Theory of Mind and Inhibitory Control Predict Preschoolers’ Perspective Shifts Into the Future, but not the Past

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

Children develop the capacity for “mental time travel” (MTT; i.e., re-experiencing the past and pre-experiencing the future) between ages 3 and 5. During this period, children make important strides in their executive function (most notably, inhibitory control) and theory of mind (e.g., understanding false beliefs). A common aspect of these cognitive abilities is the need to “self-project” from one’s immediate environment to alternative perspectives (Buckner & Carroll, 2007). In the present study we tested 46 3-year-olds, 35 4-year-olds, and 12 5-year-olds to investigate whether their performance on theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control (IC) tasks predicted their capacity for MTT into the past and future. We measured MTT using the Preferences task (e.g., Bélanger et al., 2014). In the past version of this task (i.e., “Past Preferences”), children choose what they like best between baby- (e.g., rattle) and child- (e.g., Play-Doh) preferable items “right now” (self-now trials; out of 5) and “when they were a baby” (self-past trials; out of 5). We divided the number of correct responses on the self-past trials by the number of correct responses on the self-now trials to yield a proportion score between 0 and 1. In the future version of this task (i.e., “Future Preferences”), children choose what they like best between child- (e.g., juice box) and adult- (e.g., coffee) preferable items “right now” (self-now trials; out of 5) and “when they’re all grown up” (self-future trials; out of 5). A proportion score was similarly obtained. ToM was evaluated using two false belief tasks (Change in Location, Unexpected Contents) in which children were asked about another person’s (or their own previous) belief. IC was evaluated using the standard Dimensional Change Card Sort (Zelazo, 2006) and Sun/Moon tasks (Gerstadt et al, 1994). We hypothesized that IC and ToM would more strongly predict future preferences, than past preferences, because the former requires a greater perspective shift for preschoolers; that is, “adult” preferences may be harder to contemplate than “infant” ones. This is because infancy is temporally closer than adulthood and preschoolers may perceive greater connection to infancy as compared to adulthood. We ran a multiple regression analysis to predict children’s scores on the Future Preferences task from their age in months, ToM composite score, and IC composite score. This model significantly predicted children’s scores, F(3, 76) = 6.527, p < .001, adj. R2 = .208. Both ToM and IC added significant unique variance to the model (p = .040 and p = .018, respectively). The same multiple regression model was run, but this time to predict children’s scores on the Past Preferences task. This model was also significant, F(3, 75) = 3.643, p = .013, adj. R2 = .132, but none of the predictors provided significantly unique variance. Our results support the hypothesis that perceiving adult preferences requires a stronger perspective shift for preschoolers than perceiving infant preferences.

Authors

• Gladys Ayson, University of Ottawa
  Presenting Author

• Leia Kopp, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lojain Hamwi, Carleton University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cristina Atance, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author