Examining age deficits in affective and cognitive theory of mind on dynamic theory of mind tasks

Theory of mind - the ability to understand what others are thinking and feeling - is a core social cognitive ability that declines over the lifespan, but the nature and magnitude of these deficits are unclear. The current study examined whether age deficits emerged in cognitive (e.g. inferring beliefs, motivations) and affective (e.g. understanding emotions) theory of mind using dynamic stimuli developed for a lifespan sample.

In Study 1a, 116 older adults and 125 young adults completed a previously validated dynamic theory of mind task. In Study 1b, a separate sample of 110 older adults and 168 young adults completed a novel dynamic task. Both tasks assessed cognitive and affective theory of mind, social faux pas detection, and included a control task. We also collected comprehensive measures of executive function and episodic memory to identify cognitive mechanisms associated with performance.

Across both studies, age deficits emerged in both cognitive and affective theory of mind, but not faux pas detection. Performance on all tasks was positively related to older adults' episodic memory, but not their executive function.

Together, these findings suggest older adults' theory of mind deficits may be pervasive, and are related to age-related declines in episodic memory.