grade level. The pattern of results was not consistent with the predictions of MMT. Based on analyses of students' chosen responses, we propose an alternative mechanism explaining the specific pattern of results. The study indicates that deductive reasoning skills arise from a combination of knowledge of domain-general principles and domain-specific knowledge. It extends results concerning the gradual development of primary students' conditional reasoning with everyday concepts to reasoning with mathematical concepts adding to our understanding of the link between mathematics and conditional reasoning in primary school. The results inspire the development of educational interventions, while further implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

Metacognition and mindreading in young children: A cross-cultural study.

Prior studies document cross cultural variation in the developmental onset of mindreading. In particular, Japanese children are reported to pass a standard false belief task later than children from Western countries. By contrast, we know little about cross-cultural variation in young children's metacognitive abilities. Moreover, one prominent theoretical discussion in developmental psychology focuses on the relation between metacognition and mindreading. Here we investigated the relation between mindreading and metacognition (both implicit and explicit) by testing 4-year-old Japanese and German children. We found no difference in metacognition between the two cultural groups. By contrast, Japanese children showed lower performance than German children replicating cultural differences in mindreading. Finally, metacognition and mindreading were not related in either group. We discuss the findings in light of the existing theoretical accounts of the relation between metacognition and mindreading.

Scientific Reasoning in Biology - the Impact of Domain-General and Domain-Specific Concepts on Children's Observation Competency.

Research on the development of scientific reasoning has put the main focus on children's experimentation skills, in particular on the control-of-variables strategy. However, there are more scientific methods than just experimentation. Observation is defined as an independent scientific method that includes not only the description of what is observed, but also all phases of the scientific inquiry, such as questioning, hypothesizing, testing, and interpreting. Previous research has shown that the quality of observations depends on specific knowledge in the domain. We argue that observation competency shares the domain-general ability to differentiate hypotheses from evidence with other scientific methods. The present study investigates the relations of both domain-general scientific thinking and domain-specific knowledge in biology with observation competency in grade K children. We tested relations between observation competency, domain-general scientific reasoning, domain-specific knowledge, and language abilities of 75 children (age 4;9 to 6;7). Both scientific reasoning and domain-specific knowledge proved to be significant predictors of observation competency, explaining 35% of the variance. In a mediation analysis, we found a significant indirect effect of language via these two predictors. Thus, the present results indicate that observation skills require not only domain-specific knowledge but also domain-general scientific reasoning abilities.

12- and 24-Month-Old Infants' Search Behavior Under Informational Uncertainty.

Infants register and react to informational uncertainty in the environment. They also form expectations about the probability of future events as well as update the expectation according to changes in the environment. A novel line of research has started to investigate infants' and toddlers' behavior under uncertainty. By combining these research areas, the present research investigated 12- and 24-month-old infants' searching behaviors under varying degree of informational uncertainty. An object was hidden in one of three possible locations and probabilistic information about the hiding location was manipulated across trials. Infants' time delay in search initiation for a hidden object linearly increased across the level of informational uncertainty. Infants' successful searching also varied according to probabilistic information. The findings suggest that infants modulate their behaviors based on probabilistic information. We discuss the possibility that infants' behavioral reaction to the environmental uncertainty constitutes the basis for the development of subjective uncertainty.

Theory of Mind and diverse intelligences in 4-year-olds: Modelling associations of false beliefs with children's numerate-spatial, verbal, and social intelligence.

Theory of Mind (ToM) and the structure of intelligence were investigated in 115 4-year-olds. Specifically, we asked whether children's intelligence involves both general and specific aspects and whether standard ToM measures of false belief can serve as indicators of social intelligence. Psychometric intelligence and children's domain-specific understanding of number concepts and of mental states (false belief) were measured in the laboratory; communication and social skills were assessed through mothers' report. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed poor fit for a one-factor model, but good fit for a model with three correlated factors, suggesting that children's intelligence involves both general and specific aspects. Numerate-spatial and verbal intelligence were correlated (.70), and social intelligence correlated to a stronger degree with verbal (.66) than with numerate-spatial intelligence (.37). Laboratory assessment of false belief and mothers' reports about children's social skills loaded on a single factor, pointing to real-world consequences of ToM abilities. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? The structure of intelligence in 4-year-olds comprises domain-general and domain-specific dimensions. Some domain-specific dimensions are numerate-spatial, verbal, and social intelligence. What does this study add? Theory of Mind emerges as an aspect of children's social intelligence. Social intelligence (including Theory of Mind) is related to children's numerate-spatial abilities.

