Journal
CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Volume 80, Issue 2, Pages 318-326Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01262.x
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NICHD NIH HHS [R37 HD022149, R01 HD022149, HD-22149, R37 HD022149-16A1] Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Young children show significant changes in their mental-state understanding as marked by their performance on false-belief tasks. This study provides evidence for activity in the prefrontal cortex associated with the development of this ability. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded as adults (N = 24) and 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children (N = 44) reasoned about reality and the beliefs of characters in animated vignettes. In adults, a late slow wave (LSW), with a left-frontal scalp distribution, was associated with reasoning about beliefs. This LSW was also observed for children who could correctly reason about the characters' beliefs but not in children who failed false-belief questions. These findings have several implications, including support for the critical role of the prefrontal cortex for theory of mind development.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available