Research based on children's performance on standard false-belief reasoning tasks indicates that theory of mind (ToM) understanding, (i.e. the ability to represent, conceptualize, and reason about one's own and others' mental states) is initially absent and develops around the age of four years (Wellman et al., 2001). Recently, researchers have investigated the relationship between language and ToM development. According to de Villiers & Pyers (2002) understanding of embedded complement structures is necessary for children to be able to understand false belief, because both require the ability to handle misrepresentation. Following Perner (1991), Smith et al. (2003) argued (contra De Villiers & Pyers) that the developmental link between embedded clauses and false belief reasoning skills stems instead from a requirement to handle metarepresentation. They proposed that children's aptitude with double-event relative clauses predicts their false-belief reasoning ability. Previous research on linguistic precursors of false belief understanding has focused largely on English speaking children. The current research hypothesized that crosslinguistic differences in the emergence of ToM understanding could result because of the potential for a developmental link between ToM understanding and other linguistic properties (e.g. scrambling), found in free word order languages, such as Russian. The current research sought to determine whether there is a correlation between the development of false belief reasoning skills and the acquisition of relativization in monolingual Russian speaking children; and to find out whether the acquisition of scrambled word orders (e.g. OVS) is a better predictor of false belief reasoning in child Russian. The participants of the study were 36 monolingual Russian children: 18 3-year-olds (Mean age = 3;6) and 18 4-year-olds (Mean Age= 4;6). We assessed the children's false belief understanding using the unexpected contents task and the unexpected transfer task and their ability to handle relative clauses and scrambled (OVS) word order through a Truth-Value judgment (TVJ) act-out task (Crain & Thornton, 1998). Our results confirm the previously established link between age and false belief reasoning. However, the results failed to support previous findings regarding the status of relative clauses as a linguistic precursor for the development of False Belief reasoning. The results also failed to confirm our predictions regarding the privileged role of scrambling (i.e. OVS sentences) in Russian children's ToM development. Our findings suggest that OVS sentences might be more difficult for Russian children to handle compared to relative clauses with the canonical SVO order, regardless of age the Russian children performed better on relative clauses than on scrambled OVS sentences -- this leads us to conclude -- "Syntax is easy! Pragmatics is hard!" Also there were no age related differences in relation to either relative clauses or scrambled word order sentences. Additionally, for child Russian, de Villiers & Peyers proposal regarding the privileged role of embedded complement clauses as a linguistic precursor to TOM development cannot yet be ruled out.

Theory of Mind (ToM) is often defined as “the ability to reason about mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, and to understand how mental states feature in everyday explanations and predictions of people’s behavior” (Apperly, 2012, p. 825). Recent research has introduced questions about performance on ToM tasks in emerging adulthood, a developmental period (ages 18-27) where exploration and identity formation occurs. The current study examined group differences between college students with acting experience, a population hypothesized to excel in ToM and empathy, and students without acting experience on cognitive and affective measures of ToM and empathy. The current study (N=162) used multiple tasks to measure ToM the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task (RME), Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC), Faux Pas task (detection and belief subscales). All four subscales (perspective taking, fantasizing, empathic concern, personal distress) of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was used to measure empathy. It was hypothesized that students with acting experience would perform significantly better than those without acting experience on all measures of ToM and empathy. It was also hypothesized that the way emerging adults process identity relevant information, as assessed by the Identity Style Inventory (ISI), would be related to ToM and empathy. Students with acting experience performed significantly better on the RME task and the belief subscale of the Faux Pas task. Better performance on the RME task and the belief subscale of the Faux pas task suggest advantages in emotion processing and belief reasoning for students with acting experience. No group differences were observed on the IRI. Informational processing style was positively related to all measures of ToM and all empathy measures except the personal distress subscale of the IRI. Normative and diffuse-avoidant identity processing style was negatively related to all measures of ToM and the personal distress subscale of the IRI. Normative identity processing style was negatively related to the fantasizing subscale of the IRI. The current study supports a relationship between identity processing style in emerging adulthood and measures of ToM and empathy. A factor analysis was conducted to examine relationships between ToM and empathy, finding no distinctions between affective and cognitive dimensions but a clear difference between ToM and empathy. Students with acting experience performed significantly better on the ToM factor but no other factors, supporting the previous analyses. Implications for further research, therapeutic interventions, and occupational training integrating acting experience are discussed.

