TY - JOUR
T1 - Neural correlates of theory of mind reasoning in congenitally blind children
AU - Richardson, H.
AU - Saxe, R.
AU - Bedny, M.
N1 - We would like to thank participants and families for engaging with the research, Swetha Dravida, Ben Deen, and Nicholas Dufour for assisting with data collection and the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT for support. We would also like to thank Lindsey Yazzolino, the National Federation of the Blind, Perkins School for the Blind, the National Association for Parents of the Visually Impaired, Wonderbaby.org, and local pediatric ophthalmologists, and especially Dr. Anne Fulton, for assisting with recruitment. We gratefully acknowledge support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (#2008-333024 to R.S.) and a grant from the Harvard/MIT Joint Research Grants Program in Basic Neuroscience (to R.S. and Anne Fulton). For the purposes of open access, the author has applied a ‘Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
PY - 2023/10
Y1 - 2023/10
N2 - Vision is an important source of information about other minds for sighted children, especially prior to the onset of language. Visually observed actions, eye gaze, and facial expressions of others provide information about mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. Does such experience contribute causally to the development of cortical networks supporting social cognition? To address this question we compared functional development of brain regions supporting theory of mind (ToM), as well as behavioral ToM reasoning, across congenitally blind (n=17) and sighted (n=114) children and adolescents (4-17 years old). We find that blind children in this age range show slightly lower ToM behavioral performance relative to sighted children. Likewise, the functional profile of ToM brain regions is qualitatively similar, but quantitatively weaker in blind relative to sighted children. Alongside prior research, these data suggest that vision facilitates, but is not necessary for, ToM development.
AB - Vision is an important source of information about other minds for sighted children, especially prior to the onset of language. Visually observed actions, eye gaze, and facial expressions of others provide information about mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and emotions. Does such experience contribute causally to the development of cortical networks supporting social cognition? To address this question we compared functional development of brain regions supporting theory of mind (ToM), as well as behavioral ToM reasoning, across congenitally blind (n=17) and sighted (n=114) children and adolescents (4-17 years old). We find that blind children in this age range show slightly lower ToM behavioral performance relative to sighted children. Likewise, the functional profile of ToM brain regions is qualitatively similar, but quantitatively weaker in blind relative to sighted children. Alongside prior research, these data suggest that vision facilitates, but is not necessary for, ToM development.
KW - blindness
KW - Theory of Mind
KW - development
KW - fmri
UR - https://osf.io/pavdg/
U2 - 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101285
DO - 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101285
M3 - Article
C2 - 37591011
SN - 1878-9293
VL - 63
JO - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
JF - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
M1 - 101285
ER -