Facchetti, Teresa; Cocchini, Gianna and Mercure, Evelyne. 2025. From Understanding to Mindreading: The Role of Scenario Comprehension and Verbal Demand on Theory of Mind. Journal of Child Language, ISSN 0305-0009 [Article] (In Press)

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Abstract or Description

While a role of language in the development of Theory of Mind (ToM) is well established, the interplay with a child’s ability to understand structured scenarios remains unclear. A new scale (PTOMs), assessing true and false belief comprehension at different levels of linguistic complexity, was used to explore language effects on ToM while accounting for scenario comprehension. 39 children (aged 4-6 years; 53.8% female) participated in this study. Results showed that 46.8% of 4–6-year-olds can understand false beliefs from picture-based scenarios with limited language output. Both language and scenario comprehension contributed to ToM in first-order false beliefs, whereas only scenario comprehension predicted true beliefs. In contrast, only language predicted second-order false beliefs, highlighting their different roles in ToM development.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1017/S030500092510010X
Data Access Statement:	The PTOMs scale is publicly available at the following URL: https//giannacocchini.wixsite.com/gcpage/neuropsychological-tests. Data are available from the first author upon reasonable request.
Keywords:	Language, Theory of Mind, Scenario Comprehension, Verbal Demand
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology Psychology > Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture (CCCC)
Dates:	Date Event 29 May 2025 Accepted 24 June 2025 Published Online
Item ID:	39052
Date Deposited:	23 Jun 2025 09:53
Last Modified:	23 Jul 2025 09:24
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/39052

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