Children in ethnically diverse classrooms and those with cross-ethnic friendships excel at understanding others' minds.

This study examined the link between classroom ethnic diversity, cross-ethnic friendships, and children's theory of mind. In total, 730 children in the United Kingdom (54.7% girls, 51.5% White) aged 8 to 13 years completed measures of theory of mind in 2019/2020. Controlling for verbal ability, executive function, peer social preference, and teacher-reported demographic characteristics, greater classroom ethnic diversity provided opportunities for cross-ethnic friendships, and children with cross-ethnic friendships performed better than peers without cross-ethnic friendships on theory of mind. These results extend accounts of intergroup contact by using direct assessments of children's theory of mind and advance social accounts of theory of mind by demonstrating how experiences outside the family are linked with theory of mind.

Older adults' subjective experiences of the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown in Italy: A qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the subjective experience of the COVID-19 outbreak in healthy older adults and develop a model of the older population's psychological adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A qualitative grounded theory approach was taken to the study design and analysis, using semi-structured interviews to collect data from 19 community-active Italian older people by telephone during the first wave of COVID-19 (May 2020). RESULTS: The theory emerging from the study conceptualized the COVID-19 subjective experience in older people as an adjustment process to the disruption of habits, social contacts, and routines that prompted a meaning-making process to face this adverse experience. Three emergent categories included 'loss, uncertainty, and distress' as the psychological impact of the pandemic emergency, 'making sense of COVID-19' as a subjective sense-making process of the pandemic, and 'living with the pandemic' as agency and self-management within the pandemic experience. The resulting narratives encompassed themes, i.e. risk perception, representation of the self, connection with past-time memories, and compliance with safety measures. CONCLUSION: The results have implications for designing effective messages to promote hope, social responsibility, and commitment in aging during the COVID-19 pandemic and for health workers who wish to support the psychological health of older adults.

Social cognition in chronic migraine with medication overuse: a cross-sectional study on different aspects of mentalization and social relationships.

BACKGROUND: Social cognition refers to all mental operations to decipher information needed in social interactions. Here we aimed to outline the socio-cognitive profile of Chronic Migraine with Medication Overuse (CM + MO), given they are recognized to be at risk of socio-cognitive difficulties. Given the multidimensionality of this construct, we considered: (1) socio-cognitive abilities, (2) socio-cognitive beliefs, (3) alexithymia and autism traits, and (4) social relationships. METHODS: Seventy-one patients suffering from CM + MO, 61 from episodic migraine (EM), and 80 healthy controls (HC) were assessed with a comprehensive battery: (1) the Faux Pas test (FP), the Strange Stories task (SS), the Reading Mind in the Eyes test (RMET), (2) the Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale, (3) the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Autism Spectrum Quotient, (4) the Lubben Social Network Scale, the Friendship Scale. RESULTS: CM + MO: (1) performed similar to EM but worse than HC in the FP and SS, while they were worse than EM and HC in the RMET; (2) were similar to EM and HC in social intelligence; (3) had more alexithymic/autistic traits than EM and HC; (4) reported higher levels of contact with their family members but felt little support from the people around them than HC. CONCLUSIONS: CM + MO results characterized by a profile of compromised socio-cognitive abilities that affects different dimensions. These findings may have a relevant role in multiple fields related to chronic headache: from the assessment to the management.

N400 differences between physical and mental metaphors: The role of Theories of Mind.

Whether Theory of Mind (ToM) contributes to metaphor understanding has been largely investigated in language acquisition and decay. Yet we know very little about the role of ToM in real-time processing of metaphors in neurotypical adults. Here, we tested the relationship between ToM and metaphor through Event Related Potentials (ERPs) by capitalizing on the difference between metaphors inviting inferences on physical (Boxers are pandas) vs. mental aspects (Teachers are books). Physical metaphors involved a larger and sustained negativity compared to mental ones. This pattern resembled concreteness effects and suggests that physical metaphors may benefit from both verbal and perceptual information. Moreover, higher scores in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), but not in the Animation task, were associated with a reduction of the N400 amplitude for both physical and mental metaphors. When exploring the ERP temporal trajectory with Generalized Additive Mixed Modeling, earlier differences between metaphors characterized individuals with higher RMET scores. Among the various ToM components, thus, emotion recognition seems to be involved in the processing of metaphors in general, with an earlier impact on the mental type. These findings highlight the multifaceted nature of metaphor, at the crossroad of language, social and perceptual experience.

