Theory of Mind Task Selector

Theory of Mind Task Selector

Purpose

This skill encodes expert knowledge for selecting, administering, and interpreting Theory of Mind (ToM) assessments. It provides a construct taxonomy, task selection decision trees, age-appropriate recommendations, psychometric properties, and guidance on confounds. A general-purpose programmer would not know which ToM tasks are appropriate for which populations, the developmental sequence of ToM abilities, or the psychometric limitations of common measures.

When to Use This Skill

• Selecting a ToM measure for a developmental, clinical, or adult study
• Matching a ToM task to the target population (children, adults, ASD, brain injury, aging)
• Designing a comprehensive ToM assessment battery
• Evaluating the psychometric properties of a proposed ToM measure
• Identifying confounds (language, executive function, IQ) that may affect ToM task performance
• Interpreting ceiling/floor effects in ToM data

Research Planning Protocol

Before executing the domain-specific steps below, you MUST:

1. State the research question -- What specific question is this analysis/paradigm addressing?
2. Justify the method choice -- Why is this approach appropriate? What alternatives were considered?
3. Declare expected outcomes -- What results would support vs. refute the hypothesis?
4. Note assumptions and limitations -- What does this method assume? Where could it mislead?
5. Present the plan to the user and WAIT for confirmation before proceeding.

For detailed methodology guidance, see the research-literacy skill.

⚠️ Verification Notice

This skill was generated by AI from academic literature. All parameters, thresholds, and citations require independent verification before use in research. If you find errors, please open an issue.

ToM Construct Taxonomy

Developmental Hierarchy

ToM develops in a predictable sequence (Wellman & Liu, 2004). Tasks should be matched to the expected level:

Level	Construct	Age of Emergence	Key Task	Source
1	Diverse desires	~3 years	Diverse desires task	Wellman & Liu, 2004
2	Diverse beliefs	~3-4 years	Diverse beliefs task	Wellman & Liu, 2004
3	Knowledge access	~4 years	Knowledge access task	Wellman & Liu, 2004
4	First-order false belief	~4-5 years	Sally-Anne (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)	Wellman et al., 2001
5	Hidden emotion	~5-6 years	Appearance-reality emotion task	Wellman & Liu, 2004
6	Second-order false belief	~6-7 years	Ice-cream van task	Perner & Wimmer, 1985
7	Faux pas recognition	~9-11 years	Faux pas stories	Baron-Cohen et al., 1999
8	Advanced/adult ToM	Adolescence-adult	Strange Stories, RMET	Happe, 1994; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001

Construct Dimensions

Dimension	Description	Example Tasks
Belief attribution	Understanding others' beliefs, especially false beliefs	Sally-Anne, unexpected contents
Desire attribution	Understanding others' desires differ from one's own	Diverse desires task
Intention attribution	Understanding goal-directed action and intentionality	Intentional vs. accidental actions
Emotion attribution	Understanding others' emotions from context/cues	Hidden emotion, RMET
Visual perspective-taking	Level 1: what others see; Level 2: how others see it	Director task, Flavell tasks
Implicit/spontaneous ToM	Automatic, non-verbal ToM processing	Anticipatory looking, VoE paradigms

Task Selection Decision Tree

By Age Group

What is the participant's age?
 |
 +-- Infants (6-24 months)
 | --> Implicit ToM tasks only
 | --> Anticipatory looking (Southgate et al., 2007)
 | --> Violation-of-expectation (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005)
 |
 +-- Preschoolers (3-5 years)
 | --> Wellman & Liu (2004) scale (5 tasks)
 | --> Sally-Anne / Change of location (Wimmer & Perner, 1983)
 | --> Unexpected contents / Smarties task (Gopnik & Astington, 1988)
 |
 +-- School-age (6-12 years)
 | --> Second-order false belief (Perner & Wimmer, 1985)
 | --> Faux pas stories (Baron-Cohen et al., 1999)
 | --> Strange Stories (Happe, 1994) -- simplified versions
 |
 +-- Adolescents and Adults
 --> Strange Stories (Happe, 1994)
 --> RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001)
 --> Director task (Keysar et al., 2003)
 --> Faux pas test (Baron-Cohen et al., 1999)
 --> Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC; Dziobek et al., 2006)

