學齡前孩童認知及情感心智理論與執行功能之關係

Background: Theory of mind (ToM) and executive function (EF) are important to preschool children and may interact throughout preschool development. Recent neuroimaging research has shown ToM to have cognitive and affective aspects. However, so far, no researchers have separately investigated the relationships between these two aspects of ToM and EF. Hence, the purpose of this research was to explore the relationships between both cognitive and affective ToM and EF in preschool children. Methods: A total of 124 children aged between 3 years old and 6 years 5 months were assessed with the Brief Preschool Theory of Mind Assessment (BP-ToMA), Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS) , and Verbal Comprehension Index of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Fourth Edition respectively for their ToM, EF, and verbal comprehension abilities. Results: Most of the correlations between the cognitive and affective ToM subscale scores of the BP-ToMA and the reaction times of the one- and two-dimension tests of the DCCS were significant (|r| = 0.197-0.318, p ＜ 0.05) . The correlations between affective ToM scores of the BP-ToMA and reaction times of the DCCS were stronger than those between the cognitive ToM scores of the BP-ToMA and the reaction times of the DCCS. Conclusion: Both affective and cognitive ToM are significantly correlated with EF, and the relationship between affective ToM and EF is the stronger of the two. These findings clarify the relationships between ToM and EF for better practice and as a basis for further exploration of their mechanisms.