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out one's intentions. This is a critical ability for children to develop in order to function independently in their daily activities. This dissertation examines the role of executive functioning in preschoolers' PM in two studies that vary the executive demand at different stages of the PM task. Study 1 investigated the role of task difficulty during the retention interval prior to the PM task. A difficult working memory task during the delay period resulted in worse PM performance in 4- and 5-year-olds compared to an easy working memory task. In addition, children's working memory, planning ability, and theory of mind correlated with PM but only in the difficult filler task condition. Study 2 examined age differences between 4- and 5-year-olds in PM task performance when the task: (1) was embedded in an easy or difficult ongoing task, (2) had an instruction to focus on the intention versus an instruction to focus on the distractor activity during the retention interval, and (3) varied in the salience of prospective targets. Overall, 5-year-olds performed better on the PM task than 4-year-olds. Children also had superior PM when targets were salient compared to non-salient and marginally superior PM when they received an instruction to monitor their intention compared to when they received an instruction to focus on the distractor activity. In addition, positive relations between executive functioning and PM were documented. Taken together, these studies suggest that disrupting or encouraging monitoring has a direct impact on PM performance in certain conditions. The implications of these results for theories that suggest differing roles for controlled processes in PM are discussed.

This research provides a thorough review of the research on priming and marketing (essay 1) as well as empirically explores several unintended consequences of priming (essay 2) and the antecedents to priming effects (essay 3). In essay 1, priming research is reviewed using a classification system based on priming outcome using the ABC model of attitudes (i.e., affective, behavioral, and cognitive priming). The priming process is discussed, and types of priming in each category are reviewed before challenges in the priming process are discussed. In essay 2, non-product-centric (i.e., collateral) primes (e.g., co-branding, sponsorship, cause marketing) are explored. This research explores how collateral information works as a prime to influence product evaluations, specifically with application to cause marketing. Study 1 of essay 2 explores the consumer outcomes of collateral communication primes by showing that adding a health cause to a cookie package (i.e., the prime) significantly increases product health perceptions. Study 2 explores limits on collateral communication priming and finds that health charities on product packaging increase brand attitude and purchase intentions, while disclaimers increase processing and reduce prime effects. Study 3 explores person specific antecedents to collateral communication primes revealing that an individual's theory of mind leads to ad skepticism that, in turn, influences reaction to primes. Essay 3 specifically examines the theoretical framework underlying priming effects by examining priming from two bodies of competing theory rooted in individual and social antecedents to behavior. Study 1 of essay 3 confirms past findings and develops materials to be used in studies 2 and 3 by showing that spokesfigures are marketer-supplied cues that vary in manipulativeness, and these cues interact with other cues, such as complexity and persuasion. Study 2 provides support for individual antecedents to cue-based primes (cognitive abilities, as measured by working memory capacity, and advertising skepticism). Study 3 builds on study 2 by adding in social antecedents (theory of mind and psychological reactance) to develop a comprehensive model of consumer information processing. All together, these three essays explore the literature on priming and marketing and provide a more holistic understanding of the antecedents to priming effects. / 2016-09-29

The aim of this dissertation was to explore whether preschoolers understand that preferences differ over time and between people. The first goal was to determine if 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds could appreciate that their future or “grown-up” preferences may differ from their current ones (self-future condition). This understanding was compared to children’s understanding of the preferences of a grown-up (adult-now condition), or the grown-up preferences of a same-aged peer (peer-future condition). Results from 3 experiments (N = 240) suggest that these types of reasoning develop substantially over the preschool years, and that children are generally proficient by 5 years of age. Results also indicate that thinking about one’s own future preferences is more difficult than thinking about the (future) preferences of others. The second goal of this dissertation was to explore the relations between reasoning about preferences and theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF) abilities. Correlational analyses revealed that children’s reasoning about their future preferences and those of others was associated with EF skills, but not with ToM. These findings provide a timely contribution to the expanding research on children’s future-oriented cognition. Implications for theories about perspective-taking abilities, more broadly, and future research are also discussed.