By Population

What is the target population?
 |
 +-- Typically developing children
 | --> Wellman & Liu (2004) scale (most validated)
 | --> Standard false belief tasks
 |
 +-- Autism spectrum (children)
 | --> Sally-Anne (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985)
 | --> Unexpected contents (Perner et al., 1989)
 | --> Happe Strange Stories (if verbal)
 | |
 | NOTE: Many autistic individuals pass standard false
 | belief tasks by age 6-8. Use advanced tasks to
 | avoid ceiling effects (Happe, 1994).
 |
 +-- Autism spectrum (adults)
 | --> RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001)
 | --> Faux pas test (Baron-Cohen et al., 1999)
 | --> MASC (Dziobek et al., 2006)
 | --> Director task (Keysar et al., 2003)
 |
 +-- Brain injury / neurological
 | --> Faux pas test (Stone et al., 1998)
 | --> Strange Stories (Happe, 1994)
 | --> RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001)
 | --> Yoni task (Shamay-Tsoory & Aharon-Peretz, 2007)
 |
 +-- Aging / dementia
 --> Faux pas test (Gregory et al., 2002)
 --> RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001)
 --> Strange Stories (Happe, 1994)
 --> Note: control for processing speed and working memory

By Construct

What ToM construct are you targeting?
 |
 +-- Belief attribution
 | --> False belief tasks (Sally-Anne, unexpected contents)
 | --> Second-order false belief
 |
 +-- Emotion recognition
 | --> RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001)
 | --> Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery
 |
 +-- Social reasoning / pragmatics
 | --> Faux pas test
 | --> Strange Stories
 |
 +-- Visual perspective-taking
 | --> Director task (Keysar et al., 2003)
 | --> Flavell Level 1/2 tasks
 |
 +-- Implicit / spontaneous ToM
 --> Anticipatory looking paradigms
 --> Dot-perspective task (Samson et al., 2010)

Key Tasks with Parameters

First-Order False Belief: Sally-Anne Task

Property	Value	Source
Original citation	Wimmer & Perner, 1983; Baron-Cohen et al., 1985
Age range	3-6 years (standard); used in ASD at any age	Wellman et al., 2001
Administration	Acted out with dolls/puppets or illustrated story	Baron-Cohen et al., 1985
Test question	"Where will Sally look for her marble?"
Control questions	Reality question + memory question (must pass both)	Baron-Cohen et al., 1985
Scoring	Pass/fail (binary)
Passing criterion	Correct test question + both control questions	Baron-Cohen et al., 1985
Typical passing rates	~20% at 3 years, ~50% at 4 years, ~90% by 5-6 years	Wellman et al., 2001
Limitations	Ceiling by age 6; binary scoring limits sensitivity	Wellman et al., 2001

Unexpected Contents (Smarties Task)

Property	Value	Source
Original citation	Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Perner et al., 1987
Age range	3-6 years	Gopnik & Astington, 1988
Administration	Show container (e.g., Smarties box) with unexpected contents (e.g., pencils)
Test question	"What will [name] think is in the box?" (other's belief)
Self question	"What did you think was in the box before I opened it?" (own prior belief)
Scoring	Pass: predicts other will say "Smarties" (or typical contents)

Second-Order False Belief

Property	Value	Source
Original citation	Perner & Wimmer, 1985
Age range	6-9 years	Perner & Wimmer, 1985
Construct	"She thinks that he thinks that..."
Administration	Story scenario (ice-cream van paradigm)	Perner & Wimmer, 1985
Test question	"Where does Mary think John will go to buy ice cream?"
Passing rates	~10% at 5 years, ~50% at 7 years, ~90% by 9 years	Perner & Wimmer, 1985
Comprehension questions	2-3 memory/comprehension checks required	Standard practice

