The DOI matches its Crossref record; 71 of the 71 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Theory of Mind Performance in Children Correlates With Functional Specialization of a Brain Region for Thinking About Thoughts
Abstract
Thinking about other people's thoughts recruits a specific group of brain regions, including the temporo-parietal junctions (TPJ), precuneus (PC), and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). The same brain regions were recruited when children (N=20, 5-11 years) and adults (N=8) listened to descriptions of characters' mental states, compared to descriptions of physical events. Between ages 5 and 11 years, responses in the bilateral TPJ became increasingly specific to stories describing mental states as opposed to people's appearance and social relationships. Functional activity in the right TPJ was related to children's performance on a high level theory of mind task. These findings provide insights into the origin of neural mechanisms of theory of mind, and how behavioral and neural changes can be related in development.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Another emerging developmental pattern is a linear increase in TPJ responses during mentalizing (Gweon et al., 2012; van den Bos et al., 2011).”
From Risk-taking and social exclusion in adolescence: neural mechanisms underlying peer influences on decision-making (2013) · cites this paper as Gweon et al., 2012
Citations
Cites
Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models
Gelman, A., & Hill, J. (2006) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511790942 · Cited by 13,597
Wimmer, H. (1983) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/0010-0277(83)90004-5 · Cited by 6,305
Nonparametric permutation tests for functional neuroimaging: A primer with examples
Nichols, T. E., & Holmes, A. P. (2002) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.1058 · Cited by 6,256
Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood
Gogtay, N., Giedd, J. N., Lusk, L., Hayashi, K. M., Greenstein, D., Vaituzis, A. C., Nugent, T. F., Herman, D. H., Clasen, L. S., Toga, A. W., et al. (2004) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0402680101 · Cited by 5,604 · cited 3×
“, an increase followed by a decrease) during childhood, possibly reflecting early overproduction of synapses and later synaptic pruning (Giedd et al., 1999; Gogtay et al., 2004; Shaw et al., 2008; Sowell et al., 2004).”
BackgroundBrain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal MRI study
Giedd, J. N., Blumenthal, J., Jeffries, N. O., Castellanos, F. X., Liu, H., Zijdenbos, A., Paus, T., Evans, A. C., & Rapoport, J. L. (1999) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/13158 · Cited by 5,552
An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment
Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1062872 · Cited by 4,561
Meta-Analysis of Theory-of-Mind Development: The Truth about False Belief
Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00304 · Cited by 4,476
Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs?
Onishi, K. H., & Baillargeon, R. (2005) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1107621 · Cited by 2,350
People thinking about thinking peopleThe role of the temporo-parietal junction in “theory of mind”
Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2003) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/s1053-8119(03)00230-1 · Cited by 2,316 · cited 4×
“Frith & Frith, 2003; Saxe & Kanwisher, 2003).”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialSelf-citationDevelopment and neurophysiology of mentalizing
Frith, U., & Frith, C. D. (2003) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2002.1218 · Cited by 2,306
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 101–200 of 206
Culture, theory-of-mind, and morality: How independent and interdependent minds make moral judgments
Park, B., Vepachedu, S., Keshava, P., & Minns, S. A. (2022) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108423 · Cited by 12
Neural correlates of theory of mind reasoning in congenitally blind children
Richardson, H., Saxe, R. R., & Bedny, M. (2023) · Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101285 · Cited by 11
“Children with more selective RTPJ responses perform better on ToM behavioral tasks, controlling for age (Gweon et al., 2012).”
InfluentialEmotion knowledge in neurotypical children and in those with down syndrome
Barisnikov, K., Theurel, A., & Lejeune, F. (2020) · Applied Neuropsychology Child · doi:10.1080/21622965.2020.1777131 · Cited by 11
“…with an improvement in connectivity between brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, resulting in the development of high-level cognitive functions such as executive function and social cognition (Gweon et al., 2012) in mid-childhood and adolescence (Tottenham et al., 2009).”