Can theory of mind of healthy older adults living in a nursing home be improved? A randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Research in nursing homes mainly focused on interventions for residents affected by cognitive decline. Few studies have considered healthy older adults living in nursing homes, and this research targeted cognitive functioning. AIMS: To evaluate whether socio-cognitive abilities can be improved by means of a theory of mind (ToM) training conducted by nursing home's operators. METHODS: RESULTS: Results revealed that older adults benefitted from the ToM intervention in both practiced and non-practiced tasks, while the control group showed no change from pre- to post-test evaluation. Analyses on errors scores indicated that the ToM intervention led to a reduction of both excessive mentalizing and absence of mental states inference. DISCUSSION: The conversation-based ToM intervention proved to be effective in improving socio-cognitive skills in cognitively healthy nursing home residents. Notably, older adults were able to transfer the skills acquired during the training to new material. CONCLUSIONS: Promoting healthy resident's ToM ability could positively impact on their social cognition, consequently increasing their quality of life. Our findings showed that the intervention can be feasibly managed by health care assistants within the residential context.

Closeness to friends explains age differences in positive emotional experience during the lockdown period of COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Studies on age differences in emotional states during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that older adults experienced greater emotional wellbeing compared to younger adults. We hypothesized these age differences to be related to the perception of closeness to family/friends or the engagement in daily activities during the pandemic. AIM: To investigate age differences in positive and negative emotional experiences and whether the perception of closeness to family/friends and the engagement in daily activities during pandemic explained such age-related differences. METHODS: Through a cross-sectional study, 1,457 adults aged 18-87 years old completed an online survey assessing positive and negative emotional experiences, the perception of more closeness to family/friends, and daily activities that participants started/re-started during the pandemic. RESULTS: Increasing age was associated with more positive and less negative emotional experiences. Age differences in positive emotional experience were explained by the perception of more closeness to friends and not by the engagement in daily activities. For negative emotional experience age, differences remained significant even after accounting for the perception of closeness to family/friends and engagements in daily activities. DISCUSSION: Older adults' greater overall level of positive emotional experience was explained by their greater perception of more closeness to friends. We speculate that social closeness provides a coping mechanism to increase emotional wellbeing employed especially in older adults. CONCLUSION: Our findings reinforce the link between perceived social closeness and emotional wellbeing especially in older adults. To cope with stressful situation, it is important to encourage older adults to increase the closeness to their social network.

Beyond the motor account of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Verbal humour and its relationship with the cognitive and pragmatic profile.

BACKGROUND: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) was traditionally described as a disease restricted to the motor system. However, recent findings suggested that it also affects cognition, especially executive functions, social cognition, language and pragmatics. A relevant issue in current research is thus the description of the cognitive phenotype of ALS and the identification of the most vulnerable aspects. AIMS: The focus was on a communicative phenomenon placed at the crossroads of pragmatic and other cognitive domains, namely humour, which till now has been poorly explored in ALS. The first aim was to investigate whether ALS is associated with impairments in understanding and appreciating jokes. The second aim was to explore the predictors of humour comprehension and appreciation in patients, to confirm the involvement of pragmatic skills and to explore the role of other cognitive and clinical aspects. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A total of 30 non-demented patients with ALS and 27 controls were assessed with a task of verbal humour comprehension and appreciation, including two types of jokes: phonological and mental. We also administered a battery of pragmatic and other language tasks, and cognitive and socio-cognitive tasks. Mixed-effects models were used to test differences in the humour task between the two groups. Multiple regressions determined the best predictors of humour comprehension and appreciation in patients. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Patients obtained lower comprehension accuracy scores than controls in the humour task, independently of the type of joke. Conversely, patients and controls did not differ in joke appreciation and both rated mental jokes as funnier than the phonological ones. Patients' comprehension accuracy was predicted by pragmatic skills and ALS severity, whereas appreciation was predicted by several clinical variables and, to a smaller extent, by language skills. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The findings suggest that humour is a very vulnerable aspect in ALS, and that impairment in humour comprehension might be part of the larger cognitive impairment, being linked to pragmatic impairment. Clinical variables were also important, especially in relation to humour appreciation. More generally, these data speak in favour of pragmatics as a relevant aspect to sketch the cognitive phenotype of ALS. On the practical level, these findings point to the need of supporting communication at large, not only motor-related aspects such as dysarthria but also social-pragmatic aspects such as understanding jokes, to increase well-being in ALS. What this paper adds What is already known on this subject The literature of the last decades has shown that ALS comes with impairment in several cognitive domains, affecting especially executive functions as well as language. There is also initial evidence that the pragmatics of communication and humour comprehension are impaired, although non-serious talk has been documented in conversational interaction among people with ALS. What this paper adds to existing knowledge This study offers compelling evidence of an impairment in the comprehension of jokes in ALS, whereas the appreciation of joke funniness seems to be spared. The study also highlights the interplay of cognitive factors (especially pragmatics) and clinical factors (related to disease severity) in predicting the patients' performance in the humour task. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The study's findings call for the need of increased awareness among scholars as well as practitioners and caregivers of the profile of humour comprehension and appreciation in ALS. On a practical level, we highlight the need of assessing humour comprehension and adapting the communicative style accordingly. Second, we recommend that intervention programmes targeting communication in ALS go beyond speech-related difficulties and include pragmatic aspects such as humour. Considering the important communicative and social function of humour, as well as its use as a coping strategy, humour interventions are key to improve the quality of life of individuals with ALS.