RMET (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test)

Property	Value	Source
Original citation	Baron-Cohen et al., 2001
Version	Revised version (2001) -- 36 items	Baron-Cohen et al., 2001
Age range	Adults (16+ years); child version available (28 items)	Baron-Cohen et al., 2001
Administration	Forced-choice: pick 1 of 4 mental state words matching eye region photo
Scoring	Total correct out of 36 (adults) or 28 (children)
Adult norms	Mean ~ 26.2 (SD ~ 3.6) in typical adults	Baron-Cohen et al., 2001
ASD norms	Mean ~ 21.9 (SD ~ 6.6) in autistic adults	Baron-Cohen et al., 2001
Reliability	Internal consistency: Cronbach's alpha ~ 0.60-0.70 (modest)	Olderbak et al., 2015
Limitations	Low reliability, possible confound with emotion recognition vs. ToM per se	Olderbak et al., 2015

Faux Pas Test

Property	Value	Source
Original citation	Baron-Cohen et al., 1999
Age range	9 years to adult	Baron-Cohen et al., 1999
Administration	Read 10 faux pas stories + 10 control stories
Questions per story	Detection ("Did someone say something awkward?"), identification, belief, empathy	Baron-Cohen et al., 1999
Scoring	0-2 points per question; max 60 for faux pas stories	Baron-Cohen et al., 1999
Control stories	Must also score comprehension questions for controls
Sensitivity	Good for detecting subtle ToM deficits in ASD, right hemisphere lesions, frontotemporal dementia	Stone et al., 1998; Gregory et al., 2002

Strange Stories (Happe, 1994)

Property	Value	Source
Original citation	Happe, 1994
Construct	Advanced ToM: irony, white lie, double bluff, misunderstanding, persuasion, appearance/reality, figure of speech, sarcasm, forgetting, contrary emotions
Administration	Read vignettes, open-ended question: "Why did X say that?"
Scoring	0 (incorrect), 1 (partial), 2 (full mental state reference)	Happe, 1994
Number of stories	8-16 ToM stories + physical control stories	Happe, 1994
Age range	Children (8+) and adults	Happe, 1994
Reliability	Inter-rater reliability for scoring: kappa > 0.85 recommended	Happe, 1994

Director Task (Visual Perspective-Taking)

Property	Value	Source
Original citation	Keysar et al., 2003
Construct	Level 2 perspective-taking under communicative demand
Administration	Grid of objects; director (behind grid) instructs participant to move objects; some slots occluded from director's view
Measure	Eye movements (egocentric intrusions), accuracy, RT	Keysar et al., 2003
Key finding	Even adults show egocentric errors on ~30-50% of critical trials	Keysar et al., 2003
Age range	7 years to adult	Dumontheil et al., 2010

See references/task-database.md for the full task list with administration protocols.

Psychometric Considerations

Reliability Summary

Task	Internal Consistency	Test-Retest	Source
Sally-Anne (single item)	N/A (binary)	Variable	Wellman et al., 2001
Wellman & Liu Scale	Guttman scalability > 0.90	Moderate	Wellman & Liu, 2004
RMET	alpha ~ 0.60-0.70	r ~ 0.63-0.83	Olderbak et al., 2015; Fernandez-Abascal et al., 2013
Faux pas test	alpha ~ 0.70-0.80	Not well-established	Baron-Cohen et al., 1999
Strange Stories	Inter-rater: kappa > 0.85	Moderate	Happe, 1994
MASC	alpha ~ 0.70	Adequate	Dziobek et al., 2006

Validity Concerns

1. Ceiling effects: Standard false belief tasks show ceiling by age 5-6 in typical children. Use Wellman & Liu scale or advanced tasks (Wellman & Liu, 2004).
2. Floor effects: RMET and faux pas tests may show floor effects in clinical populations with severe deficits. Consider graded scoring.
3. Ecological validity: Structured ToM tasks may not predict real-world social behavior (German & Hehman, 2006).
4. Task purity: No ToM task measures only ToM. All tasks involve language, memory, executive function, and attention.

