We are a group of researchers from University of Warsaw (Faculty of Psychology) and Bioimaging Research Center (World Hearing Center). Our project seeks to answer the most pressing question in the recent theory of mind research, namely, what is the relation between explicit and implicit false belief mentalizing.
In our research, we plan to use functional near infrared spectroscopy – fNIRS to investigate brain functions underlying the ToM development.
The following groups will be investigated:
- healthy adults, in whom we will apply two functional neuroimaging techniques – fMRI and NIRS. Direct comparisons of the results obtained in fMRI and fNIRS experiments will enable us to validate the precision of our method and to plan the distribution of sources and detectors of near-infrared light accordingly
- healthy, typically developing pre-school children to compare brain activity during implicit and explicit ToM in children who pass and fail FBT
- congenitally deaf children threated with cochlear implant before age of 2 who however had been deprived of language exposure
- children at risk of ASD, whose older siblings are diagnosed with autism
The latter two groups may differ in respect of the efficiency of implicit ToM mechanisms. Accordingly, a direct comparison and reference to typically developing children may yield substantial knowledge concerning the role of implicit ToM and early language experience on the development of more advanced ToM.
If you are have any questions about our project or you are interested in collaboration, please contact us: badanianirs@psych.uw.edu.pl