Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 410 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Cogn Sci. 2012 Aug;36(6):1148-56. doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01248.x. Epub 2012 Apr 9.
Language has been shown to play a key role in the development of a child's theory of mind, but its role in adult belief reasoning remains unclear. One recent study used verbal and nonverbal interference during a false-belief task to show that accurate belief reasoning in adults necessarily requires language (Newton & de Villiers, 2007). The strength of this inference depends on the cognitive processes that are matched between the verbal and nonverbal inference tasks. Here, we matched the two interference tasks in terms of their effects on spatial working memory. We found equal success on false-belief reasoning during both verbal and nonverbal interference, suggesting that language is not specifically necessary for adult theory of mind.
语言在儿童心理理论的发展中起着关键作用，但它在成人信念推理中的作用仍不清楚。最近的一项研究在错误信念任务中使用言语和非言语干扰，表明成人准确的信念推理必然需要语言（Newton & de Villiers, 2007）。这种推断的强度取决于言语和非言语推理任务之间匹配的认知过程。在这里，我们根据言语和非言语干扰任务对空间工作记忆的影响来匹配这两个干扰任务。我们发现，在言语和非言语干扰下，错误信念推理都取得了同等的成功，这表明语言并不是成人心理理论所必需的。
