Sources of Cognitive Conflict and Their Relevance to Theory-of-Mind Proficiency in Healthy Aging : A Preregistered Study

Rahman, F. and Kessler, K. and Apperly, I.A. and Hansen, P.C. and Javed, S. and Holland, C.A. and Hartwright, C.E. (2021) Sources of Cognitive Conflict and Their Relevance to Theory-of-Mind Proficiency in Healthy Aging : A Preregistered Study. Psychological Science, 32 (12). pp. 1918-1936. ISSN 0956-7976

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Abstract

Age-related decline in theory of mind (ToM) may be due to waning executive control, which is necessary for resolving conflict when reasoning about other individuals’ mental states. We assessed how older (n = 50) and younger (n = 50) adults were affected by three theoretically relevant sources of conflict within ToM: competing self-other perspectives, competing cued locations, and outcome knowledge. We examined which best accounted for age-related difficulty with ToM. Our data show unexpected similarity between age groups when people are representing a belief incongruent with their own. Individual differences in attention and response speed best explained the degree of conflict experienced through incompatible self-other perspectives. However, older adults were disproportionately affected by managing conflict between cued locations. Age and spatial working memory were most relevant for predicting the magnitude of conflict elicited by conflicting cued locations. We suggest that previous studies may have underestimated older adults’ ToM proficiency by including unnecessary conflict in ToM tasks.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Psychological Science
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200
Subjects:
?? agingexecutive functionmentalizingopen dataopen materialspreregisteredsocial cognitiontheory of mindpsychology(all) ??
ID Code:
163565
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
20 Dec 2021 10:40
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
28 Nov 2023 11:38