Brain development, experience, and the development of a representational theory of mind in preschoolers

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Successful engagement and negotiation of the social world rests on having a theory of mind -- an understanding that others' behavior is motivated by idiosyncratic mental states such as beliefs, knowledge, desires, and intention. Although the roots of theory of mind may be present in infancy children all over the world go through striking developments in their theory of mind reasoning skills during the preschool years. Our work to date has been focused on understanding what aspects of preschoolers' brain development might be important for their remarkable changes in theory of mind understanding. In that work, we used electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings to discover that theory of mind development is associated with developments in specific regions of the medial frontal lobe and the parietal lobe. Now, we hope to continue this work to learn about how the maturational timetable of the brain areas that are important for theory of mind might be shaped by experience. Our first approach to this question involves examining whether the experiences that are known to affect theory of mind development, including providing children with theory of mind training and opportunities to talk about theory of mind concepts with parents, also affect the functional development of the brain areas that are important for theory of mind. Our second approach is to look at whether the brain developments that are important for theory of mind are related to the neurocognitive processes that have been suggested to help preschoolers use their experience to develop theory of mind reasoning skills. If we are successful, these findings will show for the first time that the brain developments that are critical for abstract reasoning about others mental states can be affected by relatively subtle experiential factors. More generally, we may show how biological and experiential factors work together to shape the trajectory and timetable of cognitive developments. We hope that these findings will provide new perspectives on the neurological bases of disorders in which theory of mind reasoning appears to be impaired, including autism, depression, and schizophrenia.