The capacity to mentally project the self into the future or, what has recently been termed “episodic foresight” is an emerging topic of study in developmental psychology. The aim of this dissertation was to review available research on this topic and explore its development in two groups of children: typically-developing preschoolers and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This dissertation had two main goals. The first goal was to explore whether tasks thought to measure episodic foresight in children are related and whether, as has been hypothesized, they were related to theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF). Study 1 showed that after controlling for age and language ability, episodic foresight tasks were not intercorrelated, nor were they individually related to ToM or EF tasks. Importantly, however, an episodic foresight composite score was related to several EF tasks. Specifically, the results suggested a significant relation between episodic foresight and inhibitory control. The second goal of this dissertation was to explore the development of episodic foresight in children with ASD. Specifically, I tested whether children with ASD would perform more poorly on a series of episodic foresight tasks than a mental-age matched group of typically-developing children. Study 2 revealed significant group differences on several episodic foresight tasks, suggesting that children with ASD showed impairments in thinking about themselves in the future. These results are a timely contribution to the research on episodic foresight and will hopefully aid in the further development of tasks that adequately measure this important cognitive ability in children.

Autism spectrum disorder is often associated with impaired Theory of Mind (ToM), which involves reasoning about others’ mental states. A proposed reason for this impairment is altered brain activity in the temporoparietal junctions (TPJ) in autistic individuals compared to typically developed individuals. This systematic review aimed to investigate ToM in autistic individuals further and its relation to emotion understanding, empathy, and relationships, which were found to possibly be related to ToM and the TPJ. Five studies relevant to the aim were included and most of the results showed associations between ToM and different aspects of emotion understanding, empathy, and relationships. Nonetheless, further research on the topic must be done before these results can be generalized.

Perspective-taking skills are central to the successful navigation of social situations. Children need perspective-taking skills to help them correctly interpret different cues and accurately assess social situations so they can determine how to best respond. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) exhibit marked impairments in this area. In order to develop successful social skills interventions for this population, it is critical that we have a strong understanding of the nature of their deficits. While there is robust evidence that children with ASD experience difficulty making inferences about the beliefs of others, research on their ability to infer emotions has had more mixed results (Baldwin, 1991; Baron-Cohen, 1991; Happe, 1994; Hillier and Allinson, 2002; Kaland et al., 2005; Joliffe & Baron-Cohen, 1999; Serra et al., 2002; Williams & Happe, 2010). This study examined how well children with autism spectrum disorders are able to make emotional inferences using three different measures of emotion attribution. The measures were administered to a clinical sample of participants with high functioning-autism spectrum disorders (HF-ASD) and a comparison sample of typically developing participants to determine whether individuals with HF-ASD experienced more difficulty making emotional inferences from different cues than their typically developing peers. The hypotheses that children with HF-ASD make fewer spontaneous emotional inferences and have lower levels of emotional awareness than their typically developing peers were also tested. Finally, performance on these emotional inferencing measures was examined to determine whether they were able to reliably discriminate between participants with different levels of autism-related symptomatology. Participants with autism performed as well as their peers on all measures of emotion attribution in this study. These findings and their implications are explored.

Social cognition, the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of oneself and others, is central to optimal navigation of the social world. Accumulating evidence suggests disruptions in social cognition may underlie the interpersonal dysfunction commonly experienced by individuals with several psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Exposure to psychological trauma can have lasting and debilitating effects on an individual, with a subset developing PTSD as a result, marked by symptoms of re-experiencing, mood disturbances, arousal changes, emotional dysregulation, and in turn, poor interpersonal and general functioning. Here, we investigated the effects of psychological trauma exposure on sociocognitive performance across the domains of emotion comprehension in prosody, theory of mind (ToM), and moral reasoning. This thesis contributes unique findings to the PTSD literature by demonstrating that individuals diagnosed with PTSD stemming from chronic childhood trauma experience alterations in emotional comprehension of prosody, ToM performance, and moral reasoning. Furthermore, we have integrated and summarized literature on the interaction of morality, moral transgressions, the experience of shame and guilt, and the emergence of associated adverse mental health outcomes experienced in a military context. In summary, we have demonstrated that sociocognitive skills are disrupted in individuals exposed chronic psychological trauma and that moral emotions such as guilt and shame play an important role in the emergence of PTSD and its resistance to treatment. These disruptions may represent a central therapeutic focus in the pursuit to ameliorate the interpersonal difficulties experienced in trauma and stress-related disorders. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

