Journal of Basic Research in Medical Sciences
مجله ی تحقیقات پایه در علوم پزشکی
Journal of Basic Research in Medical Sciences
Medical Sciences
http://jbrms.medilam.ac.ir
1
admin
2383-0506
2383-0972
doi
en
jalali
1396
12
1
gregorian
2018
3
1
5
2
online
1
fulltext
en
Theory of mind and its neural mechanisms: A case study of Kurdish-Persian congenitally blind children in Ilam city
Psychology
Psychology
پژوهشي
Research
<div><strong>Introduction: </strong>Theory of mind is one of the most important aspects of cognitive faculty. The theory of mind is impaired in individuals who suffer from mental disorders like autistic children. The ‘autistic-like’ behaviors also have been reported in the congenitally blind children. This study was conducted to examine the presence or absence of theory of mind and its function in congenitally blind children.<br>
<strong>Materials and methods:</strong> A number of 20 individuals containing 10 bilingual congenitally blind children from Baghcheban elementary school of Ilam city as a case group and 10 sighted ones as a control group were selected. Three kinds of false belief cognitive tests appropriate for the congenitally blind children were designed. The collected data were analyzed using one sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, independent t-test along with Levenn test and one-way and two-way Analysis of Variance.<br>
<strong>Results:</strong> Considering the performance of congenitally blind children in false belief tasks, the blindness just had effect on the story narration task (P<0.05<span dir="RTL">(</span>, while it did not have any effect on the two other tasks. The same performance of the male and female subjects indicated that gender did not have any impact on the development of the theory of mind (P>0.05).</div>
<strong>Conclusion: </strong>The findings showed only the story narration task was affected by blindness, because this task was more dependent on visual sense. Therefore, blindness results in delay in evolution of theory of mind. To fix this delay, the congenitally blind children should be exposed to further tactile and olfactory inputs.
Congenitally blind, Theory of mind, False belief task, Mirror neurons, Ilam
39
47
http://jbrms.medilam.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-323-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1
Shahla
Raghibdoust
neishabour@hotmail.com
10031947532846003062
10031947532846003062
Yes
Department of General Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran
Elham
Sobati
elhamsobati@yahoo.com
10031947532846003063
10031947532846003063
No
Department of General Linguistics, PhD Student of General Linguistics, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran
Vida
Shaghaghi
vshaghaghi@hotmail.com
10031947532846003064
10031947532846003064
No
Department of General Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran