Guinther, P. M. (2015, July). Perspective taking and theory of mind. Poster session presented at the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science World Conference 13, Berlin, Germany.
Relational Frame Theory is making headway in characterizing perspective taking and Theory of Mind in terms of functional contextualism and deictic relational framing (e.g., McHugh, Barnes-Holmes, Barnes-Holmes, & Stewart, 2006; Villatte, Monestès, McHugh, Freixa i Baqué, & Loas, 2010). However, whereas the pattern of function transformation characterizing non-deictic relations (e.g., coordination, opposition, comparison, etc.; see Guinther & Dougher, 2012) is fairly well understood, there is room in RFT to more fully specify the manner in which deictic framing alters stimulus functions, particularly with respect to taking the emotional and informational perspective of other people. In order to more fully specify how functions are transformed during informational perspective taking, I have developed and piloted in verbally competent adults a match-to-sample training paradigm that gives rise to contextual control of deictic relational responding and successful derived performances on a “Sally-Anne” false-belief test for Theory of Mind (Wimmer & Perner, 1989).