IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0262251.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Development of cool and hot theory of mind and cool and hot inhibitory control abilities from 3.5 to 6.5 years of age

Author

Listed:
  • Manali Draperi
  • Ania Aïte
  • Mathieu Cassotti
  • Lorna Le Stanc
  • Olivier Houdé
  • Grégoire Borst

Abstract

Attributing affectively neutral mental states such as thoughts (i.e., cool theory of mind, cool ToM) to others appears to be rooted in different processes than the ones involved in attributing affectively charged mental states such as emotions (i.e., hot ToM) to others. However, no study has investigated the developmental pattern of hot and cool ToM abilities using a similar task and the relative contribution of cool and hot inhibitory control (IC) to cool and hot ToM development. To do so, we tested 112 children aged 3.5 to 6.5 years on a cool and a hot version of a ToM task and on a cool and hot version of an IC task. We found that hot ToM abilities developed more rapidly than cool ToM. Importantly, we found that hot IC abilities mediated the relation between age and hot ToM abilities. Taken together, our results suggest that the ability to attribute emotions to others develops more rapidly than the ability to attribute thoughts and that the growing efficiency of hot ToM with age is specifically rooted in the growing efficiency of hot IC abilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Manali Draperi & Ania Aïte & Mathieu Cassotti & Lorna Le Stanc & Olivier Houdé & Grégoire Borst, 2022. "Development of cool and hot theory of mind and cool and hot inhibitory control abilities from 3.5 to 6.5 years of age," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0262251
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0262251
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0262251&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0262251?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0262251. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.