Developmental Origins of a Theory of Mind

Children’s understanding of their own and others’ mind (theory of mind) involves the explanation and prediction of human behaviour on the basis of internal states such as perceptions, desires, emotions and beliefs. Recognizing and inferring the mental states of others is a critical skill in our social lives. The development of these abilities has been the focus of a large body of research over the last two decades. In our laboratory, we examine the precursors to mental state attribution in infancy. More specifically, we are interested in the nature of belief and emotion understanding in 14- to 18-month-olds and how internal state language develops in the same sequence as theory of mind skills. We are also interested in the link between the development of prosocial behaviors (e.g., empathy) and theory of mind.

• Poulin-Dubois, D., Goldman, E. J., Meltzer, A. & Psaradellis, E. (2023). Discontinuity from implicit to explicit theory of mind from infancy to preschool age. Cognitive Development, 65, 101273. https://doin.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101273
• Crivello, C., Grossman, S. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2021). Specifying links between infants' theory of mind, associative learning, and selective trust. Infancy, 26(5), 664-685. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12407
• Poulin-Dubois, D., Azar, N., Elkaim, B. & Burnside, K. (2020). Testing the stability of theory of mind: A longitudinal approach. PLoS One, 15 (11), e0241721. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0241721
• Burnside, K, Severdija, V, Poulin‐Dubois, D. (2020). Infants attribute false beliefs to a toy crane. Developmental Science, 23(2), e12887. doi: /10.1111/desc.12887.
• Poulin-Dubois, D., Rakoczy, H., Burnside, K., Crivello, C., Dörrenberg, S., Edwards, K., … Ruffman, T. (2018). Do infants understand false beliefs? We don’t know yet – A commentary on Baillargeon, Buttelmann and Southgate’s commentary. Cognitive Development, 48, 302–315. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.09.005. 
• Poulin-Dubois, D. & Yott, J. (2018). Probing the depth of infants' theory of mind: Disunity in performance across paradigms. Developmetal Science, 21(4), e12600. doi:10.1111/desc.12600