A Framework for Identifying Implicit and Explicit Theory of Mind Concepts in Children’s Storybooks

• In Event: Tell me, What’s on Your Mind? An Exploration of Mental-State Talk Discussions

Abstract

Children’s storybooks are a rich source of mental state vocabulary (Dyer et al., 2000). Theory of mind training studies that have utilized commercially available storybooks demonstrate that explanatory talk around false belief concepts during shared reading promotes preschoolers’ false belief understanding (Guajardo & Watson, 2002; Tompkins, 2015). These studies demonstrate that discussing theory of mind concepts in children’s literature promotes children’s theory of mind development more so than sheer exposure to these words. The current study provides a framework for identifying theory of mind concepts in children’s literature that moves beyond a counting of mental state terms. The purpose is to identify commercially available books for theory of mind observational or training studies. This will be achieved by coding 67 children’s storybooks focused on theory of mind concepts. Rather than examining how typical these concepts are in popular storybooks (Cassidy et al., 1998; Dyer et al., 2000), books were selected that focused specifically on theory of mind concepts. Coding will be divided into two main categories (see Table 1): 1) implicit and explicit theory of mind content and 2) practical considerations of chosen texts.

Regarding the implicit vs. explicit coding, comprehending stories requires making inferences drawn from text or making text-to-life comparisons. Understanding how children’s literature may be used to promote children’s theory of mind requires an understanding of how readers draw these inferences from the text and pictures. False beliefs in children’s literature are often not explicitly stated. For example, in a book about a rabbit scared of his shadow, the text never states that the rabbit thinks “the Black Rabbit” is someone else. Coding will document: 1) explicit mental state terms printed in text, 2) whether explicit mental states are supported by pictures, 3) implicit mental states (including whether they are inferred from pictures, text, or both), 4) type of theory of mind concept (e.g., deception), 5) repetition of theory of mind concepts, and 6) shifts in character perspective. Practical considerations include factors that may help researchers select texts appropriate for their project, such as human versus animal characters and how popular books are with parents (from survey data from 516 American parents).

Finally, we explored the relation between parents’ reports of the number of the 67 books that they read to their 3- to 6-year-old child in the past year and parents’ reports of children’s theory of mind skills on the Children’s Social Understanding Scale (Tahiroglu et al. 2014). There was a small, but significant correlation controlling for child age, family income, parent education, and frequency of book reading to the child (r = .19, p = .008).

Providing this framework for text features related to theory of mind concepts in children’s literature will result in a searchable database of children’s books as well as guidelines for selecting other texts. The survey results also suggest that children who are exposed to a greater number of books about theory of mind concepts, not just exposure to books (Mar et al., 2010), may have greater theory of mind understanding.

Author

• Virginia L Tompkins, The Ohio State University at Lima
  Presenting Author