2.1 DRENAJE ÁCIDO DE MINA
2.1.4 IMPACTOS AMBIENTALES
2.4.1. Children's performance on the three theory of mind tasks
The findings in this chapter replicate previous cross-sectional theory o f mind studies in terms o f children's performance on each o f three theory o f mind tasks. The performance on the felse-belief task was at ceiling-level (98%) for the present sample o f children (mean age 61 months). This is an inçroved percentage compared to those found in Wimmer & Pemer's (1983) original study, where 57% o f four to six year olds, and 86% o f six to nine year olds, were passing the test, but is similar to other percentages reported in false-belief studies using a different story but based on an identical representational ability, that is, the ability to make first-order-belief-attributions (for example, Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) reported that 85% o f the developmentaUy normal children (mean age 53 months) passed their false-belief test).
Given the number o f rephcations between the findings in the original false-befief study and those reported here a decade later, these results merely corroborate the rehability and validity o f the false-befief paradigm as a measure o f first-order befief attributions. This paradigm, in the current context, is also a useful control measure in that it can be reliably and validly concluded that 98% o f the children have acquired a basic level o f theory o f mind understanding. However, this measure is unfortunately not useful as a dependent variable for subsequent explorations o f influences on individual differences in theory o f mind abilities.
Children's 70% pass-rate on the cognitive-emotion task is in accordance with the finding reported in Baron-Cohen's (1991a) replication o f the original study by Harris et al. (1989) that 73.7% o f the developmentaUy normal chUdren (mean age o f 5 years 3 months) were passing the task. The present result also confirms a trend revealed in the literature that predicting a character's emotion fi*om their filse-befief poses more problems for five year olds than predicting a character's action fi-om their false-befief (Harris et al., 1989).
Posing even greater problems for the five year olds in this study, as was predicted, were the questions on the higher-order task, which only 26% o f the children were able to answer correctly. This is a similar, though shghtly higher, percentage to Pemer & Wimmer's (1985 - experiment 6) finding that 19% o f their 61 to 66 month olds were passing this task. Given the range o f variation in children's abihty to pass these latter two tasks, the present results invite an e?q)loration o f which o f the variables considered in the successive chapters can account for the variance in children's performance on either or both o f these tasks.
2.4.2. Chronological age
In contrast to the majority o f the theory o f mind studies on normal children, which, being predominantly concerned with the dififering theory o f mind abihties o f different age groups, have included chronological age as the key independent variable, the present study aimed to control for this variable by assessing children in the same age group. Obviously there was a small range in age - five months. Nevertheless, this was enough to reveal that the established age-trend in the theory o f mind hterature was evident in the present sample; namely that the older children were more likely to pass both the cognitive-emotion task and the higher-order one. However, chronological age is only making a significant difference to children's performance on the cognitive-emotion task, but not the higher-order task. Thus, analyses in subsequent chapters with performance on the cognitive-emotion task as their dependent variable, must control for the possible confounding effect o f chronological age.
The sensitivity o f these measures to such a small age range reflects the estabhshed fact that between the ages o f four and six, the preschooler's representational system is undergoing a rapid and profound metamorphosis. That this is less apparent in the results for these five
year olds' understanding o f second-order-belief-attributions is not so surprising. It could singly be due to the small number o f children passing this task. Alternatively, it could be due to the fact that, since these children are almost at the floor level for the age at which this representational abihty begins to emerge, one would not expect it to be chronological age in this sample which significantly improves children's abihty to succeed on the higher-order task, particularly in hght o f the smah range in age.
2.4.3. Associations between the cognitive-emotion task and the higher-order task The weak significant association between the cognitive-emotion task and the higher-order task invites discussion. Assuming the association is reflective o f a developmental trend, the association is weakened m this study by the three children who failed the cognitive- emotion task but went on to pass the higher-order task. Had this group o f children been larger, individual diflferences in the correlates o f this group compared with the other groups could have been investigated. Future studies with a larger sample might be effective in revealing whether the 14% found in the present study is rephcated with a greater number o f children. However, interpretations o f the present results must be made with caution given the small number o f children which have contributed to this weak association.
