Pragmatic ability is crucial in everyday interactions. In populations of neurotypical individuals, pragmatic skill varies greatly. The neural mechanisms behind the variety, and the neural development of pragmatics remain to be explained. The present study aims to deepen the understanding of pragmatics’ neural basis, by investigating the functional connectivity (FC) between two pragmatically interesting brain clusters during a pragmatic task. The investigated clusters, located in the bilateral, dorsal precuneus and in the left superior inferior parietal cortex were found by Bendtz et al. (2022) to have higher activity for young adults with high pragmatic skill compared to young adults with low pragmatic skill. Mahal (2022) found that the clusters were more functionally connected for the high skilled group during rest. In this study, fMRI data acquired during a pragmatic task was used to analyze the FC between the beforementioned clusters and compare two groups of young adults, one with high pragmatic skill (n = 25) and one with low pragmatic skill (n = 24). The groups of young adults were also compared with a group of 16 - 18 year old adolescents (n = 12). The results revealed higher FC for the high skilled group in both analyses, where the difference between the high skilled group and the adolescents was significant (p=.02). FC-values did not correlate with age in neither age group. The results are suggested to reflect (1) a neural development of pragmatics in adolescence towards a potential pragmatic network that involve increased functional connections between two clusters previously identified as possible neural markers of pragmatic individual variation, and (2) a possible window of opportunity for pragmatic development during adolescence. / Den pragmatiska förmågan är avgörande i vardags-interaktioner. I neurotypiska populationer varierar pragmatisk förmåga mycket, och det är ännu inte klarlagt hur de precisa mekanismerna bakom variationen och utvecklingen av pragmatisk förmåga fungerar. Denna studies syfte är att fördjupa förståelsen för pragmatikens neurala grunder, genom att undersöka funktionell konnektivitet (FC) mellan två pragmatiskt intressanta hjärnkluster. De undersökta klustren, ett i bilaterala dorsala precuneus och ett i vänstra superiora inferiora parietala cortex, var mer aktiva för unga vuxna med hög pragmatisk förmåga jämfört med unga vuxna med låg pragmatisk förmåga (Bendtz et el. 2022). Mahal (2022) noterade att klustrena var mer funktionellt kopplade i vila för gruppen med hög pragmatisk förmåga. I denna studie användes fMRI-data från en pragmatisk uppgift för att analysera FC mellan de tidigare nämnda klustren, och jämföra två grupper med unga vuxna, en med hög pragmatisk förmåga (n = 25) och en med låg pragmatisk förmåga (n = 24). Grupperna med unga vuxna jämfördes också med en grupp 16 – 18 år gamla tonåringar (n = 12). Resultaten visade på en högre FC för gruppen med hög pragmatisk förmåga i båda analyser, där skillnaden mellan gruppen med hög pragmatisk förmåga och tonåringarna var signifikant (p = .02). Värdena av FC korrelerade inte med ålder i någon av åldersgrupperna. Resultaten föreslås återspegla (1) en neural utveckling av pragmatik under tonåren mot ett potentiellt pragmatiskt nätverk som involverar ökade funktionella kopplingar mellan två kluster som tidigare identifierats som potentiella neurala markörer för individuell variation av pragmatik och (2) en eventuell kritisk period för pragmatisk utveckling under tonåren.

Experiencing traumatic events has a high lifetime prevalence ranging between 60.7 and 76.2% across different countries (1). Exposure to traumatic events is associated with a higher risk for various mental disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (2, 3), which are related to high individual and societal costs (4). The development of interventions to prevent adverse mental health consequences following traumatic event exposure is therefore of vital importance. This, however, requires detailed knowledge about the underlying biological and psychological mechanisms involved in the association between traumatic events and psychopathology. Various risk factors at different levels have already been described in the last decades (5). Biological risk factors include genetic and epigenetic variations (6), alterations in the function of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis (7, 8) and the autonomic nervous system (9) as well as changes in brain structure and functioning (10). Psychological risk factors include impairments in cognitive abilities (11) and specific personality traits such as high trait anxiety (12) and maladaptive emotion regulation (13). Social risk factors include impaired interpersonal relations and stigmatization (14, 15). Further, clinical risk factors such as mental health history as well as previous traumatic experiences may also increase the risk for psychopathology after trauma exposure (16). Most of these factors are supposed to be associated with risk of psychopathology independent of the type of traumatic event. However, it is likely that specific traumatic events are associated with different constellations of risk factors, which has so far received little attention in the existing literature. Importantly, traumatic events explicitly include not only events that are personally experienced but also events that are witnessed by an observer (17). This includes witnessing someone being seriously hurt, seeing atrocities or witnessing dead bodies. Witnessed traumatic events are among the most frequent traumatic experiences (1). They are also of high current relevance in the contexts of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and military crises (16, 18, 19). The fact that individuals can develop psychopathological reactions to events that are actually experienced by others raises the question how the suffering of others is being processed. Based on theoretical models and findings from social cognition and neuroscience research, we propose that socio-affective and socio-cognitive mechanisms are involved in the processing and pathological consequences of witnessing traumatic events and could contribute to a better understanding of adverse reactions to this type of traumatic events.

