The Theory of Mind Atlas
Tiffany L. Hutchins & Patricia A. Prelock © 2016
All entries in the Theory of Mind Atlas (ToMA) were developed for use with the Theory of Mind Inventory-2 (ToMI-2) for the
purposes of explaining theory of mind in the conduct of research and clinical practice. This document may be downloaded,
adapted, and shared for professional purposes provided that the names and copyright appearing in this header are retained.
Item 29: My child understands the word “if” when
it is used hypothetically as in, “If I had the
money, I’d buy a new house.”
Subscale(s): Basic
This item is intended to tap counterfactual reasoning (sometimes referred to as counterfactual
conditional reasoning). Counterfactual reasoning “is a reasoning process that allows us to answer
counterfactual questions of the form “If X then Y?” where X is a proposition that is known to be false; for
example, “If fish couldn’t swim, could they live in the sea?” (Grant, Riggs, & Boucher, 2004, p. 178).
Counterfactual reasoning is a complex cognitive process that depends on the coordination of multiple
information processing systems (Van Hoeck et al., 2014) and can take many forms. It could involve
thinking about situations that are inconsistent with current events, thinking about the past or the future,
or employing additive (“what if the coffee had been hot?”) or subtractive logic (“what if the coffee had
not been hot?”). It can also be employed in the inference of physical versus psychological states,
‘upward’ (comparing a current situation with a better alternative) or ‘downward’ (comparing a current
situation with a worse alternative), and close (something “almost happened”) or far (e.g., a wildly
fictional circumstance; Beck & Guthrie, 2011) scenarios. It also appears to be affected by our sense of
agency to prevent negative outcomes and improve our future conditions (Begeer, De Rosnay,
Lunenburg, Stegge, & Terwogt, 2014).
Depending on what is taken as evidence for counterfactual reasoning, there is mixed evidence
regarding when this capacity emerges with estimates ranging anywhere from age 2 to 12 years
(Rafetseder, Cristi-Vargas, & Perner, 2010; Rafetseder & Perner, 2012; Rafetseder, Schwitalla, & Perner,
2013; for an excellent review see Beck & Riggs, 2013). As such, one reasonable conclusion from the
literature is that the development of counterfactual reasoning is protracted: some early emerging
aspects are observed in infancy which continue to develop into the preschool years and through late
childhood and perhaps even into adolescence at which point counterfactual thought is increasingly
spontaneous and automatized (Beck & Riggs, 2013; Guajardo, McNally, & Wright, 2016). All this said,
most studies tend to identify the age of 3- to 5- years as the point when children reliably pass structured
counterfactual reasoning tests and are thusly credited as having achieved “basic counterfactual
reasoning” (German & Nichols, 2003; Guajardo & Cartwright, 2016; Guajardo, McNally, & Wright, 2016,
p. 90; Guajardo & Turley-Ames, 2004; Harris, German, & Mills, 1996; Riggs, Peterson, Robinson, &
Mitchell, 1998). As such, there is good justification for counterfactual reasoning as a Basic theory of
mind competency. From a developmental standpoint, there is evidence that counterfactual reasoning in
the preschool years is most likely to be observed for explanations of negative outcomes due to the
mishap of a protagonist (as opposed to a positive outcome) and counterfactual reasoning may be
easiest for youngsters when counterfactual chains are short as opposed to long (German & Nichols,
2003) and when thinking about additive, as opposed to subtractive, counterfactual scenarios (Guajardo
& Turley-Ames, 2004).
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Counterfactual reasoning appears to have wide-applicability for cognitive and social
development. Counterfactual reasoning is related to executive function, cognitive flexibility, and
performance on false belief tasks (Drayton, Turley-Ames, & Guajardo, 2011; German & Nichols, 2003;
Guajardo et al., 2009; Guajardo, McNally, & Wright, 2016; Guajardo & Turley-Ames, 2004). As a
pervasive cognitive activity, people employ counterfactual reasoning to learn from their mistakes,
“make sense of the past, plan courses of action, make emotional and social judgments, and guide
adaptive behavior” (Van Hoeck, Watson, & Barbey, 2015, p. 420). This ability to compare reality to an
imagined alternative contributes (perhaps as a necessary but not sufficient condition) to developmental
shifts in emotion attribution (Gummerum, Cribbett, Nicolau, & Uren, 2013), false belief reasoning (Grant
et al., 2004; Muller, Miller, Michalczyk, & Karapinka, 2007; Peterson & Bowler, 2000; Riggs, Peterson,
Robinson, & Mitchell, 1998), and narrative comprehension (Guajardo & Cartwright, 2016; Guajardo &
Watson, 2002; Trabasso & Bartolone, 2003). Counterfactual reasoning has also been identified as pivotal
in the development of (later emerging) moral reasoning and the understanding of complex emotions like
regret (Rafetseder & Perner, 2012) and relief (Begeer et al., 2014) which, when experienced, are
typically accompanied by imagined, counterfactual outcomes.
Counterfactual Reasoning in ASD
Deficits in counterfactual reasoning have been widely (but not universally) observed in ASD.
