Ian A Apperly
Biographic Data
| ID | 4152454 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ian A Apperly |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ian A |
| FAMILY NAME | Apperly |
| SIGNATURE | APPERLY I A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9485-563X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Executive functions, not bilingualism or cultural differences, predict visuospatial perspective-taking in young adults
Bilingual speakers have been found to outperform monolingual speakers in tasks which involve taking others’ perspectives. This research examined whether bilingualism improves young adults’ performance on visuospatial perspective-taking (VPT) tasks, independently of culture and executive function (EF). Sixty-three East Asian and 61 European bilingual adults, as well as 60 English monolingual adults took part in level-1 VPT tasks (judging what othe…
Bilingual education enhances creative fluency and flexibility over the first year of primary school
Can exposure to a foreign language in the first year of school enhance divergent thinking skills? Ninety-nine monolingual children from predominantly White neighbourhoods ( M Age = 57.7 months, SD 1.2; 47 girls) attending bilingual schools, schools with weekly foreign language lessons, or schools without a foreign language provision (= controls) completed divergent thinking and executive function tasks at the beginning of the school year and 24 w…
Greater sensitivity to communication partners’ perspectives in children learning a second language at school
Early learning of a second language at home has been found to be beneficial for children’s cognitive development, including their ability to ascribe mental states to others. We investigated whether second language learning in an educational setting can accelerate children’s sensitivity to a communication partner’s perspective and whether the amount of exposure to second language education makes a difference. We tested three groups of English mono…
Longitudinal development of theory of mind in adolescence and its associations with fiction reading experience
The high occurrence of social content in children's fiction may provide opportunities for practicing and refining emerging understanding of others' thoughts, feelings, and desires, referred to as "theory of mind" (ToM). The aim of the present study was to test this potential developmental benefit by longitudinally examining ToM development in middle childhood and adolescence, as well as examining associations between children's reading experience…
Three key questions to move towards a theoretical framework of visuospatial perspective taking
Young children spontaneously invent three different types of associative tool use behaviour
Associative Tool Use (ATU) describes the use of two or more tools in combination, with the literature further differentiating between Tool set use, Tool composite use, Sequential tool use and Secondary tool use. Research investigating the cognitive processes underlying ATU has shown that some primate and bird species spontaneously invent Tool set and Sequential tool use. Yet studies with humans are sparse. Whether children are also able to sponta…
How to Construct a Minimal Theory of Mind
What could someone represent that would enable her to track, at least within limits, others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs including false beliefs? An obvious possibility is that she might represent these very attitudes as such. It is sometimes tacitly or explicitly assumed that this is the only possible answer. However, we argue that several recent discoveries in developmental, cognitive, and comparative psychology indicate the need …
Sometimes losing your self in space
Two experiments tested 6- to 11-year-old children's and college students' use of different frames of reference when making judgments about descriptions of social and nonsocial scenes. In Experiment 1, when social and nonsocial scenes were mixed, both children and students (N = 144) showed spontaneous sensitivity to the intrinsic and the relative frame of reference for both social and nonsocial scenes. All groups over 7 years old showed a stronger…
Seeing it their way
In a series of three visual perspective-taking experiments, we asked adult participants to judge their own or someone else's visual perspective in situations where both perspectives were either the same or different. We found that participants could not easily ignore what someone else saw when making self-perspective judgments. This was observed even when participants were only required to take their own perspective within the same block of trial…
Online usage of theory of mind continues to develop in late adolescence
The development of theory of mind use was investigated by giving a computerized task to 177 female participants divided into five age groups: Child I (7.3–9.7 years); Child II (9.8–11.4); Adolescent I (11.5–13.9); Adolescent II (14.0–17.7); Adults (19.1–27.5). Participants viewed a set of shelves containing objects, which they were instructed to move by a ‘director’ who could see some but not all of the objects. Correct interpretation of critical…
Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states?
The lack of consensus on how to characterize humans' capacity for belief reasoning has been brought into sharp focus by recent research. Children fail critical tests of belief reasoning before 3 to 4 years of age (H. Wellman, D. Cross, & J. Watson, 2001; H. Wimmer & J. Perner, 1983), yet infants apparently pass false-belief tasks at 13 or 15 months (K. H. Onishi & R. Baillargeon, 2005; L. Surian, S. Caldi, & D. Sperber, 2007). Nonhuman animals al…
Studies of adults can inform accounts of theory of mind development
There is strong evidence that developments in children's theory of mind (ToM) at 3?4 years are related to developments in language and executive function. However, these relationships might exist for 2 reasons. First, language and executive function might be necessary for the mature ToM abilities that children are in the process of developing. Second, language and executive function may be necessary for developing ToM but have no necessary role i…
Studies of adults can inform accounts of theory of mind development
There is strong evidence that developments in children's theory of mind (ToM) at 3?4 years are related to developments in language and executive function. However, these relationships might exist for 2 reasons. First, language and executive function might be necessary for the mature ToM abilities that children are in the process of developing. Second, language and executive function may be necessary for developing ToM but have no necessary role i…
Sometimes losing your self in space
Two experiments tested 6- to 11-year-old children's and college students' use of different frames of reference when making judgments about descriptions of social and nonsocial scenes. In Experiment 1, when social and nonsocial scenes were mixed, both children and students (N = 144) showed spontaneous sensitivity to the intrinsic and the relative frame of reference for both social and nonsocial scenes. All groups over 7 years old showed a stronger…
Longitudinal development of theory of mind in adolescence and its associations with fiction reading experience
The high occurrence of social content in children's fiction may provide opportunities for practicing and refining emerging understanding of others' thoughts, feelings, and desires, referred to as "theory of mind" (ToM). The aim of the present study was to test this potential developmental benefit by longitudinally examining ToM development in middle childhood and adolescence, as well as examining associations between children's reading experience…
Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states?