BackgroundMerchant, J. S., Alkire, D. R., & Redcay, E. (2022) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.25903 · Cited by 14
“…with neuroimaging work demonstrating that the mentalizing network is functionally distinct by the age of three (Richardson et al., 2018), but exhibits increasing functional specialization through adolescence and into adulthood (Gweon et al., 2012; Moraczewski et al., 2020; Richardson et al., 2020).”
Early signatures of and developmental change in brain regions for theory of mind
Richardson, H., & Saxe, R. R. (2020) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-814411-4.00021-4 · Cited by 13
“This experiment was modeled after the paradigm used in initial studies of ToM brain regions in 5- to 12-year-old children, and therefore was designed to measure the selectivity of ToM responses for mental states relative to nonmentalistic social information (Gweon et al., 2012; Saxe et al., 2009).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialHow physical information is used to make sense of the psychological world
Liu, S., Akbıyık, S., Outa, J., & Kim, M. J. (2025) · Nature Reviews Psychology · doi:10.1038/s44159-025-00514-1 · Cited by 12
“…of theory of mind in early childhood: as children develop a more robust understanding of other people’s beliefs, the right temporoparietal junction responds more selectively to information about people’s mental states than information about their physical appearance and bodily states 147 .”
Theory of Mind: Autism and Typical Developmental
Frolli, A. (2019) · Academic Journal of Pediatrics & Neonatology · doi:10.19080/ajpn.2019.08.555799 · Cited by 9
Xie, H., & Redcay, E. (2022) · Frontiers in Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnins.2022.875828 · Cited by 8
“After fMRI scans, all children completed a socio-cognitive behavioral battery measuring theory of mind (ToM) abilities (Gweon et al., 2012).”
Caldwell, M. P., Cheung, H., Cheung, S. K., Li, J., & Siu, T. S. C. (2022) · BMC Psychology · doi:10.1186/s40359-022-00976-5 · Cited by 11
Executive functions and theory of mind development in preschoolers: Insights from NIRS data
Lertladaluck, K., & Moriguchi, Y. (2024) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.109031 · Cited by 9
Berkay, D., & Jenkins, A. C. (2025) · Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.1920-23.2025 · Cited by 7
Manoli, A., Overwalle, F. V., Wiesmann, C. G., & Valk, S. L. (2025) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-60523-9 · Cited by 9
“All children performed an out-of-scanner verbal ToM assessment 55 .”
La Neurociencia detrás del aprendizaje basado en problemas (ABP)
Román, F. (2021) · Journal of Neuroeducation · doi:10.1344/joned.v1i2.33695 · Cited by 7
Liu, Y., Moss, E., Ting, F., & Hyde, D. C. (2025) · Cortex · doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2024.11.023 · Cited by 7
The Brain that Longs to Care for Others: The Current Neuroscience of Compassion
Stevens, L. C., & Benjamin, J. (2018) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-809837-0.00003-9 · Cited by 7
Thinking about social and nonsocial alternative possibilities in premature preschoolers
Roldán-Tapia, L., Moreno‐Ríos, S., & Cánovas, R. (2016) · Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology · doi:10.1080/13803395.2016.1257703 · Cited by 7
“However, the anatomical locus of attribution related to false belief tasks is not identical to these two skills (see, Saxe et al., 2004; but also Gweon et al., 2012) although the false belief tasks could also require them.”