Confounds and Controls

Language

Confound	Impact	Mitigation	Source
Verbal demands	False belief tasks require comprehension of complex sentences	Include vocabulary/language control measure	Milligan et al., 2007
Narrative complexity	Second-order tasks have heavy memory load	Add comprehension check questions	Perner & Wimmer, 1985
Word knowledge (RMET)	Vocabulary confound in forced-choice emotion labels	Control for verbal IQ	Olderbak et al., 2015

Executive Function

Confound	Impact	Mitigation	Source
Inhibitory control	Must inhibit own knowledge to attribute false belief	Include inhibition measure (e.g., Stroop, day-night)	Carlson & Moses, 2001
Working memory	Must hold multiple perspectives simultaneously	Control for WM span	Carlson & Moses, 2001
Cognitive flexibility	Must switch between self and other perspective	Include set-shifting measure	Carlson & Moses, 2001

Recommended Control Measures

For any ToM study, include at minimum:

1. Verbal ability: Receptive vocabulary (e.g., PPVT) or verbal IQ subscale
2. Inhibitory control: Age-appropriate inhibition task
3. Working memory: Forward/backward digit span or equivalent
4. Non-ToM comprehension: Physical causality control stories (for Strange Stories and faux pas)

Task Combination Recommendations

Comprehensive Battery by Population

Population	Recommended Battery	Rationale
Preschool (3-5y)	Wellman & Liu Scale (5 tasks) + diverse desires + diverse beliefs	Guttman-scalable, captures developmental progression (Wellman & Liu, 2004)
School-age (6-12y)	First-order FB + second-order FB + faux pas + Strange Stories subset	Spans implicit to advanced ToM
ASD (children)	Sally-Anne + unexpected contents + Strange Stories (simplified)	Avoids ceiling; includes advanced items
ASD (adults)	RMET + faux pas + MASC + Director task	Multiple constructs; includes real-time and reflective tasks
Neurological (adults)	Faux pas + Strange Stories + RMET	Sensitive to frontal and right hemisphere lesions (Stone et al., 1998)
Aging research	Faux pas + RMET + Strange Stories	Control for processing speed; established aging norms

Minimum Battery (2-3 tasks)

If time is limited, prioritize:

1. One false belief task (for belief attribution)
2. Faux pas or Strange Stories (for advanced ToM / social reasoning)
3. RMET (for emotion/mental state recognition -- if construct-relevant)

Common Pitfalls

1. Using a single task as the sole ToM measure: ToM is multidimensional. Single tasks have low reliability and capture only one construct. Use a battery (Wellman & Liu, 2004).
2. Ignoring ceiling/floor effects: Standard false belief tasks ceiling by age 5-6. The RMET has modest reliability. Check for restricted range.
3. Not controlling for language: Most ToM tasks have substantial verbal demands. Group differences in ToM may reflect language differences, especially in ASD (Milligan et al., 2007).
4. Confounding ToM with executive function: False belief tasks require inhibitory control. Include EF measures and control statistically or use low-EF-demand tasks (Carlson & Moses, 2001).
5. Age-inappropriate task selection: Giving first-order false belief to adults (ceiling) or faux pas to 4-year-olds (floor). Match task to developmental level.
6. Treating the RMET as a pure ToM measure: The RMET has low reliability (alpha ~ 0.60-0.70) and may measure emotion recognition more than mental state inference (Olderbak et al., 2015).
7. Assuming failed performance = absent ToM: Implicit/anticipatory looking studies suggest infants may have ToM understanding that explicit tasks fail to capture (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005). Distinguish competence from performance.
8. Not including control stories: For faux pas and Strange Stories, physical/non-mental-state control stories are essential to rule out general comprehension deficits.