Impairments in aspects of social cognition have been found in children who have experienced maltreatment; however, the long-term impact of childhood maltreatment on social cognition is less well understood. This study examined areas of social cognition that may be associated with poor psychological, social, and emotional outcomes in adults who have experienced intra-familial childhood maltreatment. In a sample of university students (N = 68), childhood maltreatment was associated with social cognitive impairment in two models of emotional intelligence (EI), trait EI and ability EI, and advanced theory of mind (ToM). Higher frequency and severity of specific subtypes of childhood maltreatment predicted lower trait EI, ability EI, and ToM. In particular, neglect predicted lower ToM and ability EI scores. Psychological abuse alone predicted lower trait EI while physical abuse was not a significant predictor for any of the social-cognitive variables. Further, the data showed maternal vs. paternal maltreatment predicted specific social cognitive outcomes. Understanding the relationship between social cognitive deficits and intra-familial maltreatment may guide clinical and community assessment and treatment approaches, as well as provide information on the pervasive and continuing impact of childhood maltreatment. / February 2017

Communiquer efficacement nécessite de produire une multitude d’inférences pragmatiques. Celles-ci reposent sur la capacité à prendre en compte un grand nombre d’indices, tels que le contexte ou l’état mental et physique du locuteur. Dans le cas du langage oral, l’interlocuteur s’appuie également sur les indices prosodiques. Ainsi, une prosodie enthousiaste associée à l’énoncé « Excellent. » aidera un interlocuteur à inférer que le locuteur est content tandis qu’une intonation plate le conduira au contraire à penser qu’il était ironique. Ces situations peuvent être particulièrement délicates pour les patients atteints d’un Trouble du Spectre Autistique (TSA) qui éprouvent des difficultés pour reconnaître et interpréter les états mentaux d’autrui. Nous prédisons donc que l’interprétation des indices prosodiques est délicate dans les TSA. Cependant, tous les aspects de l’interprétation prosodique ne requièrent pas d’attribuer des états mentaux. Par exemple, la distinction entre « PREsent » et « preSENT » (en anglais) est basée sur une simple connaissance du lexique, indépendante des pensées du locuteur. Dans ce travail, j’explore différents aspects de la prosodie afin de déterminer si les personnes avec un TSA sont spécifiquement atteintes dans leur capacité à comprendre les signaux prosodiques reposant sur la compréhension des intentions du locuteur. Je présente une série de travaux traitant de la prosodie grammaticale (Article 1), de la transmission accidentelle d’informations (Article 2), de l’accent contrastif (Articles 3 et 4), et de l’identification des états mentaux du locuteur (Article 5). Les résultats présentés dans ces travaux me conduisent ensuite à discuter des questions plus générales concernant la Théorie de l’Esprit (Article 6) et à proposer une explication alternative des déficits sociaux observés dans les TSA (Article 7). / Efficient communication requires a great deal of pragmatic inferencing. This is rooted in the ability to take into account a variety of cues, such as the context and the speaker’s mental or emotional states. Crucially, in spoken language, hearers can also rely on prosodic cues. For instance, if someone utters “That was brilliant”, using an enthusiastic prosody, this will help the hearer to decipher that the speaker is happy. In contrast, if the speaker’s comment is uttered in a deadpan tone of voice, she will be thought to be ironical. These situations can be especially challenging for people with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Indeed, these individuals have well-known difficulties in recognising and interpreting others’ mental states. This leads to the prediction that interpreting prosodic cues should be problematic in ASDs. However, not all aspects of prosodic interpretation involve mental states attribution. For instance, differentiating “PREsent” from “preSENT” merely requires one to be aware of the fact that these words stand for different things, without needing to attribute any particular thoughts to the speaker. In this work, I explore the various components of prosody and assess whether people with an ASD are specifically impaired in interpreting prosodic cues that rely on the understanding of the speaker’s intentions. I present a series of papers focusing on grammatical prosody (Paper 1), accidental information transmission (Paper 2), contrastive stress (Papers 3 and 4), and identification of the speaker’s attitude and emotional state (Paper 5). The results presented in these papers then lead me to address more general questions concerning Theory of Mind (Paper 6) and to discuss the possible origins of the social impairments found in ASDs (Paper 7).