BackgroundLincoln, S. H., Mukerji, C., Dodell‐Feder, D., Riccio, A., & Hooker, C. I. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.714176 · Cited by 6
An Examination of Accurate Versus “Biased” Mentalizing in Moral and Economic Decision-Making
Park, B., Kim, M. J., & Young, L. (2021) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-51890-5_27 · Cited by 5
The Development of Joint Belief-Desire Inferences
Richardson, H., Baker, C. L., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Saxe, R. R. (2012) · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · Cited by 6
Lombardo, M. V., Bonnie Auyeung, B., Holt, R., Waldman, J., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Mooney, N., Bullmore, E. T., Baron‐Cohen, S., & Kundu, P. (2015) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/017350 · Cited by 6
Walbrin, J., Almeida, J., & Koldewyn, K. (2023) · Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2109-22.2023 · Cited by 4
Larger corpus callosum volume is favorable for theory of mind development in healthy children
Mandl, S., Kienast, P., Kollndorfer, K., Kasprian, G. J., Weber, M., Seidl, R., & Bartha, L. (2023) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhad353 · Cited by 5
Reduced Neural Selectivity for Mental States in Deaf Children with Delayed Exposure to Sign LanguagePreprint
Richardson, H., Koster-Hale, J., Caselli, N. K., Magid, R. W., Benedict, R., Olson, H. A., Pyers, J. E., & Saxe, R. R. (2019) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/j5ghw · Cited by 5
Artificial intelligence and theory of mind
Matta, D. (. (2026) · Journal of Psychology and AI · doi:10.1080/29974100.2026.2628373 · Cited by 8
Training volitional control of the theory of mind network with real-time fMRI neurofeedback
Saxena, A., Shovestul, B. J., Dudek, E. M., Reda, S., Venkataraman, A., Lamberti, J. S., & Dodell‐Feder, D. (2023) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120334 · Cited by 4
Bowman, L. C., & Brandone, A. C. (2024) · Developmental Science · doi:10.1111/desc.13530 · Cited by 4
Neural Foundations of Cognition and Language
Bowman, L. C., Pierce, L. J., Nelson, C. A., & Werker, J. F. (2017) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-804036-2.00010-8 · Cited by 4
Fehlbaum, L. V., Borbás, R., Paul, K., & Raschle, N. M. (2020) · doi:10.31219/osf.io/d8fq2 · Cited by 5
Heise, M. J., & Bowman, L. C. (2025) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/cdev.14263 · Cited by 3
“…et al. 1974; Carlson et al. 2004), although children develop in their understanding of more complex (e.g., level 2) perspective taking throughout preschool and middle childhood (e.g., Gweon et al. 2012; Richardson et al. 2018), and even show variability in adulthood (e.g., Todd et al. 2017).”
InfluentialLuo, H., Yu, T., Li, Q., & Sheng, L. (2025) · Neurophotonics · doi:10.1117/1.nph.12.3.035012 · Cited by 3
“6 In the language localizer task, participants listened to blocks of intact meaningful sentences and acoustically degraded speech following the procedure introduced by Scott et al. 48 All the materials for this localizer were adapted to Mandarin from Gweon et al. 37 and read by a native female speaker.”
Implicit False Beliefs: The State of Art
Lebedeva, E. I., & Ilina, E. A. (2024) · Journal of Modern Foreign Psychology · doi:10.17759/jmfp.2024130204 · Cited by 3
Neural processing of children’s theory of mind in a naturalistic story-listening paradigm
Yu, C., Eggleston, R. L., Zhang, K., Nickerson, N., Sun, X., Marks, R. A., Hu, X., Brennan, J., Wellman, H. M., & Kovelman, I. (2025) · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience · doi:10.1093/scan/nsaf022 · Cited by 3
“Nonetheless, the results show divergent activations and brain-behavioral associations for the focal language versus ToM constructs, mimicking previous research (e.g. Gweon et al. 2012)—the neural networks for ToM and language processes are different, particularly in the right TPJ.”
InfluentialGuan, Y., Keil, A., & Farrar, M. J. (2020) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104905 · Cited by 3
“This is because while children typically acquire FBU at preschool years, FBU-related developmental changes in the brain continue to take place during school years (Saxe & Wexler, 2005; Saxe et al., 2009; Gweon et al., 2012).”
