IMPLEMENTATION OF VIRTUAL REALITY PROGRAM “EMOTION 1.0” TO
THE STUDY OF THEORY OF MIND IN CHILDREN IN PRIMARY EDUCATION
J. F. López Paz, I. A. Caro, E. L. Pérez
University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain
The discovery of the mind for the child means becoming aware of that people, including
himself, have minds and within the states or elements of the mind are the beliefs, desires,
feelings, thoughts that can help achieve their actions. The agency has a "theory of mind" must
be able to have beliefs about the beliefs of others, distinguishing them from their own. Must
be able to make or predict anything based on these beliefs attributed and differentiated itself.
The evolution of mind understanding in children is related to their neural development, which
in turn is in parallel with the socialization. Virtual reality has proved an efficient and
environmentally friendly method for the diagnosis of psychopathological symptoms, and to
simulate scenarios related to activities of daily living. In this study, we applied to establish the
degree of concurrent and construct validity of a method aimed at assessing the emotional
components of theory of mind. Objectives: Design and validation of a virtual reality program
devoted to the study of emotional expression recognition and empathy, components of the
Theory of Mind. Participants: A sample of 300 children (mean age: 12 years), matched for
age, gender and educational level (3º to 6º Primary Education). Exclusion criteria: presence of
psychopathology according to DSM-IV criteria. Method: Extraction of factors by exploratory
factor analysis (Varimax method; loadings> 0.40) and comparison of scores using the 57
correlations between items eMotion 1.0 program with the 22 items of ACE inhibitors (Briand,
1982) and 42 items of the agenda Feel the University of Ulm (Germany) based on research of
Matsumoto and Ekman (1998). Results and conclusions: The virtual reality program to
identify emotional states and degree of empathy, components related to the theory of mind,
thanks to the simultaneous application of psychometric and psycho physiological records.
Keywords: virtual reality, theory of mind