The relationship between metaphor skills and Theory of Mind in middle childhood: Task and developmental effects

Theoretical pragmatics in the post-Gricean tradition argued that metaphor requires understanding of how another person sees the world. Yet, it is unclear what role mindreading plays in developing metaphor skills. Here we examined the relationship between metaphor and Theory of Mind (ToM) in middle childhood by using two different tasks. In addition to the Physical and Mental Metaphors task (PMM), based on the verbal explanation of physical and mental metaphors, we revived the Referential Metaphors task for children (Noveck, Bianco, & Castry, 2001), where metaphorical and literal referents are presented in a narrative context. The sample included 169 8-, 9-, and 10-year-old children, assessed also for ToM (via the Strange Stories) and other linguistic and cognitive skills as control variables. In the PMM, ToM supported the understanding of mental (but not physical) metaphors in 9-year-olds only, whereas in the Referential Metaphors task ToM supported accuracy of understanding metaphors (but not literal items) in younger children as well. At age 10, ToM effects were negligible in both tasks. These findings suggest that ToM has a task-specific role in metaphor, linked to the characteristics of the items in the task at stake, being for instance greater for metaphors with mental (compared to physical) content and for non-literal (compared to literal) referents. The findings also suggest that the relationship between ToM and metaphor skills is developmental sensitive, as children start to capitalize on ToM earlier in development when the metaphor context is richer, and these effects fade with age. Theoretically, these data argue in favor of the relevance-theoretic account of metaphor, spelling out different ways in which ToM might support metaphor resolution across tasks, for instance by providing better access to the psychological lexicon (i.e., terms referring to mental states) and better context processing, serving as a springboard to achieve sophisticated pragmatic skills in middle childhood.