‘What are they feeling now?’ the role of theory of mind but not inhibitory control in individual differences of adolescent emotional inferencing abilities

Chiang, Tania Dephin (2022). ‘What are they feeling now?’ the role of theory of mind but not inhibitory control in individual differences of adolescent emotional inferencing abilities. University of Birmingham. Other

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Abstract

Emotional inferencing, a component of reading comprehension, is an important skill in understanding narrative literature. To infer a character’s emotional state, readers form mental models containing representations of the text and use these to make inferences. In this study, we explored the potential role of two cognitive factors in forming these mental models: theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control (IC). These abilities have been linked to language abilities, but their relationship with affective inferencing has yet to be studied. Furthermore, considering the importance of ToM in adolescence, and because cognitive abilities have been argued to be more important for reading comprehension in older students, we specifically investigated adolescent emotional inferencing abilities. We hypothesised that adolescents with better ToM and IC will form better mental models compared to those with poorer abilities. This would be reflected in their faster reading times when reading sentences congruent with an emotion established by context and longer reading times for incongruent sentences. This relationship will be independent of the effects of linguistic factors.

Two hundred and ninety-six 16- to 18-year-old students from United Kingdom sixth forms completed questionnaires measuring the cognitive and linguistic factors, followed by a self-paced reading task. Results suggested that ToM could be involved in updating mental models rather than forming them. On the other hand, IC was not found to be predictive of emotional-inferencing abilities. However, we propose that this is due to how we conceptualised and measured IC. If, in replication studies, ToM and IC are found to be significant and relevant predictors of updating and forming mental models, these cognitive factors could be included in reading intervention research involving narrative texts with shifting emotions and perspectives. Finally, we discuss limitations to our study and recommend methodological changes for future emotional-inferencing research.

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Thesis (Other)

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