It is proposed that there are two possible interpretations o f this result; that it is either a weak rephcation o f the developmental trend which is reported in the theory o f mind hterature, or that it is reflective o f suggestions in the hterature that there are separable domains within the global theory o f mind domain which are related but not necessarily significantly.
The developmental trend in the hterature suggests that those children who fail the cognitive-emotion task would also fail the higher-order task, since the average age o f children
contmgmt upon the ability to make a first-order belief attribution. Thus, if any o f the children in the present study had failed the false-belief task, it would be predicted that they would also fail the higher-order task. Similarly, those children would also be expected to fail the cognitive-emotion task, since success on this task is contingent upon the ability to infer mental states in others, and the ability to use that information to make predictions.
Such considerations invite an investigation o f the second interpretation o f the lack o f a significant association between the two tasks, which proposes that the results provide support for a modular approach to a theory o f mind. Specifically, the results indicate that there may be a separate 'theory o f mind and emotion' (Harris et al., 1989) or 'folk social psychology* (Astington & Gopnik, 1991a), which is distinct, but obviously related, to a more global theory o f mind, a 'folk cognitive science' (Astington & Gopnik, ibid.), as was proposed in the introduction to this chapter, and as has been suggested in the literature (for example, Harris et al., 1989; Dunn et al, 1991b). Preliminary empirical support for such separable domains has been provided by Astington & Jenkins (1995) and Dunn (1995). Astington & Jenkins found that there was no association between a cognitive and an affective measure o f social understanding (false-belief understanding and empathie concern). Similarly, Dunn (1995) found that understanding beliefs and understanding emotions are not significantly correlated with one another at 40 months o f age, and that they have different patterns o f correlates later on.
Additionally, such proposals, in general terms (that is, not specifically related to a theory o f mind and emotion), appear to be gaining increasing theoretical ground since it was first explicitly suggested by Astington & Gopnik (1991a), as evidenced by the recent focus in the theory o f mind literature on the ontogenesis o f these representational skills. This focus has revealed a rich variety o f perspectives, as was described in Chapter One, and these would
seem to point to developmental lines in separable domains which correspond to those suggested by Astington & Gopnik (ibid.): for example the perceptual accounts o f the origins o f a theory o f mind (Gomez et al., 1993; Mundy et al., 1993; Baron-Cohen, 1991b, 1991c) might most appropriately explain the development o f an understanding o f the appearance-reahty distinction (Flavell, 1986; FlaveU, Flavell & Green, 1983; Flavell, Green & FlaveU, 1986) or referential ambiguity (Taylor, 1988; RufiBnan et al., 1991; Chandler & Helm, 1984); the affective and motivational accounts o f the origins o f a theory o f mind (Hobson, 1990, 1993, 1994; Mayes et al., 1993) might most appropriately explain the development o f an understanding o f the dependency o f emotions on behefs and desires (Harris et al., 1989; Baron-Cohen, 1991a; Hadwin & Pemer, 1991; Maclaren & Olson, 1993); the linguistic and narrative accounts o f the origins o f a theory o f mind (Bruner & Feldman, 1993; Bruner, 1990; Olson, 1990; Bretherton, 1989) might most appropriately explain the structure o f children's 'folk social psychology and their accounts o f affect, motivation, and social relations.
Only longitudinal studies wiU be able to speak to these theoretical possibihties - possibilities which the present study hopes to explore. This exploration begins in the next chapter with a consideration o f the in^ortance o f maturational and demographic variables in the development o f the theory o f mind skills as assessed by the cognitive-emotion task and the higher-order task, and the abihty o f these variables to account for the individual differences in these skills which were reported in this chapter.