Hasni Anita A, Adamson Lauren B, Williamson Rebecca A, Robins Diana L
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA.
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2017 Dec;164:239-249. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.009. Epub 2017 Aug 14.
Theory of mind (ToM) gradually develops during the preschool years. Measures of ToM usually target visual experience, but auditory experiences also provide valuable social information. Given differences between the visual and auditory modalities (e.g., sights persist, sounds fade) and the important role environmental input plays in social-cognitive development, we asked whether modality might influence the progression of ToM development. The current study expands Wellman and Liu's ToM scale (2004) by testing 66 preschoolers using five standard visual ToM tasks and five newly crafted auditory ToM tasks. Age and gender effects were found, with 4- and 5-year-olds demonstrating greater ToM abilities than 3-year-olds and girls passing more tasks than boys; there was no significant effect of modality. Both visual and auditory tasks formed a scalable set. These results indicate that there is considerable consistency in when children are able to use visual and auditory inputs to reason about various aspects of others' mental states.
心理理论（ToM）在学前阶段逐渐发展。心理理论的测量通常针对视觉体验，但听觉体验也提供有价值的社会信息。鉴于视觉和听觉模态之间的差异（例如，视觉信息持续存在，声音逐渐消失）以及环境输入在社会认知发展中所起的重要作用，我们探讨了模态是否可能影响心理理论发展的进程。本研究扩展了韦尔曼和刘的心理理论量表（2004年），对66名学龄前儿童进行了测试，使用了五项标准的视觉心理理论任务和五项新设计的听觉心理理论任务。研究发现了年龄和性别效应，4岁和5岁儿童的心理理论能力比3岁儿童更强，女孩通过的任务比男孩更多；模态没有显著影响。视觉和听觉任务都形成了一个可扩展的集合。这些结果表明，儿童在何时能够利用视觉和听觉输入来推断他人心理状态的各个方面存在相当大的一致性。
