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Assessment of Theory of Mind in Adults: Beyond False Belief Tasks

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Activitas Nervosa Superior

Abstract

Theory of Mind, or the ability to attribute mental states to the self and others, forms the foundation of social cognitive processes or social cognition. Since its conception in 1978, the construct has been enjoying increasing attention from researchers and it has been widely studied in the context of autism spectrum disorder. This paper tries to review the issues surrounding the assessment of the construct. Theory of Mind (ToM) assessment goes almost synonymously with false belief tests. And assessing ToM with false belief tasks did not pose a problem because the construct had traditionally been studied mostly, if not exclusively on children. This paper discusses the danger of testing theory of mind with false belief tasks only and the serious necessity to study the construct in the adult population. The paper also discusses why the construct needs to be assessed in a culture-specific manner, the problems with the existing recent tools that have been developed to measure the construct, the complexity of simulating real social stimuli, and the subtleties around the construct that is to be taken care of while developing assessment measures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University College of Science Technology & Agriculture, University of Calcutta, 92, A.P.C. Road, Calcutta, 700009, India

    Asmita Karmakar & Atanu Kumar Dogra

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  1. Asmita Karmakar
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  2. Atanu Kumar Dogra
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Correspondence to Asmita Karmakar.

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Karmakar, A., Dogra, A.K. Assessment of Theory of Mind in Adults: Beyond False Belief Tasks. Act Nerv Super 61, 142–146 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41470-019-00028-1

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