Investigating the inference of others’ minds by children using contextual analyzing tasks

focusing on the strategy of propositional mentalization

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) complete theory of mind tasks by employing strategies that compensate for verbal ability (propositional mentalization) when they infer others’ minds. To investigate how children with ASD process social information, an explanation of whether typically developing (TD) children are also capable of imaging other people’ s mental states by employing a strategy of propositional mentalization is necessary. In this study, we conducted an investigation with 51 TD children by using Context Analyzing Tasks that consider correct answer rates of inferring others’ minds and narrative that describes a story. The results revealed two key findings. First, while TD children could read facts adequately, the percentage of correct answers varied, especially for stories that have complex structure and require moral judgment to understand the context. Second, descriptions that explain causality by using the protagonist’ s emotion were the most common narrative analysis, although it is not necessarily appropriate for inferring others’ minds. The findings suggest that it is challenging for TD children to infer situations and other people’ s minds cohesively in some cases. In future research, interventions are necessary to investigate the functioning of the mechanism of propositional mentalization.