Neural basis of infant versus traditional verbal ToM tasks
We related children's performance in infant and traditional verbal ToM tasks with their cortical structure assessed with MRI. This showed that the breakthrough in traditional verbal ToM tasks at 4 years was related to cortical maturation of the Default Mode Network, also supporting ToM in adults, whereas infant ToM tasks were related to the maturation of distinct brain regions, which are part of the Salience network, supporting that infant ToM tasks rely on different processes than mature ToM. Based on the role of the Salience network in bottom-up attention processes, we proposed that infant ToM success may rely on social attention biases.
Grosse Wiesmann, C., Friederici, A. D., Singer, T., & Steinbeis, N. (2020). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(12), 6928-6935.
A new theory about infant ToM abilities
Based on the above findings, we proposed a new theory of infant ToM success. We proposed that others bias infants’ own representation of the world, allowing them to predict how others will act based on their own biased perspective, without the need to manage diverging perspectives. We reasoned that the development of a self-concept in the second year of life increases the salience of the own perspective compared to events attended together with others.
Grosse Wiesmann, C., & Southgate, V. (2021). The neural basis of mentalizing (pp. 49). Springer International Publishing.
Evidence for altercentric biases
We tested the above theory in a series of behavioral studies, revealing an altercentric bias in young infants’ object memory that receded in the second year of life. That is, 8-months-old infants misremembered an object where another agent had seen it last, although the infants themselves had subsequently seen the object move elsewhere. Similarly, infants searched in a box when someone else falsely believed an object to be in there, although the infants had seen that the object had been removed. This altercentric bias in infants’ object search decreased in the second year of life in relation with children’s self-concept development. These findings indicate that infants misremember objects where they have seen them together with others, providing a potential mechanism for understanding others and predicting their actions, without the need to represent different perspectives.
Manea, V., Kampis, D., Grosse Wiesmann, C., Revencu, B., & Southgate, V. (2023). Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290(2000), 20230738.
Kampis, D., Grosse Wiesmann, C., & Southgate, V. (2021). Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 43).
Decrease of altercentric biases with emergence of the self-concept
To assess the development of the self-concept in toddlerhood, we developed a series of tasks tapping into self-other distinction and self-related biases in children’s choices and memory. We showed that, by 16 months, infants understand the self in relation to others. Around 2 years, children’s own choices begin to induce preferences (Grosse Wiesmann et al., 2022). Moreover, we show a shift from better memory for objects that are relevant to others towards better memory for self-relevant objects with the emergence of mirror self-recognition around 18 months of age (Grosse Wiesmann et al., in prep.).
Kampis, D.*, Grosse Wiesmann, C.*, Koop, S., & Southgate, V. (2022). Developmental science, 25(3), e13197. *contributed equally.
Grosse Wiesmann, C., Kampis, D., Poulsen, E., Schüler, C., Duplessy, H. L., & Southgate, V. (2022). Cognition, 223, 105039.
Grosse Wiesmann, C., Rothmaler, K., Hasan, E., Habdank, K., & Southgate, V. (in prep.)
Dissemination:
- Press releases
- Broad press coverage and interviews in newspapers and broadcasting (e.g. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Science Daily, Austrian Press Agency)
- Blog article in Spektrum.de (https://scilogs.spektrum.de/thinky-brain/verstehen-kleinkinder-was-in-unserem-kopf-vorgeht/ )
- Conference presentations, keynotes, & symposia (e.g. at SfN 2018, BCCCD 2019-2023, CogSci 2020,2021, ICPS 2019,2023, ESPP 2021)
