Dwell Time in Preschoolers During Nonverbal Theory of Mind Tasks

Indianapolis, IN

Previous studies have found that scaffolding affects executive function development and that executive function affects theory of mind development. Scaffolding is predictive of future development of executive function and verbal ability, while executive function serves as a moderator between theory of mind and feedback provided following a theory of mind task. However, no study has yet to design a methodology implementing each of these findings, testing whether scaffolding has an effect on the development of representational theory of mind. In the current study, we created a microgenetic study that tested the effect of scaffolding on children's representational theory of mind development over the course of 7 total weeks (5 weeks of microgenetic sessions). Scaffolding during the microgenetic sessions included repeatedly presenting a mental state relevant task while an adult provided narration on the actor's mental states. These mental state relevant tasks were slideshows based off of classic false-belief locations tasks created to determine whether developing a representational theory of mind changes the way children process information online. Children were presented with six slideshows for each session in which they self-navigated through on a provided laptop. The length of time children dwelled on mental state-relevant slides in the slideshow was used as a measure of children's mental state processing. Detailed changes over the microgenetic sessions will be discussed.