BackgroundLi, S., Müller, B. C. N., Meinhardt, J., & Sodian, B. (2025) · Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2025.149523 · Cited by 3
“Existing studies on the neural correlates of FBU in children have predominantly focused on children aged 6 to 12 years with well-developed FBU (e.g., Bowman et al., 2019; Gweon et al., 2012; Saxe et al., 2009).”
The Unforgettable “Mel”: Pragmatic Inferences Affect How Children Acquire and Remember Word Meanings
Trice, K. M., Saratsli, D., Anna Papafragou, A., & Qi, Z. (2025) · Developmental Science · doi:10.1111/desc.70013 · Cited by 3
Linking Models of Theory of Mind and Measures of Human Brain Activity
Houlihan, S. D., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Saxe, R. R. (2021) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-51890-5_11 · Cited by 4
Ong, D. C., Asaba, M., & Hyowon Gweon, C. (2016) · Cognitive Science · Cited by 3
Neuroscience Contributions to Childhood Theory of Mind Development
Bowman, L. C., & Wellman, H. M. (2013) · Emerald Group Publishing Limited eBooks · doi:10.1108/978-1-62396-513-620251014 · Cited by 3
Haman, M. (2019) · Psychology of Language and Communication · doi:10.2478/plc-2019-0006 · Cited by 3
Kamps, F. S., Richardson, H., Murty, N. A. R., Kanwisher, N., & Saxe, R. R. (2021) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2021.11.29.469598 · Cited by 3
Scalar inference is supported by Theory of Mind networks in adults and children
Kampa, A., Anna Papafragou, A., & Jasińska, K. K. (2025) · Language Cognition and Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/23273798.2025.2489602 · Cited by 2
“6 To assess the relationship between scalar inference derivation and ToM, we compared patterns of neural activation during the ToM task for children in the passers and non-passers.”
InfluentialYamamoto, E., Hirokawa, M., Nuñez, E., Hakuno, Y., Sekine, K., Miyahara, S., Suzuki, K., & Minagawa‐Kawai, Y. (2024) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/jocn_a_02199 · Cited by 2
Veddum, L., Bliksted, V., Zhou, Y., Andreassen, A. K., Knudsen, C. B., Greve, A. N., Steffensen, N. L., Birk, M., Hemager, N., Brandt, J. M., et al. (2024) · Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging · doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.08.004 · Cited by 2
Kudaravalli, R., Kathios, N., Loui, P., & Davidow, J. Y. (2024) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1472767 · Cited by 3
Does Role Playing Improve Moral Reasoning's Structures in Young Children?
Salvano-Pardieu, V., Olivrie, M., Pennequin, V., & Pulford, B. D. (2019) · Advances in religious and cultural studies (ARCS) book series · doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-1811-3.ch009 · Cited by 2
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.008 · Cited by 2
Lou, Y., Chen, S., Hu, G., Astikainen, P., Otieno, S., Lei, Y., & Leppänen, P. H. T. (2023) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhad060 · Cited by 2
Trivariate Theory of Mind Data Analysis with a Conditional Joint Modeling Approach
Jeon, M., de Boeck, P. A. L., Li, X., & Lu, Z. (2020) · Psychometrika · doi:10.1007/s11336-020-09710-9 · Cited by 2
Dodell‐Feder, D. (2017) · Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · Cited by 2
Klimaj, V., Safron, A., Sylva, D., Rosenthal, A. M., Li, M., Walter, M., & Bailey, J. M. (2021) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/62wvd · Cited by 2
Open dataset of theory of mind reasoning in early to middle childhoodPreprint
Sotomayor-Enriquez, K., Hyowon Gweon, C., Saxe, R. R., & Richardson, H. (2023) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/gczp9 · Cited by 2
Open dataset of theory of mind reasoning in early to middle childhood
Sotomayor-Enriquez, K., Hyowon Gweon, C., Saxe, R. R., & Richardson, H. (2023) · Data in Brief · doi:10.1016/j.dib.2023.109905 · Cited by 2
“In prior manuscripts, we have summarized over-all performance on the ToM booklet task by calculating the proportion of 2AFC and explanation questions answered correctly [ 1 , 19 ]; we have also calculated summary scores for subsets of questions (e.g., false belief items [1] ).”
