| Theory of Mind is the ability to predict and explain human behavior by attributing mental states to oneself or others.Typically,children acquire this ability between the ages of four and five.The level of Theory of Mind affects the individual to cooperate with others,compete with others and develop good interpersonal communication.Some studies have found that there is a delay in the Theory of Mind of hearing-impaired children,but whether there is a delay in the Theory of Mind of hearing-impaired adults is still inconclusive.For hearing-impaired college students who are about to enter the society,improving their Theory of Mind level should be helpful for them to better adapt to the society.Therefore,this study selected 18 ～ 24 of deaf college students as the research object,using matching health of college students as a contrast,through the questionnaire survey,experimental method,behavior observation,behavior intervention and functional magnetic resonance imaging(f MRI),through three little research,the level of Theory of Mind of deaf college students were measured,and the average hearing students comparison,This paper discusses the particularity of Theory of Mind level placement in hearing impaired college students,and tries to promote the level of Theory of Mind intervention in view of their development weakness.In the frist study,a questionnaire was designed to measure Theory of Mind level of hearing impaired college students according to their characteristics,then the characteristics of the overall development of Theory of Mind of hearing-impaired college students were measured by the self-designed questionnaire,and the comprehension of situations 、 cognitive expression and emotional response of hearing-impaired college students to Theory of Mind were specifically investigated by using the Theory of Mind eye test task and the Causal Relationship task.The whole study systematically investigated the development delay effect of Theory of Mind level in hearing impaired college students from the behavioral level.The second study investigated the relationship between the characteristics of brain functional activity and Theory of Mind delay in hearing impaired college students from the imaging level.Study 3 aimed at the weakness of theory of mind development of hearing impaired college students,explored the training methods to improve the level of Theory of Mind of hearing impaired college students.The frist study is divided into three parts.A questionnaire was developed based on the explicit social-cognitive aspect and the implicit attribution of emotions and mental states of the dual pathway hypothesis.Taking hearing impaired college students as samples,the questionnaire was tested.After item analysis,exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis,a questionnaire composed of 22 questions,including perceptual response,cognitive reasoning and rule understanding three dimensions was formed.Cognitive reasoning tests an individual’s ability to reason about the beliefs and intentions of others.Perceptual responses measure an individual’s ability to infer the mental states of others from facial expressions,voice and body language.Rule comprehension tests an individual’s ability to understand social norms among people.The questionnaire has good reliability and validity,and can accurately measure the level of Theory of Mind of hearing-impaired college students.It can be used as an effective tool to measure the level of Theory of Mind of hearing-impaired college students.The second part investigates the real level of Theory of Mind development of hearing-impaired college students from the perspectives of grade and gender through a self-designed questionnaire.The results showed that the scores of perceptual response,cognitive reasoning and rule understanding and total score of hearing impaired students were lower than those of healthy hearing students,and the performance of male and female students was similar.With the increase of age,the level of Theory of Mind of the hearing-impaired college students is improved as well as that of the healthy college students.After further analysis of variance,it was found that there was no significant difference in cognitive reasoning and rule understanding between second-year hearing impaired students and healthy hearing students.Hearing impaired students in the other three grades scored lower than healthy students in all three dimensions and total scores.The above results indicate that the Theory of Mind level of hearing-impaired college students is indeed delayed compared with that of healthy college students.The third part of Study 2 was A 2×2 mixed experiment design,and the independent variable A was the subject group: hearing-impaired college students and healthy college students,which was the inter-subject design.The independent variable B is the task condition: cognitive dimension task(intention relation reasoning and physical relation reasoning)/affective dimension task(emotion discrimination and gender discrimination),designed for within-subject.The level of cognitive and affective reasoning was examined by the Causality task and the Eye Test task.The results showed that the cognitive reasoning accuracy of hearing impaired college students was lower than that of healthy college students,and there was no difference in the response accuracy of emotional reasoning between them.The experimental results once again verify the results of the first part of the second study.The analysis results of the cognitive and emotional dimensions show that,compared with the healthy hearing college students,the development of Theory of Mind level of hearing impaired college students is delayed.The study was divided into two parts.Sub-study 1 was a single-factor,two-level experimental design,the independent variable was the subject group(hearing impaired college students group and healthy college students group),and the dependent variable was the functional activity characteristics of brain regions related to Theory of Mind under quiet state.Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(f MRI),we analyzed the functional activity characteristics of brain regions related to Theory of Mind in 30 hearing-impaired and 30 healthy college students under quiet state.In the local consistency analysis,it was found that the local consistency of middle temporal gyrus,inferior parietal margin angular gyrus,superior parietal gyrus,precentral gyrus and dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus in the hearing impaired group were significantly lower than those in the healthy hearing group.Based on the functional connectivity analysis of regions of interest,it was found that the functional connectivity strength between the right temporoparietal junction area and the left temporoparietal junction area,the posterior cingulate cortex and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in the hearing impaired group was significantly higher than that in the healthy hearing group.However,the functional connectivity between the right temporoparietal junction area and dormedial prefrontal cortex,and between the right temporoparietal junction area and anterior cingulate cortex were significantly lower in the hearing impaired group than in the healthy group.After the correlation analysis between the functional connectivity of the different brain regions and the Theory of Mind behavior data of the two groups,it was found that the functional connectivity between the right temporoparietal junction area and the anterior cingulate cortex was significantly correlated with the level of Theory of Mind only in the hearing impaired college students,while no correlation was found in the healthy hearing college students.These results suggest that the functional connectivity between the right temporoparietal area and the anterior cingulate cortex may be one of the reasons for the delayed level of Theory of Mind in hearing-impaired college students.In substudy 2,resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rf MRI)was used to investigate the functional connectivity of Theory of Mind related brain regions in 39hearing-impaired college students during quiet state to explain the level of Theory of Mind in this group.It was found that the cognitive reasoning dimension in Theory of Mind of hearing impaired college students was positively correlated with the functional connectivity between right temporoparietal junction area and anterior cingulate cortex,and between left temporoparietal junction area and anterior cingulate cortex.In Theory of Mind,the perceptual response dimension was positively correlated with the functional connectivity between right temporoparietal junction area and anterior cingulate cortex,and negatively correlated with the functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.In Theory of Mind,the dimension of rule understanding was positively correlated with the functional connectivity between left temporoparietal junction area and anterior cingulate cortex,and the functional connectivity between left temporoparietal junction area and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex,and negatively correlated with the functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.The overall level of the Theory of Mind and right temporal and parietal region and the function of the connection between the anterior cingulate cortex,left temporal and parietal joint area and the function of the connection between the anterior cingulate cortex significant positive correlation,and the anterior cingulate cortex and back the function of the connection between the medial prefrontal cortex,and the anterior cingulate cortex and the function of the connection between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex,a significant negative correlation.After regression analysis,it was found that the connectivity of right temporoparietal junction and anterior cingulate cortex could partially explain the level of perceptual response and cognitive reasoning.Connectivity between the left temporoparietal junction and the anterior cingulate cortex,and connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex ultimately partially explained the level of rule understanding.Study 3 adopted A 2×3×5 three-factor mixed experimental design.Independent variable A was the group(experimental group,control group)and the inter-subject variable.The independent variable B is the test category(pretest,posttest 1,posttest 2),and the independent variable C is the training type(Theory of Mind story task,false belief task,Theory of Mind animation task,causality task,and eye test task),which is the within-subject variable.This paper explores the training methods to improve the level of Theory of Mind of hearing-impaired college students and investigates the long-term effects of training.A total of 90 hearing-impaired college students,who scored in the bottom 25% of the first study,were randomly divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control group.The experimental group received Theory of Mind training,and the control group received control training.Theory of Mind training uses mental state dialogue;Physical state dialogue is used for control training.All participants attended four 60-minute sessions.At the end of training and one month after the end of training,the training effect of the subjects was tested to investigate the immediate effect and long-term effect of training.The results showed that before the training,the two groups had similar levels of Theory of Mind.After training,the scores of hearing impaired students in the experimental group were significantly higher than those in the control group on the ability to understand mental states under five conditions(misunderstanding,double deception,persuasion,sarcasm,and white lies)and the ability to attribute mental states to animated geometric shapes.In cognitive reasoning,the correct rate of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group after training,and the reaction time was significantly shorter.In emotional reasoning,the correct rate of the experimental group was significantly improved after training,while the correct rate of the control group was not significantly changed.The training results showed that the Theory of Mind level of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group.They also found that the effects of Theory of Mind training persisted after a month.The results show that mental state dialogue can promote the improvement of Theory of Mind of hearing-impaired college students,which can be maintained for a period of time.The results show that there is indeed a delay in the development of Theory of Mind in hearing-impaired college students,and this delay exists in both cognitive and emotional dimensions of Theory of Mind.The brain regions and functional connections corresponding to Theory of Mind level of hearing impaired college students are also different from those of healthy college students.The Theory of Mind level of hearing-impaired college students can be improved by mental state dialogue training. |
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