Theory of Mind in Naturalistic Conversations between Autistic and Typically Developing Children and Adolescents

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

Successful social interactions likely depend on theory of mind (ToM)—the ability to represent others’ mental states—yet there is surprisingly little evidence directly tying ToM to interaction success in either typical development or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), in which ToM is widely thought to be impaired. Previous ToM studies rely on non-interactive tasks that do not adequately capture the spontaneous engagement of ToM, a crucial component of everyday social interactions. This disconnect between standard ways of measuring ToM and real-world social contexts leaves a gap in our understanding of the mechanisms by which ToM promotes interaction success.

This pre-registered study addresses this gap by establishing a novel observational rating scale to measure the spontaneous use of (or failure to use) ToM within unstructured conversations (conversational ToM, or cToM). Informed by the field of pragmatic language, the cToM scale captures positive ToM-related behaviors, such as explicitly referring to the listener’s mental states or anticipating potential ambiguities, as well as negative behaviors, such as statements that are under- or over-informative, irrelevant, or ambiguous from the perspective of the listener.

In age- and gender-matched dyads of autistic and typically developing (TD) children aged 9-16, we will assess cToM during 5-minute, unstructured conversations. We will then examine how cToM relates to two non-interactive measures of ToM, each measuring a distinct process that we expect is relevant for applying ToM in conversation. We will next examine how cToM relates to interaction success. Our findings could inform not only our theoretical understanding of the role that ToM plays in social interaction, but also interventions targeting the aspects of social cognition and behavior that are most relevant for real-world social functioning.

Hypothesis 1: Across autistic and TD participants, cToM will be positively associated with non-interactive ToM abilities. Participants individually completed two tasks: visual-affective ToM (inferring complex emotions from short video clips of actors; Golan et al., 2015) and spontaneous ToM (attributing mental states to animations of geometric shapes; Abell et al., 2000). We will use an actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) to estimate the effect of a child’s visual-affective and spontaneous ToM on his or her own cToM, controlling for effects of their partner’s visual-affective and spontaneous ToM.

Hypothesis 2: Across autistic and TD participants, cToM will be positively associated with interaction success, operationalized as self-reported enjoyment of the interaction and desire to interact again (Berry et al., 1996). We will use an APIM to estimate the effect of a child’s cToM on their partner’s ratings of interaction success, controlling for the effect of a child’s cToM on his or her own ratings of interaction success.

Feasibility: Data collection in a sample of 50 dyads (25 TD-TD, 18 TD-ASD, 7 ASD-ASD) is complete. Coding of cToM and spontaneous ToM by separate teams of trained research assistants is underway and will be complete by December 2020. All planned analyses will be completed prior to April 2021.

Authors

• Diana Alkire, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Kathryn McNaughton, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ryan Regars, University of Maryland, College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deena Ahmad Shariq, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Aliceann Trostle, University of Maryland, College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Heather Yarger, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Redcay, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author