MethodManoli, A., Overwalle, F. V., Wiesmann, C. G., & Valk, S. L. (2024) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2024.04.02.586955 · Cited by 2
“All children performed an out-of-scanner verbal ToM assessment 53 .”
MethodSoares, R. D. S., & Sato, J. R. (2026) · Brain Structure and Function · doi:10.1007/s00429-026-03187-5 · Cited by 1
“Functional specialization within this network, including the right TPJ (rTPJ), is already evident in school-aged children and continues to develop throughout childhood (Saxe et al. 2009; Gweon et al. 2012).”
Warnell, K. R., Anderson, L. C., Velnoskey, K. R., Thompson, J. C., & Redcay, E. (2016) · Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.06.001 · Cited by 1
Mentalisieren über die Lebensspanne
Taubner, S. (2018) · Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht eBooks · doi:10.13109/9783666452499.23 · Cited by 1
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.006 · Cited by 1
Neural Correlates of Theory of Mind Development in Young Children
(2023) · International Journal on Neuropsychology and Behavioural Sciences (IJNBS) · doi:10.51626/ijnbs.2023.04.00038 · Cited by 1
Relationship Between Theory of Mind and Judgement Based on Intention in 4–7 Y.O. Children
Salvano-Pardieu, V., & Pennequin, V. (2024) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-55245-8_5 · Cited by 1
心理理论近十年研究进展—以Web of Science 核心期刊为例
张, 孟., & 张, 孟. (2024) · 心理学与行为研究 · doi:10.55375/pabr.2024.2.1.1 · Cited by 1
Wysocka, J., Golec-Staśkiewicz, K., Haman, M., Wolak, T. P., & Pluta, A. (2025) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470919.2026.2616288 · Cited by 1
“Further studies (Gweon et al., 2012; Richardson et al., 2018) demonstrated that the development of mental state understanding from early to middle childhood is accompanied by increasing specificity in the ToM network.”
Mohnke, S., Walter, H., & Tantchik, W. (2018) · Nervenheilkunde · doi:10.1055/s-0038-1668316 · Cited by 1
“Untersuchungen mit Schulkindern zeigten, dass sich die Selektivität des TPJ für mentale Inhalte, wie sie bei Erwachsenen beschrieben ist, erst in einem Alter zwischen 6 und 11 Jahren herausbildet (30) und die ToM-Fähigkeiten von Kindern darüber hinaus mit dem Ausmaß dieser Selektivität zunimmt (31).”
