Papers by Mele Taumoepeau
Child Development, 2010
Mental state knowledge and metaknowledge about reading 2 Abstract The relation between children's... more Mental state knowledge and metaknowledge about reading 2 Abstract The relation between children's mental state knowledge and metaknowledge about reading was examined in two studies. In Study 1, 196 children (mean age 9 years) were tested for verbal ability (VA), metaknowledge about reading, and mental state words in a story task. In Study 2, the results of Study 1 were extended by using a cross-lagged design and by investigating older children (N=71, mean age 10 years at Time 1 and 11 years at Time 2) for mental state knowledge, metaknowledge about reading and VA.
British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2012
Many authors have argued that infants understand goals, intentions, and beliefs. We posit that in... more Many authors have argued that infants understand goals, intentions, and beliefs. We posit that infants' success on such tasks might instead reveal an understanding of behaviour, that infants' proficient statistical learning abilities might enable such insights, and that maternal talk scaffolds children's learning about the social world as well. We also consider which skills and insights are likely to be innate, and why it is difficult to say exactly when children understand mental states as opposed to behaviours.
Child Development, 2006
This study assessed the relation between mother mental state language and child desire language a... more This study assessed the relation between mother mental state language and child desire language and emotion understanding in 15 -24-month-olds. At both time points, mothers described pictures to their infants and mother talk was coded for mental and nonmental state language. Children were administered 2 emotion understanding tasks and their mental and nonmental state vocabulary levels were obtained via parental report. The results demonstrated that mother use of desire language with 15-month-old children uniquely predicted a child's later mental state language and emotion task performance, even after accounting for potentially confounding variables. In addition, mothers' tendency to refer to the child's over others' desires was the more consistent correlate of mental state language and emotion understanding.
Psychology and Aging, 2011
Young (<36 years) ... more Young (<36 years) and older (>59) adults viewed videos in which the same individual committed a faux pas, or acted appropriately, toward his coworkers. Older participants did not discriminate appropriate and inappropriate behaviors as well as young participants. Older participants also scored lower than young participants on an extensive battery of emotion recognition tests, and emotion performance fully mediated age differences in faux pas discrimination. The results provide further evidence for the role of emotion perception in a range of important social deficits.
Psychology and Aging, 2010
Previous research suggests that older adults are more verbose than young adults and that general ... more Previous research suggests that older adults are more verbose than young adults and that general inhibitory difficulties might play a role in such tendencies. In the present study of 60 young adults and 61 older adults, the authors examined whether verbosity might also be related to difficulty deciphering emotional expressions. Measures of verbosity included total talking time, percentage of time spent on-topic, and extremity of off-topic verbosity. Over all 3 measures, older men and women were significantly more verbose than young men and women. Older men's (but not older women's) verbosity was related to poorer emotion recognition, which fully mediated the age effect. The results are consistent with the idea that older men who talk more do so, in part, because they fail to decipher the emotional cues of a listener.
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Papers by Mele Taumoepeau