Environmental Sensitivity in Children is Associated with Performance in a Theory of Mind Task

• In Event: Environmental Sensitivity in School Children: Understanding Cognitive Empathy, Memory and Behavior of Highly Sensitive Children

Abstract

Introduction: Some individuals perceive and process their environment more deeply than others (Pluess, 2015). While highly sensitive individuals are more prone to overstimulation, they are also considered to have greater depth of processing, sensory sensitivity, emotional reactivity and empathy (Aron et al., 2012). Research shows that sensitive individuals have stronger activation in brain regions involved with empathy when viewing images of their partner or happy facial photos (Acevedo et al., 2014). Moreover, recent qualitative research on sensitive adults identified an association between sensitivity and several empathy facets, including the ability to perceive subtle changes in facial expressions (Bas et al., 2021). However, experimental data on empathy in highly sensitive children is scarce. To bridge this gap, we assessed children’s cognitive empathy by having 7-8-year-old children complete an advanced theory of mind task, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test’s child version (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Hypothesis: Highly Sensitive Children perform better at the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task. Sample: 78 UK primary school children from five classes (37 girls, 41 boys). Procedure: Teachers completed a 12-item Highly Sensitive Child at School- measure including three subfactors called Core sensitivity, Cautious approach and Overstimulation (HSC-AS; Kähkönen et al., unpublished manuscript) on children in their classes. Children completed cognitive activities one-on-one with the researcher during school hours on school premises. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) was administered on a computer in the same order and manner as in the literature; children viewed images of sets of adult eyes that have four mental state words around them which the researcher read aloud to the child and the child needed to identify the correct mental state (See Figure 1 for an example). Results: As expected, children’s teacher-assessed overall sensitivity correlated with the RME score, r=.26. Females are generally advantaged in this test but the association between sensitivity and RME remained similar after partialing out gender, r=.21. Further, Core sensitivity correlated more strongly with RME, r=.43, even after partialing out gender, r=.38, while the two smaller factors, Overstimulation and Cautious approach were not associated with RME performance. Discussion: Interestingly, the association between RME score and Core sensitivity was greater in magnitude than the effect sizes reported in literature for the association between the Empathy Quotient and RME in adults (e.g., Vellante et al., 2013; Voracek & Dressler, 2006). One possible explanation is that teacher-ratings can fairly objectively assess children’s attunement to others by observing their interactions and comparing the abilities across a range of children. The present results support the theory that sensitivity is associated with greater cognitive empathy and emotion recognition. Implications: One of the big questions in the field is whether and how Environmental Sensitivity differs from diagnoses with some shared symptomology, such as autism spectrum condition (ASC). Several studies show that individuals with ASC have impaired RME performance (e.g., Baron-Cohen et al., 1995; 2015) while we have here identified a positive association between sensitivity and RME performance. Therefore, this study provides support for one potentially distinguishing feature.

Authors

• Jenni Elise kahkonen, Queen Mary University of London
  Presenting Author

• Francesca Lionetti, G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara and Queen Mary University of London

• Michael Pluess, Queen Mary University of London