“What Was His Name, Again?”: A New Method for Reducing Memory-Based Errors in an Adult False-Belief Task

Abstract: Despite considerable interest in the development of Theory of Mind (ToM) during early childhood, until recently, there has been little consideration about whether and how ToM skills continue to change into adulthood. Furthermore, the false-belief task, which is believed to capture the underlying mechanisms of ToM, is rarely used in studies of ToM with adults; those tasks that do assess false-belief understanding may be confounded by incidental task demands, such as complex narratives and excessive memory requirements, making it difficult to isolate adults’ true ToM skills, much less to compare them with the skills of children. Here, we adapted a task developed by Valle, Massaro, Castelli, and Marchetti (2015, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829) to assess false-belief understanding in adults. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the reading condition, participants read a story about the unexpected transfer of a ball between three brothers. In the vi.... https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/1998

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: “What Was His Name, Again?”: A New Method for Reducing Memory-Based Errors in an Adult False-Belief Task ; volume:16 ; number:2 ; day:29 ; month:05 ; year:2020 ; Europe's journal of psychology ; 16, Heft 2 (29.05.2020)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Marea Susanna Colombo ; Charlotte Bremer ; Julien Gross ; Jamin Halberstadt ; Harlene Hayne

Further information

• DOI: 10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2020101416355512587444
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:48 AM CEST