Prosocial behavior in aging: which factors can explain age-related differences in social-economic decision making?

OBJECTIVES: Older adults tend to exhibit more prosocial behavior than younger adults. However, little research has focused on understanding the factors that may explain such differences in the social decision-making process. The first aim was to examine if, and to what degree, the content of social information about a recipient has an impact on young vs. older adults' prosocial behavior. The second aim was to understand if empathic concern, Theory of Mind, and reasoning explain the (expected) age differences in prosociality. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: The study was conducted in northern Italy in a laboratory setting. PARTICIPANTS: Forty-eight younger adults (Mage = 23.29; SD = 2.20) and 48 older adults (Mage = 70.19; SD = 5.13). MEASUREMENTS: Prosocial behavior was measured using the Dictator Game in which participants split a sum of money with recipients presented with four levels of description: no information, physical description, positive psychological description, and negative psychological description. In addition, participants performed tasks on emphatic concern, Theory of Mind, and reasoning. RESULTS: Results showed that older adults are more prosocial than younger adults in the Dictator Game. This finding was evident when the recipient was described with positive psychological and physical features. This pattern of results was statistically explained by the reduction in reasoning ability. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest a relationship between age-related reduction in reasoning ability and older adults' prosocial behavior. The theoretical and practical implication of the empirical findings are discussed.

Theory of mind, mental state talk and social relationships in aging: The case of friendship.

Objectives: Previous research has shown a decline in Theory of mind (ToM) associated with normal aging. However, very few studies have investigated older people's ToM using an ecological approach. The present study was designed to fill this gap and examine older people's frequency of mental state talk (MST) in describing their best friend, together with their performance on a traditional ToM task. In addition, the study examined the association between these two ToM indices and relationships with friends and family members. Method: Seventy-two healthy older adults (age range 60-79) participated in the study. We measured ToM ability with a classic measure, the Faux Pas task, and selected the Describe-a-friend task to measure MST frequency; social relationships were investigated with the Lubben Social Network Scale. Correlation and regression analyses were performed. Results: No significant association between MST and scores on the Faux Pas task emerged. In addition, MST (but not Faux Pas scores) significantly predicted friendships (but not family relationships) over and above general cognitive functioning. Conclusion: These findings show the crucial distinction between possessing an ability and using it in daily life and suggest the need to move toward more ecological measures of older adults' abilities. In addition, the present results indicate that the spontaneous use of ToM ability, not the ability per se, impacts on older adults' social relationships.

Theory of mind plasticity in aging: The role of baseline, verbal knowledge, and executive functions.

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to attribute mental states to the self and others in order to explain and predict social behaviour. Meta-analytic results have shown a decline in ToM abilities in healthy older adults. Recent research has also highlighted the possibility of enhancing older adults' ToM performance through group conversations focused on mental states. Our aim was to determine whether the extent to which older people benefited from a ToM training was predicted by performance on a battery of executive functioning tasks, on baselines in ToM tasks, on verbal knowledge. Forty-three older adults (60-84 years) participated in a three-session ToM training programme that has previously shown to be effective in improving ToM ability. Results showed that verbal knowledge predicted training gains in practiced ToM tasks. In addition, age, executive functions and baseline performance predicted training gains in non-practiced ToM tasks. Results are discussed in light of the amplification model.

Interpreting physical and mental metaphors: Is Theory of Mind associated with pragmatics in middle childhood?

We investigated the association between individual differences in metaphor understanding and Theory of Mind (ToM) in typically developing children. We distinguished between two types of metaphors and created a Physical and Mental Metaphors task, echoing a similar distinction for ToM. Nine-year-olds scored lower than older age-groups in ToM as well as in the interpretation of mental, but not physical, metaphors. Moreover, nine-year-olds (but not older children) who are better in ToM are also better in interpreting mental, but not physical, metaphors. This suggests that the link between metaphor and ToM is stronger when metaphorical interpretation involves mental aspects, and it is more evident in early rather than later childhood.

Plasticity in older adults' theory of mind performance: the impact of motivation.

OBJECTIVE: Recently, motivation has been found to attenuate the age-related decline in Theory of Mind (ToM) performance (i.e. faux pas recognition). However, whether or not this effect could be generalized to other ToM tasks is still unknown. In the present study, we investigated whether and how motivation could enhance older adults' performance and reduce age differences in ToM tasks (Faux Pas vs. Animation task) that differ in familiarity. METHOD: Following a previous paradigm, 171 Chinese adults (87 younger adults and 84 older adults) were recruited, and we experimentally manipulated the level of perceived closeness between participants and the experimenter before administering the ToM tasks in order to enhance participants' motivation. RESULTS: Results showed that, for the Faux Pas task, we replicated previous findings such that older adults under the enhanced motivation conditions performed equally well as younger adults. Conversely, for the Animation task, younger adults outperformed older adults, regardless of motivation. DISCUSSION: These results indicate that motivation can enhance older adults' performance in ToM tasks, however, this beneficial effect cannot be generalized across ToM tasks.

Relations between theory of mind and executive function in middle childhood: A short-term longitudinal study.

Studies with preschool children have shown significant links between children's executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM), but few studies have examined these associations in primary school children. To address this gap, we designed a three-wave cross-lagged longitudinal study in which we followed a group of 113 children (61 boys) across three time points from age 9.5-10.5years (mean age at Time 1=112.3months, SD=4.18; mean age at Time 2=118.3months, SD=4.15; mean age at Time 3=124.7months, SD=4.06). At each time point, we measured EF (working memory and inhibitory control), ToM, and language. Our analyses showed (a) moderate rank-order stability of individual differences in both EF and ToM and (b) growth in ToM task performance across time. Cross-lagged longitudinal analyses revealed an asymmetric developmental relation between ToM and working memory. Early working memory predicted later ToM but not vice versa. Our results suggest a specific role for working memory in the ongoing development of ToM in middle childhood.

Theory of Mind and social relationships in older adults: the role of social motivation.

OBJECTIVES: Previous research has shown that individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM) are crucial for people's social relationships. However, very few studies have investigated this issue in ageing. The present study was designed to fill this gap and examine the associations between ToM and social relationships in elderly adults. In doing so, this study considered people's relationships with their relatives and friends, and examined the possible moderating role of social motivation. METHOD: The study involved 53 healthy older adults (age: M = 67.91; SD = 6.93; range: 60--85 years). All participants were tested collectively during a 2-hr session and completed a demographic questionnaire as well as a battery of tests assessing verbal ability (vocabulary and word fluency), ToM and social relationships. They also answered a social motivation question. RESULTS: Results showed that individual differences in older people's ToM were overall significantly associated with those in relationships with friends, but not relatives. In addition, the Hayes moderating procedure showed that individual differences in ToM were related to those in friendships only for those people who had a high or medium level of social motivation. CONCLUSION: These findings underline the importance of motivation in guiding the use of ToM in everyday social interactions.

Conversations about mental states and theory of mind development during middle childhood: A training study.

Despite 30years of productive research on theory of mind (ToM), we still know relatively little about variables that influence ToM development during middle childhood. Recent experimental studies have shown that conversations about the mind affect ToM abilities, but they have not explored the mechanisms underlying this developmental effect. In the current study, we examined two potential mechanisms through which conversations about mental states are likely to influence ToM: an increased frequency of references to mental states when explaining behavior and an increased accuracy of mental-state attributions. To this aim, we conducted a training study in which 101 children were assigned to either an intervention condition or a control condition. The conversation-based intervention was made up of four sessions scheduled over 2weeks. Children completed a battery of assessments before and after the intervention as well as 2months later. The groups were equivalent at Time 1 (T1) for age, family affluence, vocabulary, and executive functions. The ToM group showed an improvement in ToM skills (as evaluated on both the practiced tasks and a transfer task). Mediation analyses demonstrated that the accuracy of mental-state attributions, but not the mere frequency of mental-state references, mediated the positive effect of conversations about the mind on ToM development. Our results indicate that conversational experience can enhance mental-state reasoning not by simply drawing children's attention to mental states but rather by scaffolding a mature understanding of social situations.

Promoting theory of mind in older adults: does age play a role?

OBJECTIVES: Previous research on age-related changes in Theory of Mind (ToM) showed a decline in older adults, particularly pronounced over 75 years of age. Evidence that ToM may be enhanced in healthy aging people has been demonstrated, but no study has focused on the role of age on the effects of ToM training for elderly people. The present study was designed to examine the efficacy of a ToM training on practiced (ToM Strange Stories) and transfer tasks (ToM Animations) in both young and older adults. METHOD: The study involved 127 older adults belonging to two age groups: young-old (Mage = 64.41; SD = 2.49; range: 60-69 years) and old-old (Mage = 75.66; SD = 4.38; range: 70-85 years), randomly assigned to either a ToM group or a control group condition. All participants took part in two 2-hour testing sessions and four 2-hour training sessions. RESULTS: Results showed that both young-old and old-old adults in the ToM group condition improved their ability to reason on complex-mental states significantly more than participants in the control group condition. This positive effect of the training was evident on practiced and transfer ToM tasks. Crucially, age did not moderate the effect of the ToM training. CONCLUSION: These findings demonstrate that young-old and old-old adults equally benefit from the ToM training. Implications for the positive effect of the ToM training in old-old adults are discussed.

The origins of children's metamemory: the role of theory of mind.

The relation between preschoolers' theory of mind (ToM) and declarative metamemory (DM) was investigated in two studies. The first study focused on 4-year-old children's (N=106) cognitive and affective ToM and their DM. The data showed a significant association between cognitive (but not affective) ToM and DM, independent of verbal ability, non-verbal ability, and working memory. The second study involved 83 children tested at 4 years 6 months of age (and 6 months later) for cognitive ToM and DM. Here, results showed that early cognitive ToM, in particular false-belief understanding, predicts later DM independent of early verbal ability. These data support a view considering cognitive ToM as a precursor of children's DM.

Training preschoolers on first-order false belief understanding: transfer on advanced ToM skills and metamemory.

This study investigated the relation between theory of mind (ToM) and metamemory knowledge using a training methodology. Sixty-two 4- to 5-year-old children were recruited and randomly assigned to one of two training conditions: A first-order false belief (ToM) and a control condition. Intervention and control groups were equivalent at pretest for age, parents' education, verbal ability, inhibition, and ToM. Results showed that after the intervention children in the ToM group improved in their first-order false belief understanding significantly more than children in the control condition. Crucially, the positive effect of the ToM intervention was stable over 2 months and generalized to more complex ToM tasks and metamemory.

Promoting theory of mind during middle childhood: a training program.

Evidence that conversations about the mind foster improvements in theory of mind (ToM) is growing, but their efficacy in typically developing school-aged children has yet to be demonstrated. To address this gap, we designed a conversation-based training program for 9- and 10-year-olds and measured its effectiveness by pre- and post-test comparisons of performance on age-appropriate ToM tasks for two groups (matched at pre-test for gender, age, socioeconomic background, verbal ability, reading comprehension, executive functions, and ToM) who were assigned to either the intervention condition (n=45) or an active control condition (n=46). The intervention group showed significantly greater gains in ToM than the control group; this contrast was stable over 2 months, and (in a subsample) the improvement in ToM was independent of any changes in executive functions. Implications for the role of conversations about the mind in children's mental state reasoning are discussed.