Measuring Theory of Mind: A Multiple-Choice Response Format Version of the Short Story Task.

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Article in Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Stephanie C GoodhewSchool of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Psychology Building (Building 39), Canberra, 2601, Australia. Stephanie.Goodhew@anu.edu.au.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5066-8303

Mark EdwardsSchool of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Psychology Building (Building 39), Canberra, 2601, Australia.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

purposeTheory of mind is the capacity to understand others' mental states, such as their thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, even when they differ from one's own. The Short Story Task is a measure of individual differences in theory of mind in adults, where respondents are scored on the accuracy of their mental state inferences about characters in the story. However, it collects open-ended responses and thus requires labour-intensive subjective scoring. The present study tested the validity of a new multiple-choice response format of the Short Story Task (SST-MCQ).

methodPeople on the Autism Spectrum can have difficulty with theory of mind. Therefore, a common validation approach for theory of mind measures is to demonstrate reduced task performance for those on the Autism Spectrum and/or those higher in autistic traits. Here, participants with an Autism Spectrum diagnosis and neurotypical participants were recruited for two studies, and participants completed the SST-MCQ and Autism Quotient (AQ-10).

resultsA combined analysis of the two studies (256 Autism Spectrum participants and 263 neurotypical) showed higher autistic traits as measured by the AQ-10 were associated with lower SST-MCQ scores (r

conclusionThese findings suggest that SST-MCQ scores provide a valid measure of individual differences in theory of mind ability for adult participants.

Indexed as

AdultsAutistic traitsEmpathyExplicit mental state reasoningIndividual differencesSocial cognitionTheory of mind

Identifiers

PMID41649743

DOI10.1016/0010-0277(83)90004-5

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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.