Irony Understanding and Theory of Mind: A Study with Brazilian Children

• Grant number: 10/08745-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2010
• End date: July 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Human Development Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Débora de Hollanda Souza
• Grantee: Nádia Villa
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Theory of mind is the ability to explain human behavior by understanding the mental states that motivate human action. Recent studies have revealed a clear association between theory-of-mind development and language. Moreover, there has been increasing interest in investigations of the relationship between theory of mind and irony understanding in school-aged children. The present project's main goal is to investigate this relationship in Brazilian children. Forty-eight 7-, 8- and 9-year-old children will participate in the study and will be evaluated in different theory-of-mind tasks and in one irony understanding task which was translated and adapted for the present study. Participants' language will be measured by a receptive vocabulary test. The hypothesis is that a positive correlation between participants' performance in the theory-of mind-tasks and in the irony understanding task will be found, as well as a significant effect of age on children's performance in all tasks. Considering the limited number of Brazilian studies on the topic, it is hoped that the present project may contribute to the theory-of-mind field of studies in Brazil, and more broadly, that it may help advance our current knowledge on the relationship between this sociocognitive ability and language development.