Sources of Cognitive Conflict and Their Relevance to Theory-of-Mind Proficiency in Healthy Aging: A Preregistered Study

Age-related decline in theory of mind (ToM) may be due to waning executive control, which is necessary for resolving conflict when reasoning about other individuals’ mental states. We assessed how older (n = 50) and younger (n = 50) adults were affected by three theoretically relevant sources of con...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2021-12, Vol.32 (12), p.1918-1936
Main Authors: Rahman, Foyzul, Kessler, Klaus, Apperly, Ian A., Hansen, Peter C., Javed, Sabrina, Holland, Carol A., Hartwright, Charlotte E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age differences
Aged
Aging
Cognition - physiology
Competence
Conflict
Executive control
Executive Function - physiology
Healthy Aging
Humans
Individual differences
Memory, Short-Term
Mental states
Neuropsychological Tests
Older people
Short term memory
Theory of mind
Theory of Mind - physiology
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Summary:Age-related decline in theory of mind (ToM) may be due to waning executive control, which is necessary for resolving conflict when reasoning about other individuals’ mental states. We assessed how older (n = 50) and younger (n = 50) adults were affected by three theoretically relevant sources of conflict within ToM: competing self-other perspectives, competing cued locations, and outcome knowledge. We examined which best accounted for age-related difficulty with ToM. Our data show unexpected similarity between age groups when people are representing a belief incongruent with their own. Individual differences in attention and response speed best explained the degree of conflict experienced through incompatible self-other perspectives. However, older adults were disproportionately affected by managing conflict between cued locations. Age and spatial working memory were most relevant for predicting the magnitude of conflict elicited by conflicting cued locations. We suggest that previous studies may have underestimated older adults’ ToM proficiency by including unnecessary conflict in ToM tasks.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/09567976211017870