Poster #78 - Neural correlates of false belief competence in 33 to 36-month-old children

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

Little is known about the neural correlates of false-belief reasoning in young children. In an ERP study of 4-6-year-old children, Liu et al. (2009) found that a late slow wave (LSW) with a left frontal scalp distribution was associated with belief reasoning only in behaviorally competent children, as well as in adults. Since then, behavioral competence in FB reasoning has been found with reduced information processing demands even in children below the age of 36 months (Setoh et al., 2016; Grosso et al., 2019, for replication). The present study investigates whether behavioral competence in a low-demand FB task is reflected in a unique pattern of neural sensitivity in children below the age of 3 years. For this purpose, a simplified ERP paradigm (Leo’s belief task) was developed in which a protagonist’s belief is made explicit, rather than inferred from the protagonist’s access to information.
128 toddlers had EEG recordings of Leo’s belief task. Of these children, 45 participants (27 girls, 18 boys) completed the behavioral Lily’s task (Setoh et al., 2016) and were divided into two groups based on whether they passed (n = 27, M = 34.49-month, SD = 1.63) or failed (n = 18, M = 34.54-month, SD = 1.64). The EEG was recorded from 33 channels according to the 10/20 positions using a Brain Products recording system with active electrodes. Offline EEG was filtered from 0.30-30 Hz and converted to average reference.
The results revealed a late ERP component that differentiated significantly between true- and false-belief processing in frontocentral, central, and occipital regions (Cohen’s d > 0.5, both in anterior and posterior regions). The divergence started around 500ms post stimulus and lasted until 1100ms. Posterior, the processing of false beliefs was associated with a greater positive potential, anterior it showed a potential reversal with greater negativity for false beliefs. Subsequent analysis (belief * group interaction) revealed that the belief effect on the late posterior waveform was only evident for passers but not for failers in Lily’s task.
The present findings indicate a unique pattern of neural sensitivity in FB reasoning in behaviorally competent children as young as 34 months. However, the neural sensitivity was more posterior than in older children (Liu et al., 2009). The occipital late positive slow wave associated with behaviorally competent toddlers’ false-belief reasoning may reflect processing load of perceptual operations, language processing, and episodic memory retrieval required by FB processing. Future research is needed to investigate developmental change between 3 and 6 years of age in the neural underpinnings of Theory of Mind.

Authors

• Shuting Li, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
  Presenting Author

• Jörg Meinhardt, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

• Beate Sodian, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich