Theory of mind and cerebral lateralization: a developmental study

Abstract

The present study is based on developmental social cognitive neuroscience model. Two of the primary goals of the study are: (i) to investigate the developmental pattern of theory of mind (ToM) with special reference to the understanding of mental state reasoning (MSR), social reasoning (SR), and emotional reasoning (ER) and their interrelationship; (ii) to examine the role of lateralization in relation to the development of ToM as reflected in the understanding of mental state reasoning, social reasoning and emotional reasoning. The hypothesis that there would be significant development of MSR, SR, and ER from 4 to 16 years of age has gained support from the empirical data obtained in the present study. The three facets of ToM i.e., MSR, SR and ER are highly correlated with each together across the developmental period of 4 to 16 years. This is indicative of some common domain shared by all three kinds of reasoning among children. The right hemisphere superiority hypothesis has gained partial support in the present study. The sample for the study include 180 normally developing school going children in the age range of 4 to 16 years. All participants are from Delhi belonging to Hindi speaking middle socio-economic status families. The total sample is further divided into 3 developmentally distinct groups of early (4-6 years), middle (9-11 years) and late (14-16 years) childhood groups with 60 children in each group. This categorization of groups is based on the attainment of different developmental milestones achieved by the children as suggested in the textbooks of developmental psychology. In the early childhood group, there are 32 boys and 28 girls, in the middle childhood group, there are 35 boys and 25 girls and in the late childhood group there are 34 boys and 26 girls. The mean ages are 4.05 (4 years), 5.03 (5 years), 6.07 (6 years), 9.06 (9 years), 10.04 (10 years), 11.04 (11 years), 14.03 (14 years), 15.03 (15 years) and 16.04 (16 years).