It is well known that humans are able to represent the mental states of others. This ability is commonly thought to be unique to humans. However, recent studies on the food caching, gift giving, and cooperative behaviours of Corvids and Parrots provide evidence for this ability in birds. Upon examining the empirical evidence, I argue that the best explanation for these behaviours is that birds are able to represent conspecifics as having particular mental states. I further argue that birds are able to do this by simulating the minds of conspecifics.

This thesis examines Theory of Mind (ToM) in relation to the areas of language and cognitive development. The thesis explores both popular and alternate theories of ToM and how they account for the important relationships between language and theory of mind. It examines the theories in the context of published ToM findings as well as the findings from three studies conducted by the author. The first study took the form of a pilot study which re-analysed data, collected for the author's honours project, from a small group of children with (n = 10) and without autism (n = 10). In each diagnostic group (autism and no autism) children were divided into two groups, those passing a ToM task and those failing a ToM task. The aim of the study was to investigate whether the underlying language and cognitive skills required to succeed on ToM tasks are the same for children with and without autism. The key finding of the study was that for both the children with and without autism, those who passed the ToM task performed better on all the developmental measures, although only the difference in language ability was statistically significant. The second study expanded on the pilot study, examining the relationship in typically developing 4 and 6-year-old children, between ToM, language, cognitive development, and subtractive reasoning. The study's aim was to examine the developmental structure underlying ToM using factor analysis. The results indicated that for 4-year-old children the most important skill for ToM success was language, but that for 6-year-old children ToM success was more strongly related to subtractive reasoning ability. The findings of the study also raised the question of whether presentation method for ToM tasks impacted on task difficulty. A final study therefore examined the effect of presentation mode 2-dimensional versus 3-dimensional, on the success of typically developing 4-year-old children on the ToM task battery. The findings indicated that tasks presented in cartoon format were more difficult than tasks presented with dolls and props. Reliability and validity of common ToM tasks and new ToM test batteries are discussed. Alternative conceptions of ToM in relation to social interaction are considered. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 2010

abstract: Understanding sources of knowledge (e.g., seeing leads to knowing) is an important ability in young children’s theory of mind development. The research presented here measured if children were better at reporting their own versus another person’s knowledge states, which would indicate the presence of introspection. Children had to report when the person (self or other) had knowledge or ignorance after looking into one box and not looking into another box. In Study 1 (N = 66), 3- and 4-year-olds found the other-version of the task harder than the self-version whereas 5-year-olds performed near ceiling on both versions. This effect replicated in Study 2 (N = 43), which included familiarization trials to make sure children understood the question format. This finding is in support of the presence of introspection in preschool-aged children. In the same studies, children also showed evidence for theorizing about their own and others knowledge states in a guessing task (Study 1) and in true and false belief tasks (Study 2). These findings together indicate both introspection and theorizing are present during young children's theory of mind development. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2015

abstract: A cornerstone of children’s socio-cognitive development is understanding that others can have knowledge, thoughts, and perceptions that differ from one’s own. Preschool-aged children often have difficulty with this kind of social understanding, i.e., they lack an explicit theory of mind. The goal of this dissertation was to examine the role mental state language as a developmental mechanism of children’s early understanding of their own mental states (i.e., their introspective ability). Specifically, it was hypothesized that (1) parents’ ability to recognize and appropriately label their children’s mental states and (2) children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between their mental states shapes the development of children’s introspective ability. An initial prediction of the first hypothesis is that parents should recognized differences in the development of children’s self- and other-understanding in order to better help their children’s introspective development. In support of this prediction, parents (N = 400, Mage = 58 months, Range = 28-93 months) reported that children’s understanding of their own knowledge was greater than children’s understanding of others’ knowledge. A prediction of the second hypothesis is that children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between and appropriately label their own mental states should determine their ability to make fined grained judgments of mental states like certainty. In support of this prediction, children’s (N = 197, Mage = 56 months, Range = 36-82 months) ability to distinguish between their own knowledge and ignorance states was associated children’s ability to engage in uncertainty monitoring. Together, these findings provide support for the association between children’s linguistic environment and ability and their introspective development. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2018

