Our behavior is frequently influenced by those around us. However, the majority of social cognition research is conducted using socially isolated paradigms, without the presence of real people (i.e., without a "social presence"). The current study aimed to test the influence of social presence upon a measure of mentalizing behavior in…

Background: Research with children shows that theory of mind predicts reading comprehension both concurrently and longitudinally, while research with adults shows increased print-exposure relates to theory of mind understanding. However, until now whether reading and theory of mind have a mutually reinforcing relationship in which they promote one…

What happens when an observer takes an agent's visual perspective of a scene? We conducted a series of experiments designed to measure what proportion of adults take a "stimulus-centered" rather than "agent-centered" approach to a visual perspective taking task. Adults were presented with images of an agent looking at a number…

Some studies report delayed theory of mind (ToM) development in children with specific language impairment (SLI), while others do not. A ToM delay is acknowledged in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while whether these children also display a deficit is still under debate. In the current study, we drew on a developmental trajectory…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability understand that other people's mental states may be different from one's own. Psychometric models have shown that individual differences in ToM can largely be attributed to general intelligence ("g") (Coyle et al. 2018). Most psychometric models specify "g" as a reflective latent variable,…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is strongly associated with socio-cognitive impairments that may result in vulnerability to other mental health conditions, particularly anxiety disorders. This study examined the relationship between anxiety disorders and two key socio-cognitive impairments (cognitive empathy, affective empathy) in 60 adolescents…

Cultural comparisons suggest that an understanding of other minds may develop sooner in independent versus interdependent settings, and vice versa for inhibitory control. From a western lens, this pattern might be considered paradoxical, since there is a robust positive relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control in western…

Literature underlines the social stigma frequently connected to children with SLD associated with vulnerability to social exclusion and lower socio-emotional competencies. Consequently, they may internalise this biased perspective, affecting their sense of self and behaviour in social contexts. The present study aims to explore socio-emotional…

Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have challenges in reading comprehension, especially when implicit information in narrative texts is involved. Three interrelated factors influencing reading comprehension have been proposed to explain these challenges: Theory of Mind -- ToM; executive functions -- EF; and central coherence -- CC.…

The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) is a purported theory of mind measure and one that reliably differentiates autistic and non-autistic individuals. However, concerns have been raised about the validity of the measure, with some researchers suggesting that the multiple-choice format of the RMET makes it susceptible to the undue influence…

We examine the long-standing claim that understanding relational correspondence is a general component of representational understanding. Two experiments with 175 preschool children located in Norwich, United Kingdom, examined the use of a scale model comparing performances on a "copy" task, measuring abstract spatial arrangement…

Background: Weak theory of mind (ToM) ability is a core deficit in children with autism. A growing body of work has found that there is a close relation between complement syntax and ToM in autistic children. However, researchers have not yet investigated whether other linguistic components may explain the difficulties in ToM reasoning in autistic…

We report an event-related brain potential (ERP) experiment that tests whether autistic adults are able to maintain and switch between counterfactual and factual worlds. Participants (N = 48) read scenarios that set up a factual or counterfactual scenario, then either maintained the counterfactual world or switched back to the factual world. When…

The present study examined the role of IQ and the Theory of Mind understanding in children with an autism spectrum disorder and down syndrome. Sixty-six Swedish children with ASD (n = 26), DS (n = 18), and typically developed group (n = 22) ranged between 6 and 12 years old were compared on ToM tasks consisted of standard ToM and IQ tasks. SPSS 25…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and schizophrenia represent different mental disorders, but intriguing similarities seem to appear.In the present meta-analysis, we examined theory of mind (ToM) impairments in adults with ASD or schizophrenia based on studies that have compared the two patient groups directly by using the same test-battery at the…