Minimum Reporting Checklist

• ToM construct(s) targeted (belief, desire, emotion, perspective-taking)
• Task(s) used with full citation and version
• Administration method (live, video, computerized)
• Scoring criteria and inter-rater reliability (for open-ended tasks)
• Control questions included and pass rates
• Confound measures included (language, EF, IQ)
• Ceiling/floor analysis: report distribution of scores, not just means
• Age and developmental level of participants
• Clinical classification criteria (if clinical population)
• Effect sizes and confidence intervals for group comparisons

References

• Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a "theory of mind"? Cognition, 21(1), 37-46.
• Baron-Cohen, S., O'Riordan, M., Stone, V., Jones, R., & Plaisted, K. (1999). Recognition of faux pas by normally developing children and children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29(5), 407-418.
• Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y., & Plumb, I. (2001). The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test revised version. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42(2), 241-251.
• Carlson, S. M., & Moses, L. J. (2001). Individual differences in inhibitory control and children's theory of mind. Child Development, 72(4), 1032-1053.
• Dumontheil, I., Apperly, I. A., & Blakemore, S. J. (2010). Online usage of theory of mind continues to develop in late adolescence. Developmental Science, 13(2), 331-338.
• Dziobek, I., Fleck, S., Kalbe, E., Rogers, K., Hassenstab, J., Brand, M., ... & Convit, A. (2006). Introducing MASC: A movie for the assessment of social cognition. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(5), 623-636.
• Fernandez-Abascal, E. G., Cabello, R., Fernandez-Berrocal, P., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2013). Test-retest reliability of the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43(9), 2220-2223.
• German, T. P., & Hehman, J. A. (2006). Representational and executive selection resources in "theory of mind." Psychological Science, 17(2), 130-132.
• Gopnik, A., & Astington, J. W. (1988). Children's understanding of representational change and its relation to the understanding of false belief. Child Development, 59(1), 26-37.
• Gregory, C., Lough, S., Stone, V., Erzinclioglu, S., Martin, L., Baron-Cohen, S., & Hodges, J. R. (2002). Theory of mind in patients with frontal variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 72(6), 752-756.
• Happe, F. G. (1994). An advanced test of theory of mind. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24(2), 129-154.
• Keysar, B., Lin, S., & Barr, D. J. (2003). Limits on theory of mind use in adults. Cognition, 89(1), 25-41.
• Milligan, K., Astington, J. W., & Dack, L. A. (2007). Language and theory of mind: Meta-analysis of the relation between language ability and false-belief understanding. Child Development, 78(2), 622-646.
• Olderbak, S., Wilhelm, O., Olaru, G., Geiger, M., Brenneman, M. W., & Roberts, R. D. (2015). A psychometric analysis of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test. Assessment, 22(6), 798-806.
• Onishi, K. H., & Baillargeon, R. (2005). Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs? Science, 308(5719), 255-258.
• Perner, J., Leekam, S. R., & Wimmer, H. (1987). Three-year-olds' difficulty with false belief. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5(2), 125-137.
• Perner, J., & Wimmer, H. (1985). "John thinks that Mary thinks that..." Attribution of second-order beliefs. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 39(3), 437-471.
• Samson, D., Apperly, I. A., Braithwaite, J. J., Andrews, B. J., & Bodley Scott, S. E. (2010). Seeing it their way: Evidence for rapid and involuntary computation of what other people see. Journal of Experimental Psychology: HPP, 36(5), 1255-1266.
• Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2007). Dissociable prefrontal networks for cognitive and affective theory of mind. Neuropsychologia, 45(13), 3054-3067.
• Southgate, V., Senju, A., & Csibra, G. (2007). Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by 2-year-olds. Psychological Science, 18(7), 587-592.
• Stone, V. E., Baron-Cohen, S., & Knight, R. T. (1998). Frontal lobe contributions to theory of mind. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10(5), 640-656.
• Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: The truth about false belief. Child Development, 72(3), 655-684.
• Wellman, H. M., & Liu, D. (2004). Scaling of theory-of-mind tasks. Child Development, 75(2), 523-541.
• Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition, 13(1), 103-128.

See references/ for the full task database with administration protocols and scoring rubrics.