Research has shown that theory of mind tends to develop in typically-developing children at about the age of 4 years. However, language appears to play a great role in this, particularly as deaf children, particularly those born to hearing parents, display extreme delays in theory of mind development, while bilinguals have been found to develop at a somewhat faster rate than monolinguals. Additionally, effects of culture on theory of mind development remain somewhat unclear, as there have been mixed results in past research. Theory of mind has also been correlated with metalinguistic ability and executive functioning skills, leading to multiple hypotheses regarding what drives theory of mind development. The aim of this doctoral thesis was to examine the relationships between theory of mind, metalinguistic awareness, and executive functioning, as well as to evaluate how language and culture play a role in these relationships. Four studies were conducted in an attempt to seek answers to six research questions surrounding this aim. Study1 evaluated theory of mind, metalinguistic awareness, and executive functioning among hearing nursery children in Central Scotland. Study 2 was aimed at evaluating these same skills among deaf children in the U.S. and U.K., as well as developing a scaling of theory of mind abilities among deaf children. Study 3 assessed these skills among deaf Ghanaian children, as well as evaluating theory of mind abilities among a group of hearing Ghanaian children. Finally, Study 4 compared monolingual and bilingual children on theory of mind, metalinguistic awareness, and executive functioning. Results show that there is a strong link between theory of mind and metalinguistic awareness among hearing children that is not explained by executive functioning skills. This relationship was not apparent among deaf children, who struggle more with theory of mind than metalinguistic awareness. The deaf children in Ghana were delayed compared to their Western peers; hearing Ghanaian children were delayed compared to their Western peers as well, but only slightly. Bilingual children and monolingual children performed similarly on false belief and set-shifting tasks; however, monolingual children outperformed bilinguals on metalinguistic awareness and inhibition tasks, possibly due to low verbal mental age among the monolinguals. Results of the four studies suggest that language does play a part in the relationship between theory of mind and metalinguistic awareness. Due to limited data, cultural effects remain unclear. It is proposed that deaf children’s struggle with theory of mind stems from their difficulty with abstract concepts.

Les recherches récentes ont cherché à appréhender la contribution de la théorie de l'esprit – appréhension du monde mental en termes d'états mentaux – au développement de la métacognition – connaissances sur le fonctionnement cognitif. C'est dans ce contexte que nous avons réalisé une étude longitudinale auprès d'enfants français scolarisés et âgés de 4 ans au premier temps. Les enfants (N=31) ont été rencontrés tous les 4 mois pendant deux années scolaires – moyenne et grande section de maternelle. L'objectif de notre étude était d'appréhender le développement de la métamémoire déclarative au cours de la période préscolaire, mais également celui de trois de ces précurseurs cognitifs – théorie de l'esprit, langage et mémoire épisodique. Les analyses de régression linéaire multiple nous ont permis d'appréhender les liens développementaux entre ces compétences, mais également de déterminer la contribution de chacun de ces trois précurseurs au développement de la métamémoire déclarative. Les résultats soulignent l'importance de distinguer soi/autrui dans l'évaluation des compétences et confirment que la théorie de l'esprit a un impact dans le développement de la métamémoire, principalement pour la compréhension de l'influence du nombre sur la mémorisation. / Until recently, two different kinds of research have been separately conducted on knowledge about mental world: those on metacognition that have studied knowledge about cognition and research on theory-of-mind, which refers to knowledge about mental states. A novel perspective of research tends to study the link between metacognition and theory-of-mind developments. The assumption is that theory-of-mind is a cognitive tool for understanding the cognitive functioning – i.e. metacognition. In this framework, we conducted a longitudinal study to investigate the developmental relationships between a special kind of metacognition – metamemory which is knowledge about memory functioning – and theory-of-mind, and the contribution of some cognitive precursors on declarative metamemory – language and episodic memory. Thirty-one children were recruited and evaluated on these four competencies every four months during two school years. Multiple regression analyses conducted on metamemory scores confirmed that theory-of-mind competences play a role in the declarative metamemory emergence.