One of the features that defines humans as extraordinarily social beings is their striking susceptibility to the gaze of others. The research reported in this dissertation was undertaken to advance our understanding of the role of gaze cues in low-level attentional and higher-order cognitive processes. In particular, effects of gaze were examined with regard to three aspects of human cognition: (1) social attention, (2) social interaction and (3) social understanding. Chapter 1 consists of three manuscripts that investigate the boundary conditions of attention capture by direct gaze and how gaze direction is integrated with facial context information. Manuscript 1 and 2 suggest two necessary requirements for attention capture by direct gaze: a meaningful holistic facial context and sharp foveal vision, respectively. Manuscript 3 shows approach/avoidance-congruency effects between gaze direction and emotion expression on attention. Chapter 2 of this dissertation explores the role of gaze in more naturalistic social scenarios. Manuscript 4 demonstrates that gaze behavior during a conversation shapes our perception of another person. Manuscript 5 builds on these findings by showing that these perceptions define our willingness to act in a prosocial way towards our interaction partner. Finally, chapter 3 adopts a broader perspective on social cognition research with a special focus on methodological aspects. Manuscript 6 is a review highlighting the significance of methodological aspects in social cognition research and stressing the importance of sophisticated decisions on task and stimulus materials. Manuscript 7 introduces a new instrument for the assessment of social understanding in adolescents. Initial application in a young sample group indicates that an understanding of another person’s mental states is a capacity that is still developing throughout adolescence. Both manuscripts of this final chapter include eye tracking data that suggest a relationship between gaze behavior and social understanding, a finding that further emphasizes the complex and multifaceted nature of social cognition. I conclude from the findings of this dissertation that research can benefit from adopting a broad view in terms of methodological as well as temporal aspects in order to capture human social cognition in its entirety. / Die herausragend soziale Natur des Menschen zeigt sich insbesondere in der sensiblen Reaktion auf die Blicke anderer. Ziel der in dieser Dissertation berichteten Forschung ist ein umfassendes Verständnis der Rolle von Blickreizen auf kognitive Prozesse niederer und höherer Verarbeitungsstufen. Im Einzelnen wurden Blickeffekte im Hinblick auf drei Aspekte menschlicher Kognition untersucht: (1) Soziale Aufmerksamkeit, (2) soziale Interaktion und (3) Sozialverstehen. In Kapitel 1 werden drei Studien beschrieben, die sich mit den Grenzbedingungen von Aufmerksamkeitsanziehung durch direkten Blickkontakt beschäftigen und die untersuchen, wie Effekte der Blickrichtung mit anderen Reizen interagieren. Manuskript 1 und 2 deuten auf zwei notwendige Voraussetzungen für den direkten Blickeffekt hin: ein holistisch bedeutsamer Gesichtskontext sowie scharfe, foveale Wahrnehmung. Manuskript 3 findet aufmerksamkeitsbezogene Annäherungs-/Vermeidungskongruenzeffekte zwischen Blickrichtung und emotionalem Gesichtsausdruck. Kapitel 2 dieser Dissertation untersucht die Rolle von Blicken in naturalistischeren sozialen Situationen. Manuskript 4 demonstriert, dass Blickverhalten in Gesprächen unsere Wahrnehmung anderer Personen beeinflusst. Manuskript 5 erweitert diesen Befund, indem es verdeutlicht, dass diese Eindrücke unsere Bereitschaft zu prosozialem Verhalten gegenüber unseren Interaktionspartner*innen bestimmen. Schließlich wird im 3. Kapitel eine breitere Sicht auf sozialkognitive Forschung eingenommen. Ein besonderer Fokus liegt dabei auf methodischen Aspekten. Manuskript 6 ist ein Review, das die Tragweite methodischer Aspekte in sozialkognitiven Untersuchungen herausarbeitet und auf die Bedeutung gut informierter und durchdachter Entscheidungen bezüglich der verwendeten Versuchsmaterialien hinweist. In Manuskript 7 wird ein neues Instrument zur Erfassung sozialen Verstehens in jugendlichen Stichproben beschrieben. Eine erste Anwendung dieser neuen Methode deutet darauf hin, dass sich das Verständnis der mentalen Zustände anderer Menschen im Jugendalter noch in der Entwicklung befindet. Beide Manuskripte dieses letzten Kapitels enthalten Eye-Trackingdaten, die auf einen Zusammenhang zwischen Blickbewegungen und Sozialverstehen hindeuten. Dieser Befund verdeutlicht, dass soziale Kognition ein komplexes und breitgefächertes Konstrukt ist. Ich schließe aus den Ergebnissen dieser Dissertation, dass die Wissenschaft sowohl im Hinblick auf methodische als auch auf zeitliche Aspekte von einer umfassenden Sichtweise auf soziale Kognition profitieren könnte, da nur diese es ermöglicht, das Konstrukt in Gänze zu erfassen.