Blind children reason about visually sourced mental states similarly to sighted children¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2028: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q3 i? On items requiring reasoning about characters' visual experiences, blind children did not perform significantly differently from sighted children (b=−0.15, t=−1.7, p=.09). → Richardson H. 2023

Evidence¶

Richardson H. 2023¶

Richardson H., Saxe R., Bedny M. (2023). Neural correlates of theory of mind reasoning in congenitally blind children. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101285

q3 · i? · associational · r2

Source-modality items of the non-visual ToM task in 12 blind and 21 sighted children; the task included "9 questions each" targeting visual and aural sources. No significant group difference; no effect size printed.

"Considering exclusively the items that required reasoning about characters’ visual experiences, blind children did not perform significantly differently from sighted children (group effect, controlling for age: b=−0.15, t = −1.7, CI=[−0.33,0.03], p=.09;"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• RTPJ selectivity for mental state content does not differ between blind and sighted children
• Inter-region correlations within the ToM network are lower in blind children, while ToM and language networks remain functionally distinct — related
• Blind and sighted children do not differ in performance on false-belief items of the non-visual ToM task — related
• Congenitally blind children perform slightly less accurately on a non-visual behavioral ToM task than sighted children, controlling for age — related
• RTPJ selectivity correlates with behavioral ToM task performance across blind and sighted children combined — related