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Cultural comparisons suggest that an understanding of other minds may develop sooner in the independent settings, whereas inhibitory control may develop sooner in interdependent settings. From a western lens, this pattern might be considered paradoxical, since there is a robust positive relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control in western samples. In independent cultures, an emphasis on one’s own mind offers a clear route to ‘simulate’ other minds, and inhibitory control may be required to set aside own perspective to represent the perspective of others. However, in interdependent cultures, social norms are considered the key catalyst for behaviour, and metacognitive reflection and/or suppression of own perspective may not be necessary. The cross-cultural generalizability of the western developmental route to ToM is therefore questionable. The current study used an age-matched cross-sectional sample to contrast 56 Japanese and 56 Scottish 3- to 6-year-old’s metacognition, ToM and inhibitory control skills. In contrast to the individualistic perspective dominant in Scotland, in Japan, the word for self, jibun, translates as "one's share of the shared life space". We replicated the expected cultural advantages for ToM (Scotland > Japan) and inhibitory control (Japan > Scotland). Following the predictions of simulation theory, we find that the development of inhibitory control mediates the link between metacognition and theory of mind in Scotland. However, this model does not predict Japanese ToM. This confirms that individualistic mechanisms do not capture the developmental mechanism underlying ToM in Japan, highlighting a bias in our understanding of ToM development.

Although recent studies have shown cross-cultural differences in theory of mind (ToM) between children in Western and Eastern cultures, little is known about cross-cultural differences pertaining to social correlates. The present research investigated cultural variations in the relationship between sensitivity to criticism and ToM. Japanese (n = 76) and Italian (n = 76) 6-year-olds completed a sensitivity-to-criticism task (either the teacher condition or the peer condition), second-order false-belief tasks, and a verbal ability test. The results replicated previous findings of an association between ability rating after teacher criticism and ToM in both countries. Cultural variation was found in emotional response and motivation after teacher, but nor peer, criticism. Japanese children responded to teacher criticism more positively than did Italian children. Moreover, Japanese children who failed the second-order false-belief task were more motivated after teacher criticism than were Italian chil...

This study investigated sensitivity to teacher and peer criticism among 89 Japanese 6-year-olds and examined the connection between sensitivity to criticism and first-order and second-order theory of mind separately. Participants completed a common test battery that included tasks assessing sensitivity to criticism (teacher or peer condition), the Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised, and theory of mind tasks. The results showed that the children with better understanding of second-order mental states rated their ability negatively after teacher criticism, but they were motivated to keep trying. This phenomenon was found under only the teacher condition, and peer criticism did not significantly affect children's response, irrespective of theory-of-mind level. Cognitive and social factors that may have contributed to the children's responses to criticism are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reasoning about another's pretend and real crying is related to ma'ny important social cognitive abilities (e.g., emotional understanding, appearance-reality, and theory of mind). This study investigated whether children aged 6 years and younger could distinguish between instances of pretend crying and real crying as presented in stories. Sixty-five Japanese children aged 4-6 years were given stories within two contexts (Play and Non-play). In the Play context, the protagonist of the story was pretending to cry or really crying during a pretend play activity. In the Non-play context, the protagonist was also pretending to cry or really crying after his/her toy had been hidden by another child. The children answered questions about these crying events. The results showed that the 4- and 5-year-olds showed significantly better understanding of pretend crying in the Play context compared to the Non-play context. In the Non-play context, they were significantly less likely to understand the cause of pretend crying compared to the 6-year-olds. The results suggest that the context of pretend play facilitates the children's understanding of pretend crying.

In this commentary on ‘Friendlessness and theory of mind: A prospective longitudinal study’ by Fink, Begeer, Peterson, Slaughter, and de Rosnay (Brit. J. Dev. Psychol, 2015; 33, 1–17) we reconsider the link between early mastery of theory of mind (ToM) and social relationships by focusing on connections with other related areas of socio-cognitive ability such as emotional competence, ToM development across age, and the effect of interventions.

This study examined young children’s understanding of apparent crying and its potentially misleading consequences. Gross and Harris (1988) showed that 6-year-olds can understand that one can simulate an emotion while feeling another, and that such a display can mislead others. In this study, 69 children aged 4, 5, and 6 were given “crying tasks” and “Standard and Second-order False Belief tasks”. In “crying tasks”, participants were asked to identify whether the protagonist was actually crying, and whether the other character believed that the protagonist was actually crying. The results indicate that children’s understanding of apparent crying develops between the ages of 4 and 6. However, most of the children did not understand its misleading consequences. Furthermore, relationships were found between the understanding of apparent crying and the False Belief tasks. This finding suggests that the development of young children’s understanding of apparent crying relates to the development of theory of mind.

We conducted 3 studies to explore cultural differences in global versus local processing and their developmental trajectories. In Study 1 (N = 363), we found that Japanese college students were less globally oriented in their processing than American or Argentine participants. We replicated this effect in Study 2 (N = 1,843) using a nationally representative sample of Japanese and American adults ages 20 to 69, and found further that adults in both cultures became more globally oriented with age. In Study 3 (N = 133), we investigated the developmental course of the cultural difference using Japanese and American children, and found it was evident by 4 years of age. Cultural variations in global versus local processing emerge by early childhood, and remain throughout adulthood. At the same time, both Japanese and Americans become increasingly global processors with age.

Findings from cross-cultural theory-of-mind studies highlight potential measurement effects and both general (e.g., East-West) and specific (e.g., pedagogical experiences) cultural contrasts. We compared theory-of-mind scores for children from UK and Italy (two Western countries that differ in age of school entry) and Japan (a Far-Eastern country in which children, like their Italian counterparts, start school later than British children). Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to data from 268 age-gender- and verbal ability-matched 5- to 6-year olds. Key findings were that (i) all 8 indicators loaded onto a single latent factor; and (ii) this latent factor explained significant variance in each group, with just one indicator showing differential item functioning. Supporting the importance of pedagogical experiences, British children outperformed both their Italian and Japanese counterparts.

We propose a method for synthesizing a photorealistic human aged-face image based on the patch-based texture synthesis using a set of human face images of a target age. The advantage of our method is that it synthesizes an aged-face image with fine skin texture such as spots and pigments of facial skin, as well as age-related facial wrinkles without blurs (such as those resulting from lack of accurate pixel-wise alignments as in the linear combination model) while maintaining the quality of the original image.

Caregivers’ emotional responses to children influence children’s social and emotional development. This study investigated the association between maternal emotional expressiveness in the context of mother–child interactions and young children’s sensitivity to teacher criticism. Sensitivity to teacher criticism was assessed among 53 Japanese preschoolers using hypothetical scenarios in which a puppet child representing the participant made a small error, and a puppet teacher pointed out the error. Self-report questionnaires were used to measure maternal expressiveness. The results demonstrated that negative maternal expressiveness toward one’s own children was positively related to children’s ratings of their own ability and negatively related to children’s motivation to continue with the task after teacher criticism. Positive maternal expressiveness was not related to children’s sensitivity to criticism. These findings suggest that children who have experienced more negative emotion from mothers may be more likely to hold negative beliefs about how others will respond to their behavior more generally. This may, in turn, lead to a defensively positive view of one’s own abilities and a disinclination to persevere as protection from additional opportunities for teacher evaluation.

Many studies on an aged face image synthesis have been reported with the purpose of security application such as investigation for criminal or kidnapped child and entertainment applications such as movie or video game.