Introduction It is widely reported that people with schizophrenia have social cognition deficits. In addition to their negative impact on functioning and quality of life, these deficits may also contribute to the use of violence. It has recently been established that social cognitive interventions (SCIs) can ameliorate deficits in facial affect recognition (FAR). This project aimed to systematically review whether SCIs can also improve theory of mind (ToM) abilities in people with schizophrenia. The empirical study aimed to explore whether the extent of the deficits in FAR and ToM in people with schizophrenia differed between those with and without a substantial history of violence. Method A systematic review was undertaken to identify studies where SCIs were provided to adults with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Key findings were highlighted with the quality of the studies’ methodology and reporting assessed. A quantitative research study was also undertaken involving 22 men aged 18-64 with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, comparing those with and without a substantial history of violence (SHV) on measures of FAR and ToM. Results The majority of the 13 studies included in the systematic review found that the provision of SCIs led to significant improvements in ToM. However, all studies demonstrated a potential for bias and were limited by inadequate sample size. In the empirical study, less than half of participants scored within the normal range for overall FAR ability, with no difference identified between the SHV and no-SHV group. However, the SHV group were poorer at recognising sadness and showed a tendency to perform better at the detection of faux pas, compared to the no-SHV group. Conclusions The systematic review identified that a wide range of SCIs can improve ToM abilities in people with schizophrenia. Its findings highlight that stringent, adequately powered studies should be undertaken, utilising standardised assessments of a range of levels of ToM ability, to enable identification of the most effective intervention. The findings of the empirical study are limited by a small and imbalanced sample size between groups and so must be interpreted with caution. However, patterns observed in the results highlight areas for further exploration. The strengths of this study’s design and recruitment challenges are discussed.

Using the psychological concepts of Theory of Mind and embodied cognition, the author explores and questions the traditional readings of Henry James's novel, The Golden Bowl, and its protagonist, Maggie Verver. Although the majority of critics view her as a positive character, James takes great effort to subvert her thoughts and mislead the reader. Despite lacking a modern technical vocabulary, James remains acutely aware of how human cognitive structures both process a text and function within a social setting.

The current study examined whether a sample of detained male adolescents (n = 107; Mean age = 15.50; SD = 1.30) could be disaggregated into two distinct groups, consistent with past research on primary and secondary variants of callous-unemotional (CU) traits in adolescents. This study also sought to determine a possible explanation for the CU traits among youth in the secondary variant by examining whether they differ from primary variants on measures of cognitive and affective empathy. Using Latent Profile Analyses, two groups of adolescents high on CU traits were identified, a large group (n = 30) high on CU traits but low on anxiety (primary) and a smaller group high on both CU traits and anxiety (n = 10; secondary). Using self-report and computerized measures of affective (e.g., emotional reactivity) and cognitive empathy (e.g., affective facial recognition and theory of mind (ToM)), results revealed that the secondary variant demonstrated the lowest levels of cognitive empathy. In contrast, the primary variant demonstrated the lowest levels of self-report affective empathy, but these levels were not significantly different from the secondary variant. Multiple regression analyses testing the association among measures of empathy, CU traits, and anxiety produced a mostly consistent pattern of results. One exception was the finding of an interaction between CU traits and anxiety in the prediction of fear recognition accuracy that indicated that CU traits were positively associated with accuracy in recognizing fearful facial expressions when anxiety was low. The current study builds upon previous work examining primary and secondary variants of CU traits by suggesting that both primary and secondary variants may exhibit similar deficits in affective empathy, but that secondary variants may also exhibit deficits in cognitive empathy and perspective-taking that are not present in primary variants.

The aim of the current study was to bring greater clarity to our understanding of the relation between theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF), specifically working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC), during typical adolescent development and of the specific nature of impairments in ToM and EF in the cognitive profile of individuals with Asperger's Syndrome and High Functioning Autism (AS/HFA). In total, 80 participants, half typically developing (TD) and half with AS/HFA, participated in the study. TD participants were matched to the participants with AS/HFA on chronological age and gender. Participants were tested across two test sessions, approximately one year apart. For Session 1, the TD participants ranged in age from 10.1 to 17.9 years (M = 14.68, SD = 2.05), and the participants with AS/HFA ranged in age from 10.2 to 17.9 years (M = 14.64, SD = 2.19). I tested the participants on a ToM battery, consisting of an emotional perspective taking measure, the Mind in the Eyes Test, and two cognitive perspective taking measures, the Advanced ToM Vignettes, designed by the researcher, and Happé's Strange Stories. In addition, an EF battery was administered, containing a Reading Span Task, Change Detection Task, and Flanker Task, which assessed verbal WM, visual WM, and IC, respectively. Firstly, I found that older children and adolescents with AS/HFA, especially the girls with AS/HFA, performed worse on ToM measures tapping cognitive perspective taking relative to TD peers. Secondly, I observed that ToM and EF continue to develop during later childhood and adolescence as part of both typical and atypical development. Thirdly, I found that verbal WM and IC were more strongly associated with ToM in the AS/HFA group, indicating that individuals with AS/HFA may require more executive resources for ToM reasoning. Based on my results, I suggest that ToM and EF are still developing during later childhood and adolescence in both TD individuals and individuals with AS/HFA, indicating that the brain regions supporting ToM and EF processing are still plastic and can therefore be targeted for intervention.