The interface of language and Theory of Mind

@article{Villiers2007LanguageAndTheoryOfMind, abstract = {The proposal is made that the interface between language and Theory of Mind is bidirectional. It seems probable that the conceptual developments of early Theory of Mind form an essential basis for helping to fix at least word reference. In development from 2 to 4 years, no basis exists in research for conclusions about the direction of influence between language and Theory of Mind. At the stage of false belief reasoning, after age 4, the role of the mastery of syntactic complementation is highlighted as a representational tool, that is, language development assists reasoning. The paper presents a brief summary of Theory of Mind, ranging from its earliest beginnings in infancy to the appreciation around age 4 years that others might hold false beliefs and act according to them. For each development, the parallel language developments are described, and questions are raised about the interface between the two. In particular, research that might determine the direction of influence from one to the other is discussed. More work is called for, especially with nonverbal tasks, good experimental linguistic work and other special populations, that might allow a more precise delineation of how language and Theory of Mind interrelate at the interface.}, author = {de Villiers, Jill }, booktitle = {Language Acquisition between Sentence and Discourse}, citeulike-article-id = {2938525}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2006.11.006}, journal = {Lingua}, keywords = {\_d\_, language, theory-of-mind}, month = {November}, number = {11}, pages = {1858--1878}, posted-at = {2008-06-28 04:29:06}, priority = {3}, title = {The interface of language and Theory of Mind}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2006.11.006}, volume = {117}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - Villiers2007LanguageAndTheoryOfMind L3 - citeulike-article-id:2938525 TI - The interface of language and Theory of Mind T2 - Language Acquisition between Sentence and Discourse JF - Lingua VL - 117 IS - 11 SP - 1858 EP - 1878 N2 - The proposal is made that the interface between language and Theory of Mind is bidirectional. It seems probable that the conceptual developments of early Theory of Mind form an essential basis for helping to fix at least word reference. In development from 2 to 4 years, no basis exists in research for conclusions about the direction of influence between language and Theory of Mind. At the stage of false belief reasoning, after age 4, the role of the mastery of syntactic complementation is highlighted as a representational tool, that is, language development assists reasoning. The paper presents a brief summary of Theory of Mind, ranging from its earliest beginnings in infancy to the appreciation around age 4 years that others might hold false beliefs and act according to them. For each development, the parallel language developments are described, and questions are raised about the interface between the two. In particular, research that might determine the direction of influence from one to the other is discussed. More work is called for, especially with nonverbal tasks, good experimental linguistic work and other special populations, that might allow a more precise delineation of how language and Theory of Mind interrelate at the interface. KW - _d_ KW - language KW - theory-of-mind AU - de Villiers, Jill PY - 2007/11// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2006.11.006 ER -