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Tidigare studier har påvisat att språkliga förmågor har ett nära samband med Theory of Mind (ToM). På senare tid har studier med hjälp av ögonrörelseteknik kunnat undersöka ToMförmåga implicit och fynden tyder på att barn redan i tvåårsåldern verkar ha en välutvecklad implicit ToM-förmåga. Resultaten från en av dessa studier har funnit att språkutvecklingen kan spela en avgörande roll i tillägnandet av ToM och tyder på att det kan finnas ett orsakssamband mellan språk och ToM. En viktig aspekt för att närmare förstå ToMutvecklingen är att undersöka vilken betydelse den språkliga förmågan har i tillägnandet av ToM. Det är fortfarande oklart om specifika delar av språket har mer betydelse för ToMutvecklingen än andra och hur sambandet mellan språkliga förmågor och ToM ser ut. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka hur ToM-förmåga och False Beliefförståelse förhåller sig till språkliga förmågor hos typiskt utvecklade barn i treårsåldern samt om dessa förmågor påverkas av barnens demografiska faktorer. Studien inkluderade sammanlagt 21 treåringar. Den språkliga förmågan undersöktes med mått på impressiv och expressiv grammatik samt med mått på expressivt ordförråd, som en del av den semantiska förmågan. För att undersöka ToM-förmågan som helhet användes mått på olika delförmågor av ToM. Vidare undersöktes False Belief-förståelse explicit, med klassiska FB-uppgifter, och implicit, med hjälp av ögonrörelseteknik.Studiens resultat påvisar att språkliga förmågor och ToM-förmåga har ett mycket nära samband, och att den semantiska förmågan är den del av språkförmågan som har den enskilt starkaste påverkan på ToM-förmågan. Resultaten visar även att den impressiva grammatiska förmågan är mer betydande specifikt för FB-förståelse än för ToM-förmågan som helhet. Ingen påverkan på språklig förmåga, ToM-förmåga och FB-förståelse hittades vad gäller barnens demografiska faktorer. Resultaten av det implicita FB-testet visar att majoriteten av de deltagande barnen inte har förstått vad testet går ut på och därför kan inga slutsatser dras vad gäller barnens implicita FB-förståelse. Detta resultat motsäger den tidigare forskningen med yngre barn. Många frågetecken kvarstår kring implicita test, vilket visar på vikten av mer forskning inom området. I den aktuella studien diskuteras även komplexiteten i förhållandet mellan språkliga förmågor och ToM. / Previous studies have shown that linguistic abilities are closely linked with Theory of Mind (ToM). Recently, studies using eyetracking technology have been able to investigate ToM understanding with implicit measures. The findings suggest that children as young as two years old appear to have a well-developed implicit ToM understanding. Results from one of these studies have found that language development could play a crucial role in the acquisition of ToM, suggesting that there may be a causal link between language and ToM. An important aspect to further understand ToM development is to investigate the impact of language in the acquisition of ToM understanding. It remains unclear whether specific aspects of language are more relevant to ToM development than others and how language abilities and ToM are interconnected. The aim of the present study was to investigate how ToM ability and False Belief understanding relates to linguistic abilities of typically developing three-year-olds and if childrens´ demographic factors affect these abilities. The study included a total of 21 children.  Language competence was assessed with measures of reception and production of syntax and a measure of vocabulary production, as part of the semantic ability. In order to investigate ToM ability, measures of different types of mental-state understandings were included. False Belief understanding was assessed with explicit measures, using standard FB tasks, and with implicit measures, using eyetracking technology. The results obtained in the present study confirm that linguistic abilities and ToM ability are strongly related, and that semantic ability is the part of language that has the strongest influence on ToM understanding. The results also indicate that receptive syntax is more important to specifically FB understanding, than to ToM ability in general. The childrens´ demographic factors were not found to affect their language ability, ToM ability or FB understanding. Regarding children's implicit FB understanding the results of the implicit measures reveal that the majority of the participating children did not understand the purpose of the test and therefore no conclusions of their implicit understanding could be drawn. This finding contradicts previous research including younger children. Questions remain concerning implicit measures, indicating the importance of further research in this field. The present study also discusses the complexity of the relationship between linguistic abilities and ToM.

Processing information related to the self and inferring the mental state of another person is known to involve the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) in both younger and older adults (Stone et al., 2008; Kelley et al., 2002; Hynes et al., 2006; Ruby et al., 2009). According to the dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPF) theory of cognitive ageing, processing of the self should not be affected by healthy adult ageing as functions related to the VMPFC remain relatively preserved compared to functions related to the DLPF cortex (MacPherson et al., 2002). Similarly, no age difference should emerge in those tasks thought to tap functions of the VMPFC. The aim of this PhD is to investigate the effect of healthy adult ageing on the ability to process information related to the self and others. A series of experiments was designed to compare the performance of younger and older adults on tasks that investigate processing and retrieval of self-related information (e.g. behaviour prediction, personality judgement, mental state inferences, self-referential). The tasks differ in the extent to which they rely on cognitive effort. The results show that ageing does not affect self-related judgements. A further series of experiments designed to investigate affective and cognitive Theory of Mind (ToM) show that the affective performance, thought to rely on VMPFC activity, is not affected by age. In contrast, the performance of older participants differs from that of younger adults on cognitive ToM task, thought to involve DLPFC brain areas. A final experiment investigated the ability to make self versus other related judgments in a confabulating patient. The results show that the ability to reflect on the self but not on others was intact. In summary, the findings demonstrate that processing self-information and making ToM inferences remains intact in older individuals and is not overtly impaired by confabulation.

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, degenerative, neurological condition affecting approximately 85,000 people in the UK. The impact of MS on physical abilities is well‐known and there is increasing recognition of the impact of MS on mood and cognitive function. Recently MS has been linked to impaired emotion recognition and impaired Theory of Mind (ToM –the ability to attribute mental states, e.g. beliefs to oneself and others). Methods: This study measured executive function, ToM, empathy and quality of life in an MS sample (n=42). A correlational analysis was then conducted to determine whether executive function was associated with the other variables. Results: Two executive function measures (Mental Flexibility and Response to Feedback) were significantly associated with two ToM tasks (Revised Eyes and Stories). Mental Flexibility and the Revised Eyes ToM task were significantly associated with measures of empathy, but this effect was not present in the other executive function or ToM tasks. Neither executive functioning nor ToM measures were significantly associated with reported quality of life. Conclusion: Overall, the MS sample demonstrated specific ToM impairment, no significant empathy impairment and widespread executive impairment relative to normative data. Low rates of depression (10%) and higher levels of anxiety (29%) were found. MS participants rated the psychological impact of MS as equivalent to the physical impact, highlighting the importance of addressing psychological aspects of MS.