Acquiring"theory of mind"and development of understanding pragmatic language use

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The present research aimed at studying development of mindreading.Study 1 : Forty university students were divided into two groups(role play group and no role play group) and they were introduced to a task in which use of mindreading is essential. On each trial participants viewed a 4 X 4 shelf on the computer display which contained several familiar objects, and were instructed to touch an object on the shelf in accord with the order by a"manager"who stood at the opposite side of the shelf and could not always see all of the objects. The no role play group made more mistakes than in the role play group, and spent longer to respond to the touch panel display. The effects of role play lasted during five blocks. These results suggest that experience with role play would activate mindreading in this task.Study 2 : Forty-six primary school students performed three types of tasks related to understanding the mind of another individual. After performing these tasks, participants were divided into two groups and were introduced to a task in which the use of mindreading was essential. Participants were divided into two groups according to scores on the tasks related to understanding the mind of another individual. The no-role-playing group made significantly more mistakes than did the role-playing group. The low-score group made significantly more mistakes than did the high-score group. These results suggest that experience with role-playing may activate mindreading of primary school children.