title: Biological motion perception links diverse facets of theory of mind during middle childhood.
abstract: Two cornerstones of social development--social perception and theory of mind--undergo brain and behavioral changes during middle childhood, but the link between these developing domains is unclear. One theoretical perspective argues that these skills represent domain-specific areas of social development, whereas other perspectives suggest that both skills may reflect a more integrated social system. Given recent evidence from adults that these superficially different domains may be related, the current study examined the developmental relation between these social processes in 52 children aged 7 to 12 years. Controlling for age and IQ, social perception (perception of biological motion in noise) was significantly correlated with two measures of theory of mind: one in which children made mental state inferences based on photographs of the eye region of the face and another in which children made mental state inferences based on stories. Social perception, however, was not correlated with children's ability to make physical inferences from stories about people. Furthermore, the mental state inference tasks were not correlated with each other, suggesting a role for social perception in linking various facets of theory of mind.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. Electronic address: krice@umd.edu.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Laura C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Kayla
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Velnoskey
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.
authors.forename: James C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Redcay
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Action perception; Development; Individual differences; Mental state inference; Social cognition; Social perception