BackgroundGalván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.002 · Cited by 1
Belief in Communism and Theory of Mind
Chen, O., Guan, F., Du, Y., Su, Y., Yang, H. J., & Chen, J. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.697251 · Cited by 1
Schlicht, T. (2022) · Palgrave philosophy today · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-14491-2_4 · Cited by 1
(2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.011 · Cited by 1
Leal, A. S. M., & Silvers, J. A. (2019) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-809324-5.23607-9 · Cited by 1
Lee, N. C., & Pinkse-Schepers, A. L. (2024) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-323-96023-6.00121-4 · Cited by 2
Lincoln, S. H. (2015) · Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University)
The Politics of Arrested Development: Deepening the Purposes of Education
Shaker, P. S. (2012) · Western CEDAR (Western Washington University)
Preschoolers expect others to learn rationally from evidence
Yang, P., Magid, R. W., & Schulz, L. (2014) · eScholarship (California Digital Library)
Campbell, B. (2014) · Human Nature · doi:10.1007/s12110-014-9207-2
Mendonça, P., Savoie, A., & Émond, A.-M. (2019) · The Canadian Review of Art Education / Revue canadienne d’éducation artistique · doi:10.26443/crae.v46i2.69
Sotillo, M. (2020) · Journal for the Study of Education and Development Infancia y Aprendizaje · doi:10.1080/02103702.2020.1810945
The Implications of Adolescent Neuroscience on Policy
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.009
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.010
Cognitive Neuroscience Methods to Study the Adolescent Brain
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.004
The Social Brain in Adolescence and Adulthood: Lessons in Mindreading
Elison, J. T., & Sera, M. D. (2018) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781119461746.ch4 · Cited by 1
Theory of MindPreprint
Sabbagh, M. A., & Bowman, L. C. (2018) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/3atjs
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.001
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.005
The relationship between self-other distinction and empathy in social cognition
Bao, L., & Mao, W. (2023) · Journal of Education and Educational Research · doi:10.54097/jeer.v2i3.7553
Bai, W. (2023) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app13127130
Guo, E. Y. T., Leblanc, É., Dégeilh, F., Beauchamp, M. H., & Bernier, A. (2023) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470919.2023.2257882
“Accordingly, functional imaging studies in healthy children have consistently reported cortical activation in this region across various ToM tasks (e.g., Alkire et al., 2018; Bowman et al., 2019; Gweon et al., 2012; Moriguchi et al., 2007).”
BackgroundResultGalván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.003
Galván, A. (2018) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781316106143.007
de Haan, M. D. H., Johnson, M. H., & Dumontheil, I. (2023) · Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1002/9781394260676.refs
(2015) · Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1002/9781394259083.refs
Bortfeld, H., & Bunge, S. A. (2024) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108595827.008
Neuroanatomy of Social Cognition and Theory of Mind
Mahali, M. (2024) · Advances in medical technologies and clinical practice book series · doi:10.4018/979-8-3693-1265-0.ch009
Predicting Theory of Mind in children from the infant connectomePreprint
Schüler, C., Berger, P., & Wiesmann, C. G. (2024) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2024.05.22.595346
Executive Functioning Processes in Simple and Complex Theory of Mind Tasks
Shamji, J. F. (2022) · University of North Texas Digital Library (University of North Texas) · doi:10.12794/metadc1985747
Malle, B., & Robbins, P. (2025) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108894357.015
FeldmanHall, O., & Vives, M. (2025) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108894357.016
Salvano-Pardieu, V., & Pennequin, V. (2025) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-84595-6_5
A Pilot Study of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and the Right Teaching Parietal JunctionPreprint
Skowron, M., Morante, A., Alvarez, A., & Keenan, J. P. (2025) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2025.09.15.676361
“Two developmental fMRI studies confirmed that the functional specialization of the rTPJ was associated with improved performance on ToM tasks (Gweon et al., 2012; Mukerji et al., 2019).”
Research on Children’s Theory of Mind
Saracho, O. N. (2013) · Emerald Group Publishing Limited eBooks · doi:10.1108/978-1-62396-513-620251003
Evolving brain function and connectivity patterns during mentalizing in children and adults
Borbás, R., Dimanova, P., Saikkonen, D., Federici, E., Scatolin, S., & Raschle, N. M. (2026) · Communications Biology · doi:10.1038/s42003-026-09562-6
“However, while task-based activation during mentalizing is well-documented 8,16,23,44,45 , task-based functionalconnectivityremainslessunderstood.”
Metadata
- Authors
- Gweon, H., Dodell-Feder, D., Bedny, M., & Saxe, R.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-11-01
- Volume
- 83
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1853-1868
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- OpenAlex
- W2113635677
- Cited by
- 206
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 27.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Keywords
- theory of mind, children, temporoparietal junction, precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex, neural development, cognitive development, functional specialization, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adolescent, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Brain, Child, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Thinking, Young Adult, Theory of Mind
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
