Forgeot d'Arc Baudouin, Ramus Franck
a Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique , EHESS, CNRS, DEC/ENS, Paris, France.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2011 May;64(5):975-90. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2010.524413.
False-belief (FB) tasks have been widely used to study the ability of individuals to represent the content of their conspecifics' mental states (theory of mind). However, the cognitive processes involved are still poorly understood, and it remains particularly debated whether language and inner speech are necessary for the attribution of beliefs to other agents. We present a completely nonverbal paradigm consisting of silent animated cartoons in five closely related conditions, systematically teasing apart different aspects of scene analysis and allowing the assessment of the attribution of beliefs, goals, and physical causation. In order to test the role of language in belief attribution, we used verbal shadowing as a dual task to inhibit inner speech. Data on 58 healthy adults indicate that verbal interference decreases overall performance, but has no specific effect on belief attribution. Participants remained able to attribute beliefs despite heavy concurrent demands on their verbal abilities. Our results are most consistent with the hypothesis that belief attribution is independent from inner speech.
错误信念（FB）任务已被广泛用于研究个体表征同种个体心理状态内容的能力（心理理论）。然而，其中涉及的认知过程仍知之甚少，语言和内心言语对于将信念归因于其他主体是否必要，这一问题仍存在激烈争论。我们提出了一个完全非言语的范式，它由五个密切相关情境下的无声动画组成，系统地剖析场景分析的不同方面，并允许对信念、目标和物理因果关系的归因进行评估。为了测试语言在信念归因中的作用，我们使用言语跟读作为一项双重任务来抑制内心言语。58名健康成年人的数据表明，言语干扰会降低整体表现，但对信念归因没有特定影响。尽管对他们的言语能力有大量并发要求，参与者仍能够进行信念归因。我们的结果最符合信念归因独立于内心言语这一假设。
