Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38582883›Full record

ArticleBMC psychology2024

The longitudinal relations between mental state talk and theory of mind.

Isac Sehlstedt, Isabelle Hansson, Erland Hjelmquist

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in BMC psychology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
2.4field-weighted citation impact, top 12% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pragmatics and Theory of Mind across cultures.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Isac SehlstedtDepartment of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 500, Gothenburg, SE, 405 30, Sweden. isac.sehlstedt@psy.gu.se.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9737-5612
Isabelle HanssonDepartment of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 500, Gothenburg, SE, 405 30, Sweden.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2241-7993
Erland HjelmquistDepartment of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 500, Gothenburg, SE, 405 30, Sweden.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2730-2346
University of Gothenburg · SE

Funding

Vetenskapsrådet 2014-18190-113123-31
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundPrevious investigations of associations between children's Theory of Mind (ToM) and parents' use of words relating to mental states (or mental state talk; MST) have predominantly been performed using cross-sectional designs and false belief tasks as indicators of ToM.

methodsWe here report a longitudinal study of 3-5 year-olds (n = 80) investigating ToM development using the ToM scale and three different parental MST types: the absolute frequency of words, the proportions of words, and the vocabulary size.

resultsOur results revealed significant relations between all parental MST types and later child ToM. Proportions of parental MST were most often related to the children's ToM at 4 years of age. However, the rate at which the children developed ToM from 3 to 5 years of age was associated with the other two parental MST type measures, namely, absolute frequency and vocabulary size. Additionally, our analyses revealed that parents' use of cognitive MST words (e.g., think, or know) were most frequently associated with children's ToM at 4 years of age compared to emotion and desire-related MST words.

conclusionsWe conclude that the parental ability to capture the thoughts, beliefs, and knowledge present in different scenarios is associated with children's ability to understand other minds. Moreover, parents' way of talking about the mental states of others is associated with their children's ability to understand and further develop ToM.

Indexed as

Theory of MindChildCross-Sectional StudiesEmotionsHumansLongitudinal StudiesParentsExecutive functionLanguageMental state talkSocial factorsTheory of mind

Identifiers

PMID38582883
PMCPMC10998333
OpenAlexW4394013927

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.