The lack of consensus on how to characterize humans' capacity for belief reasoning has been brought into sharp focus by recent research. Children fail critical tests of belief reasoning before 3 to 4 years of age (H. Wellman, D. Cross, & J. Watson, 2001; H. Wimmer & J. Perner, 1983), yet infants apparently pass false-belief tasks at 13 or 15 months (K. H. Onishi & R. Baillargeon, 2005; L. Surian, S. Caldi, & D. Sperber, 2007). Nonhuman animals al…
Studies of adults can inform accounts of theory of mind development
There is strong evidence that developments in children's theory of mind (ToM) at 3?4 years are related to developments in language and executive function. However, these relationships might exist for 2 reasons. First, language and executive function might be necessary for the mature ToM abilities that children are in the process of developing. Second, language and executive function may be necessary for developing ToM but have no necessary role i…
Seeing it their way
In a series of three visual perspective-taking experiments, we asked adult participants to judge their own or someone else's visual perspective in situations where both perspectives were either the same or different. We found that participants could not easily ignore what someone else saw when making self-perspective judgments. This was observed even when participants were only required to take their own perspective within the same block of trial…
Online usage of theory of mind continues to develop in late adolescence
The development of theory of mind use was investigated by giving a computerized task to 177 female participants divided into five age groups: Child I (7.3–9.7 years); Child II (9.8–11.4); Adolescent I (11.5–13.9); Adolescent II (14.0–17.7); Adults (19.1–27.5). Participants viewed a set of shelves containing objects, which they were instructed to move by a ‘director’ who could see some but not all of the objects. Correct interpretation of critical…
Sometimes losing your self in space
Two experiments tested 6- to 11-year-old children's and college students' use of different frames of reference when making judgments about descriptions of social and nonsocial scenes. In Experiment 1, when social and nonsocial scenes were mixed, both children and students (N = 144) showed spontaneous sensitivity to the intrinsic and the relative frame of reference for both social and nonsocial scenes. All groups over 7 years old showed a stronger…
How to Construct a Minimal Theory of Mind
What could someone represent that would enable her to track, at least within limits, others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs including false beliefs? An obvious possibility is that she might represent these very attitudes as such. It is sometimes tacitly or explicitly assumed that this is the only possible answer. However, we argue that several recent discoveries in developmental, cognitive, and comparative psychology indicate the need …
Young children spontaneously invent three different types of associative tool use behaviour
Associative Tool Use (ATU) describes the use of two or more tools in combination, with the literature further differentiating between Tool set use, Tool composite use, Sequential tool use and Secondary tool use. Research investigating the cognitive processes underlying ATU has shown that some primate and bird species spontaneously invent Tool set and Sequential tool use. Yet studies with humans are sparse. Whether children are also able to sponta…
Three key questions to move towards a theoretical framework of visuospatial perspective taking
Executive functions, not bilingualism or cultural differences, predict visuospatial perspective-taking in young adults
Bilingual speakers have been found to outperform monolingual speakers in tasks which involve taking others’ perspectives. This research examined whether bilingualism improves young adults’ performance on visuospatial perspective-taking (VPT) tasks, independently of culture and executive function (EF). Sixty-three East Asian and 61 European bilingual adults, as well as 60 English monolingual adults took part in level-1 VPT tasks (judging what othe…
Bilingual education enhances creative fluency and flexibility over the first year of primary school
Can exposure to a foreign language in the first year of school enhance divergent thinking skills? Ninety-nine monolingual children from predominantly White neighbourhoods ( M Age = 57.7 months, SD 1.2; 47 girls) attending bilingual schools, schools with weekly foreign language lessons, or schools without a foreign language provision (= controls) completed divergent thinking and executive function tasks at the beginning of the school year and 24 w…
Greater sensitivity to communication partners’ perspectives in children learning a second language at school
Early learning of a second language at home has been found to be beneficial for children’s cognitive development, including their ability to ascribe mental states to others. We investigated whether second language learning in an educational setting can accelerate children’s sensitivity to a communication partner’s perspective and whether the amount of exposure to second language education makes a difference. We tested three groups of English mono…
Longitudinal development of theory of mind in adolescence and its associations with fiction reading experience
The high occurrence of social content in children's fiction may provide opportunities for practicing and refining emerging understanding of others' thoughts, feelings, and desires, referred to as "theory of mind" (ToM). The aim of the present study was to test this potential developmental benefit by longitudinally examining ToM development in middle childhood and adolescence, as well as examining associations between children's reading experience…
Psychology (11 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (8 works) · Cognition (8 works) · Cognitive psychology (8 works) · Developmental psychology (8 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Theory of mind (5 works) · Cognitive science (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works)