Theory of Mind and Language. The Verbal Intelligence in Young Adults

Bachelorarbeit aus dem Jahr 2016 im Fachbereich Germanistik - Linguistik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the knowledge that one person has about another person's beliefs, intentions and emotions. A highly debated issue in ToM research pertains to the correlations between language and ToM abilities. For this purpose, the Social Story Questionnaire (SSQ) as an assessment of ToM abilities and an analogy test as an assessment for verbal intelligence were used in this study. In the sample of 191 healthy young adults, no correlations between ToM and verbal intelligence were found. These results might confirm that language and ToM are distinct mechanisms and do not stand in any relation to each other. However, the outcome could also be due to the selection of highly educated participants, who might not need to engage verbal abilities for successfully performing in ToM tasks.