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The Role(s) of Language in Theory of Mind

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The Neural Basis of Mentalizing

Abstract

The chapter reviews four opinions about the relationship between language and theory of mind, focusing mostly on preschool child development. The conduit view assumes language serves the role of expressing concepts formed without the involvement of language, and is compatible with findings that infants have some ability to represent other’s beliefs, and that in brain damage, the ability can be preserved without language. The cultural view holds that language is the means by which the culture conveys a particular theory of minds, and that children develop this understanding through discourse. Much empirical research backs up the idea that children surrounded by such talk develop theory of mind earlier. On the theory that language is a cognitive tool for engaging in complex reasoning, one might explain the slower development in children who have language delays, as well as the finding that adults can be disrupted in false belief reasoning if they do not have simultaneous access to their language faculty, as with dual task studies. Finally, the representational view is considered, in which both children and adults use particular aspects of the grammar of language to represent complex events and reason from them. These complement structures turn out to be among the best predictors of children’s false belief understanding in longitudinal studies, and training studies directed at complement syntax reveal improvement also in children’s false belief reasoning. In further research, innovative methods and controls will be needed to see if any one or more of these theories can provide a decisive account of all of the phenomena.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I used the more neutral “perceived” because it can happen as easily in Sign as in speech.

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  1. Psychology and Philosophy, Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA

    Jill G. de Villiers

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  1. Psychology Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

    Michael Gilead

  2. Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Kevin N. Ochsner

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de Villiers, J.G. (2021). The Role(s) of Language in Theory of Mind. In: Gilead, M., Ochsner, K.N. (eds) The Neural Basis of Mentalizing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51890-5_21

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