Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Mentalization is an important ability to acquire for children,as it allows humans to understand the mental state of others oroneself, that underlies overt behavior (Fonagy & Target,1996). In the current study we examined the relationshipbetween development of mentalization ability in children andtheir experience of playing with a doll by observing child-mother interaction and by using functional near-infraredspectroscopy (fNIRS). 44 dyads of children aged 2 to 3 andtheir mothers were divided into two groups (high and low)depending on the frequency of doll-play experience. Weexamined mother-speech interaction during the doll play. Wealso used fNIRS system to measure cerebral hemodynamicactivation in the frontal and temporal regions during theobservation of video clips showing hindering and helpingbehaviors. The results showed that a mother’s proxy talk wasrelated to a child’s doll directed speech in the high group, butnot in the low group. fNRIS data showed that cerebralactivation in the helping condition was more increased in thelow group than the high group. This suggests that doll-playexperience facilitates the development of mentalization,which enables children to be aware of and understand other'spsychological states.