Based on anticipatory looking and reactions to violations of expected events, infants have been credited with "theory of mind" (ToM) knowledge that a person's search behaviour for an object will be guided by true or false beliefs about the object's location. However, little is known about the preconditions for looking patterns consistent…

Theory of mind requires belief- "and" desire-understanding. Event-related brain potential (ERP) research on belief- and desire-reasoning in adults found mid-frontal activations for both desires and beliefs, and selective right-posterior activations "only" for beliefs. Developmentally, children understand desires before beliefs; thus, a critical…

Evidence for successful socio-cognitive training in typical adults is rare. This study attempted to improve Theory of Mind (ToM) and visual perspective taking in healthy adults by training participants to either imitate or to inhibit imitation. Twenty-four hours after training, all participants completed tests of ToM and visual perspective taking.…

An experimental study investigated the effect of the type of mental verb input (i.e., input with "think", "know", and "remember") on preschoolers' theory of mind development. Preschoolers (n = 72) heard 128 mental verb utterances presented in video format across four sessions over two weeks. The training conditions differed only in the way the…

In two studies, 4- to 6-year-olds were asked to name pictures of animals for the benefit of a watching hand puppet (the ongoing task) but to refrain from naming and to remove from view any pictures of dogs (the prospective memory [PM] task). Children also completed assessments of verbal ability, cognitive inhibition, working memory, and…

This study investigated the longitudinal relations between theory of mind (ToM) understanding and children's drawings of play in 26 school-aged children, (16 females, 10 males, aged 8-12 years). Theory of mind was assessed at Time 1 (T1, M = 8 y 5m) and two years later at Time 2 (T2, M =10 y 4 m), as well as children's drawings of play activities.…

The purpose of this study was to explore adolescent students' explanations of their knowledge of learning processes. The explanations of 11th-grade high-school and first-year university students were qualitatively analysed to examine the kinds of explanations that were made regarding knowledge of cognitive knowledge ("n"?=?25), knowledge…

Medical contexts provide a rich opportunity to study important theoretical questions in cognitive development and to investigate the influence of a range of interacting factors relating to the child, the experience, and the broader social context on children's cognition. In the context of examples of research investigating these issues, we…

This article explores a significant element of faculty development that is often missing or given little attention. The author analyzes the results of a series of Courage Study Circles, which provided time and space for faculty members to reflect upon and revitalize their identity as teachers. The study draws on participant evaluations of yearly…

Research Findings: The present cross-sectional study investigated the question of whether 6 different temperament dimensions (inhibition to novelty, social orientation, motor activity, positive emotionality, negative emotionality, and attention) influenced cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM) in 168 children (86 three/four-year-olds and 82…

This research addresses the problem of low math achievement of middle school students through the use of a Growth Mindset intervention and related strategies. While the research on Growth Mindset interventions and strategies show positive results in controlled settings, there is a need to better understand Growth Mindset implementation from the…

Research Findings: Emotion regulation is a strong predictor of both short- and long-term peer relationships and social competence and is often targeted in preschool curricula and interventions. Pretense is a natural activity of childhood that is thought to facilitate the development of socialization, perspective taking, language, and possibly…

Many studies have examined associations between children's theory of mind and social behavior with familiar peers, but to date none have examined how theory of mind might relate to behavior toward unfamiliar peers in a play setting. Forty-four 4-year-olds (21 girls, 23 boys) participated in standard theory-of-mind tasks and in a play session with…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a foundational skill related to understanding the thoughts, beliefs, and desires of oneself and others. There are child factors that play an important role in the development of ToM (e.g., language and vocabulary) as well as environmental factors (e.g., conversations among family members and socioeconomic status). In this…

The efficacy of a peer-mediated, theatre-based intervention on social competence in participants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was tested. Thirty 8-to-14 year-olds with ASD were randomly assigned to the treatment (n = 17) or a wait-list control (n = 13) group. Immediately after treatment, group effects were seen on social ability,…