TY - GEN
T1 - How does a doll play affect socio-emotional development in children?
T2 - 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Creativity + Cognition + Computation, CogSci 2019
AU - Sekine, Kazuki
AU - Yamamoto, Eriko
AU - Miyahara, Saeka
AU - Minagawa, Yasuyo
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by contract research grant from INFER Co., Ltd. and Japan Science and Technology Agency CREST (JP-MJCR14E2).
Publisher Copyright:
© Cognitive Science Society: Creativity + Cognition + Computation, CogSci 2019.All rights reserved.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Mentalization is an important ability to acquire for children, as it allows humans to understand the mental state of others or oneself, that underlies overt behavior (Fonagy & Target, 1996). In the current study we examined the relationship between development of mentalization ability in children and their experience of playing with a doll by observing child-mother interaction and by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). 44 dyads of children aged 2 to 3 and their mothers were divided into two groups (high and low) depending on the frequency of doll-play experience. We examined mother-speech interaction during the doll play. We also used fNIRS system to measure cerebral hemodynamic activation in the frontal and temporal regions during the observation of video clips showing hindering and helping behaviors. The results showed that a mother's proxy talk was related to a child's doll directed speech in the high group, but not in the low group. fNRIS data showed that cerebral activation in the helping condition was more increased in the low group than the high group. This suggests that doll-play experience facilitates the development of mentalization, which enables children to be aware of and understand other's psychological states.
AB - Mentalization is an important ability to acquire for children, as it allows humans to understand the mental state of others or oneself, that underlies overt behavior (Fonagy & Target, 1996). In the current study we examined the relationship between development of mentalization ability in children and their experience of playing with a doll by observing child-mother interaction and by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). 44 dyads of children aged 2 to 3 and their mothers were divided into two groups (high and low) depending on the frequency of doll-play experience. We examined mother-speech interaction during the doll play. We also used fNIRS system to measure cerebral hemodynamic activation in the frontal and temporal regions during the observation of video clips showing hindering and helping behaviors. The results showed that a mother's proxy talk was related to a child's doll directed speech in the high group, but not in the low group. fNRIS data showed that cerebral activation in the helping condition was more increased in the low group than the high group. This suggests that doll-play experience facilitates the development of mentalization, which enables children to be aware of and understand other's psychological states.
KW - doll play
KW - fNIRS
KW - mentalizing
KW - social understanding
KW - young children
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85111888504
T3 - Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Creativity + Cognition + Computation, CogSci 2019
SP - 2776
EP - 2782
BT - Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
PB - The Cognitive Science Society
Y2 - 24 July 2019 through 27 July 2019
ER -