Citation

Benarous X, Guile JM, Consoli A, Cohen D. Front. Psychiatry 2015; 6: e108.

Affiliation

Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière , Paris , France ; UMR 7222, Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robotics, Université Pierre et Marie Curie , Paris , France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Frontiers Media)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00108

PMID

26283975

PMCID

PMC4516890

Abstract

Compared to the large number of studies exploring difficulties in emotion recognition in maltreated children, few (N = 12) have explored the cognitive aspect of theory of mind (ToM), i.e., the ability to understand others' thoughts and intentions. A systematic review of these studies shows inconsistent results regarding cognitive ToM tasks. Youths with a history of maltreatment are more likely to fail at false-belief tasks (N = 2). However, results are less conclusive regarding other tasks (perspective-taking tasks, N = 4; and hostile attribution tasks, N = 7). Additionally, only one study controlled for potential psychopathology. Measures of psychopathology and other cognitive abilities, in addition to ToM, are required to establish a specific association between maltreatment and the cognitive dimension of ToM.

Language: en