Chloe C Hudson, Louis Hickman, Siyi Liu, Hannah Young, Mark A Sabbagh, Kate L Harkness
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Theory of mind is central to human social behavior, yet empirical studies rely largely on biased measures with limited ecological validity. We propose and evaluate the use of mental state language as a spontaneous indicator of theory of mind expressed in social interaction. Among research participants (334 undergraduate students, 63.8% non-Hispanic White, 74.3% female) engaged in a dyadic cooperative task with an unfamiliar peer, mental state language demonstrated strong convergent validity with established measures of theory of mind and, when compared to established measures, superior predictive validity for interpersonal functioning. Fine-tuned transformers and open-source generative large language models reliably replicated human coding of mental state language, enabling scalable assessment. These findings offer promising initial construct-validity evidence for mental state language as a measure of theory of mind, and motivate its extension to naturalistic, dynamically unfolding social interactions.
期刊介绍：
Assessment publishes articles in the domain of applied clinical assessment. The emphasis of this journal is on publication of information of relevance to the use of assessment measures, including test development, validation, and interpretation practices. The scope of the journal includes research that can inform assessment practices in mental health, forensic, medical, and other applied settings. Papers that focus on the assessment of cognitive and neuropsychological functioning, personality, and psychopathology are invited. Most papers published in Assessment report the results of original empirical research, however integrative review articles and scholarly case studies will also be considered.
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