Do ostensive cues affect object processing in children with and without autism? A test of natural pedagogy theory.

Theories suggest that the perception of others' actions and social cues leads to selective processing of object features. Most recently, natural pedagogy theory postulated that ostensive cues lead to a selective processing of an object's features at the expense of processing of its location. This study examined this hypothesis in 10-year-old children with and without autism spectrum condition (ASC) to better understand social information processing in ASC and the relevance of observing others in human object processing in general. Participants saw an agent either ostensively pointing to an object or non-ostensively grasping an object. Thereafter, the cued or uncued object changed either its location or identity. We assessed not only behavioral responses, but also participants' gaze behavior by means of eye tracking. In contrast to natural pedagogy theory, we found that in the non-ostensive grasping context, participants rather noticed an identity change than a location change. Moreover, location changes were more readily identified in the ostensive pointing context. Importantly, there was no difference between children with and without ASC. Our study shows that the perception of ostensively vs. non-ostensively framed actions leads to different processing of object features, indicating a close link between action perception, object processing, and social cues. Moreover, the lacking group difference in our study suggests that these basic perception-action processes are not impaired in autism.

Do Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Condition Anticipate Others' Actions as Goal-Directed? A Predictive Coding Perspective.

An action's end state can be anticipated by considering the agent's goal, or simply by projecting the movement trajectory. Theories suggest that individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC) have difficulties anticipating other's goal-directed actions, caused by an impairment using prior information. We examined whether children, adolescents and adults with and without ASC visually anticipate another's action based on its goal or movement trajectory by presenting participants an agent repeatedly taking different paths to reach the same of two targets. The ASC group anticipated the goal and not just the movement pattern, but needed more time to perform goal-directed anticipations. Results are in line with predictive coding accounts, claiming that the use of prior information is impaired in ASC.

33-month-old children succeed in a false belief task with reduced processing demands: A replication of Setoh et al. (2016).

A recent low-inhibition false belief task showed a high success rate with 33-month-old children when response-generation demands were reduced [Setoh, Scott, & Baillargeon (2016). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(47), 13360-13365]. We found correct responding in 74% of N = 58 33-month-old children, replicating the original findings. Within the same sample, we compared this performance with performance in a concurrent measure of false belief understanding which has previously produced competence in children below the age of 3 years [Hughes & Ensor (2007). Developmental Psychology, 43(6), 1447-1459]. Contrasting sharply with findings from the low-inhibition false belief task, we found partial competence in 15%, and full competence in only 5% of the same sample. These results show that the paradigm by Setoh and colleagues generates reliable findings in a different lab and a different language. We discuss this pattern of results in relation to theoretical considerations of early false belief understanding.

The robustness and generalizability of findings on spontaneous false belief sensitivity: a replication attempt.

Influential studies showed that 25-month-olds and neurotypical adults take an agent's false belief into account in their anticipatory looking patterns (Southgate et al. 2007 Psychol. Sci.18, 587-592 (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01944.x); Senju et al. 2009 Science325, 883-885 (doi:10.1126/science.1176170)). These findings constitute central pillars of current accounts distinguishing between implicit and explicit Theory of Mind. In our first experiment, which initially included a replication as well as two manipulations, we failed to replicate the original finding in 2- to 3-year-olds (N = 48). Therefore, we ran a second experiment with the sole purpose of seeing whether the effect can be found in an independent, tightly controlled, sufficiently powered and preregistered replication study. This replication attempt failed again in a sample of 25-month-olds (N = 78), but was successful in a sample of adults (N = 115). In all samples, a surprisingly high number of participants did not correctly anticipate the agent's action during the familiarization phase. This led to massive exclusion rates when adhering to the criteria of the original studies and strongly limits the interpretability of findings from the test phase. We discuss both the reliability of our replication attempts as well as the replicability of non-verbal anticipatory looking paradigms of implicit false belief sensitivity, in general.