Counterfactual reasoning in ASD is related to autism severity, language ability, and intellectual and
executive functioning (Guajardo, Parker, & Turley-Ames, 2009) as well as a range of specific task
demands. For example, there is some evidence that downward counterfactual reasoning maybe
impaired in ASD more than upward counterfactual reasoning (Begeer et al., 2014) and that
counterfactuals that require inferences of physical or psychological states are more difficult compared
to those where all information is explicitly provided (Grant et al., 2004).
Some ASD researchers have attributed deficits in counterfactual reasoning to a more general
impairment in generativity that is often seen in ASD (i.e., a general impairment in spontaneous and
generative action as opposed to cued action; Peterson & Bowler, 2000). Others have emphasized the
relation between impairments in counterfactual reasoning and deficits in pretense (Scott, Baron-Cohen,
& Leslie, 1999). With regard to the latter, it is noteworthy that while performance on counterfactual
reasoning tasks is enhanced in typically developing children through prompting to engage in pretense or
mental imagery, the use of these strategies may actually hinder performance in children with ASD (Dias
& Harris, 1990; Leevers & Harris, 2000; Scott et al., 1999). Accordingly, many children with ASD may
benefit from counterfactual premises that are explicitly conditional (e.g., “If all snow were black…”) and
where they recognize another’s intention that they “accept the premise as a basis for reasoning despite
[its] literal falsehood” (Leevers & Harris, 2000, p. 81).
Counterfactual Reasoning in ADHD
One might expect children with ADHD to have difficulty with counterfactual reasoning given its
relations to executive function (EF), cognitive flexibility, and false belief attribution; all of which are
documented deficits in ADHD. We are aware of only one study, however, that has specifically examined
counterfactual reasoning in ADHD. Hutchins et al. (2016) compared typically developing (TD) males,
males with ASD, and males with ADHD for their comprehension of counterfactual reasoning using a
caregiver report measure (i.e., the Theory of Mind Inventory). Results revealed that the comprehension
of counterfactuals appeared to be uniquely disrupted in ASD yet spared in ADHD and there were no
differences in counterfactual comprehension as judged by caregivers between the TD and ADHD groups.
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Caution is warranted, however. As noted above, the development of counterfactual reasoning is a
complex and protracted process: much more research is needed to elucidate whether and under what
conditions children with ADHD might exhibit deficits in counterfactual reasoning.
Counterfactual Reasoning in DoHH
We are aware of only one study examining counterfactual reasoning in children who are DoHH.
Hutchins, Allen, and Schefer (2017) analyzed caregiver report data (i.e., the Theory of Mind Inventory)
from a small sample of children (ages 5 – 11) with corrected hearing loss. They found that deficits in
counterfactual reasoning were reported for 33% of the children (i.e., 4/12 children). Hutchins et al.
concluded that these difficulties were related to more limited access to language in the prelinguistic and
toddler years.
REFERENCES
Beck, S. & Guthrie, C. (2011). Almost thinking counterfactually: Children’s understanding of close
counterfactuals. Child Development, 82(4), 1189-1198.
Beck, S. & Riggs, K. (2013). The development of counterfactual reasoning. In H. Markovits (Ed.), The
developmental psychology of reasoning and decision-making (pp. 165-181). Hove: Psychology
Press.
Begeer, S., De Rosnay, M., Lunenburg, P., Stegge, H., & Terwogt, M. (2014). Understanding of emotions
based on counterfactual reasoning in children with autism spectrum disorders. Autism, 18(3),
301-310.
Dias, M., & Harris, P. (1990). The influence of imagination on reasoning in young children. British Journal
of Developmental Psychology, 8(4), 305-318.
Drayton, S., Turley-Ames, K., & Guajardo, N. (2011). Counterfactual thinking and false belief: The role of
executive function. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108, 532-548.
German, T. (1999). Children’s causal reasoning: Counterfactual thinking occurs for ‘negative’ outcomes
only. Developmental Science, 2(4), 442-447.
German, T., & Nichols, S. (2003). Children’s counterfactual inferences in long and short causal chains.
Developmental Science, 6(5), 514-523.
Grant, C., Riggs, K., & Boucher, J. (2004). Counterfactual and mental state reasoning in children with
autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(2), 177-188.
Guajardo, N., & Cartwright, K (2016). The contribution of theory of mind, counterfactual reasoning, and
executive function to pre-readers’ language comprehension and later reading awareness and
comprehension in elementary school. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 144, 27-45.
Guajardo, N., McNally, L., & Wright, A. (2016). Children’s spontaneous counterfactual: The roles of
valence, expectancy, and cognitive flexibility. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 146, 7994.
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Guajardo, N., Parker, J., & Turley-Ames, K. (2009). Associations among false belief understanding,
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Gummerum, M., Cribbett, C., Nicolau, A., & Uren, R. (2013). Counterfactual reasoning and moral
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Trabasso, T., & Bartolone, J. (2003). Story understanding and counterfactual reasoning. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 29(5), 904-923.
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Van Hoeck, N., Watson, P. D., & Barbey, A. K. (2015). Cognitive neuroscience of human counterfactual
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