Poster #198 - Developmental Pathways from Infant Social Cognition to Preschool Theory of Mind

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

There is a growing body of evidence documenting longitudinal relations between theory of mind (ToM) in the preschool years and the social-cognitive capacities evident in infancy. Research supports links between preschool ToM and infants’ triadic interaction with caregivers (Nelson et al., 2008), point following (Colonnesi et al., 2008), social attentiveness (Brink et al., 2015), and intentional action processing (Aschersleben et al., 2008; Wellman et al., 2008; Yamaguchi et al., 2009). These studies reveal important continuity in social cognition from infancy through preschool and suggest that early social-cognitive knowledge and experiences provide the foundation for later ToM. However, existing studies are limited by small sample sizes, restricted infant measures, and narrow ToM assessments (e.g., false belief only). The current study aimed to provide a more comprehensive investigation of developmental pathways from infant social cognition to preschool ToM by (1) including a robust sample size, (2) incorporating multiple assessments of infant social cognition, and (3) using a broad ToM measure designed to capture individual differences across multiple domains.

Forty-eight 38- to 45-month-olds (Time 2; M = 40.92) who had previously visited the lab as 8- to 9-month-olds (Time 1; M = 8.73) participated. An additional 114 participants will be invited to complete the Time 2 assessments in the coming months. At Time 1, infants completed a battery of social-cognitive measures, including (1) triadic interaction with a researcher (Carpenter et al., 1998), (2) gaze and point following (Carpenter et al., 1998), (3) parent report of initiating joint attention (Reznick et al., 2006), and (4) eye-tracking measures of intentional action understanding (Brandone et al., 2014). Temperament was also assessed via the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised Short Form (Garstein & Rothbart, 2003). At Time 2, parents completed the Children’s Social Understanding Scale (CSUS; Tahiroglu et al., 2014), a 42-item parent-report measure of individual differences in ToM across the subscales of belief, knowledge, perception, desire, intention, and emotion understanding. The CSUS has been shown to correlate with observed measures of ToM performance and to have high internal consistency and strong test-retest reliability.

Associations between Time 1 infant measures and Time 2 CSUS scores were examined using partial correlations (controlling for age at Time 1 and Time 2, gender, and family income; see Table 1). Preliminary results from our initial sample of 48 participants showed that infants who were better at following gaze at 8-9 months showed more advanced ToM abilities roughly 3 years later —especially in the areas of intention and knowledge understanding. Likewise, infants whose parents reported that they were more likely to initiate joint attention at 8-9 months showed better ToM abilities as preschoolers. There were no significant relations between ToM and infants’ triadic interaction, point following, or intentional action understanding within the current sample. Among the three broad temperament dimensions assessed in infancy, the Surgency/Extraversion dimension also emerged as a significant predictor of belief, desire, and emotion understanding (see Table 2). Overall, these results expand and strengthen evidence that the origins of ToM lie in social-cognitive knowledge, experiences, and interaction tendencies established in infancy.

Authors

• Amanda C Brandone, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Wyntre Stout, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author