Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

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Journal of Experimental Child

Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp

Executive and theory-of-mind contributions to event-based

prospective memory in children: Exploring
the self-projection hypothesis
Ruth M. Ford a,⇑, Timothy Driscoll a, David Shum a, Catrin E. Macaulay b
a
School of Psychology and Griffith Health Institute, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD 4122, Australia
b
Department of Early Childhood Studies, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales SA2 8PP, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In two studies, 4- to 6-year-olds were asked to name pictures of

Received 29 March 2011 animals for the benefit of a watching hand puppet (the ongoing
Revised 11 October 2011 task) but to refrain from naming and to remove from view any pic-
Available online 12 December 2011
tures of dogs (the prospective memory [PM] task). Children also
completed assessments of verbal ability, cognitive inhibition,
Keywords:
working memory, and false-belief understanding (both studies),
Prospective memory
Self projection empathy (Study 1 only), and performance on false-sign tests that
Future thinking matched the false-belief tests in narrative content and structure
Theory of mind (Study 2 only). Both studies found that inhibition and false-belief
Episodic memory performance made unique contributions to the variance in PM,
Autonoetic consciousness although in Study 1 the influence of inhibition was evident only
when children needed to withhold naming. Study 2 further dem-
onstrated that false-belief performance was the only reliable pre-
dictor of whether children remembered to return to the
researcher an object that had been loaned to them prior to the pic-
ture-naming game. Both experiments uncovered moderate rela-
tions between PM and chronological age, but such relations were
rarely significant after taking account of cognitive ability. We con-
sider the implications of the findings for (a) current views regard-
ing frontal/executive contributions to PM development and (b) the
suggestion that the same brain network underlies various forms of
mental self-projection, including envisioning the future and under-
standing the minds of other people.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author. Address: School of Psychology and Griffith Health Institute, Griffith University, 176 Messines Ridge
Road, Mount Gravatt, QLD 4122, Australia. Fax: +61 7 37353388.
E-mail addresses: r.ford@griffith.edu.au (R.M. Ford), t.driscoll@griffith.edu.au (T. Driscoll), d.shum@griffith.edu.au (D. Shum),
c.e.macaulay@swansea.ac.uk (C.E. Macaulay).

0022-0965/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2011.10.006
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 469

Introduction

The term prospective memory (PM) refers to the act of remembering to carry out planned activities
at some appropriate time in the future (Kvavilashvili, 1992). Whereas time-based PM involves remem-
bering to perform a task at a prearranged time, event-based PM involves remembering to do something
in response to a specific external cue whose timing is unpredictable (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990;
Kvavilashvili & Fisher, 2007). For example, children might want to remember to watch their favorite
television program when they get home from school or to pass on an important message to their
mother when they next see her. It has been suggested that PM involves four main phases, namely
(a) forming the intention, (b) retaining the intention in memory during the course of intervening activ-
ity, (c) initiating the intended action at the appropriate time, and (d) executing the intended action
according to the original plan (Ellis, 1996; Kliegel, Martin, McDaniel, & Einstein, 2002).
Compared with an extensive literature detailing the development of children’s ability to remember
past events (retrospective memory), relatively few studies have focused on PM (see Kvavilashvili, Kyle,
& Messer, 2008, for a review). On the whole, research on the latter topic has documented robust gains
in PM accuracy as children grow older, particularly when examining broader age ranges (Kerns, 2000;
Kliegel & Jäger, 2007; Mackinlay, Kliegel, & Mäntyla, 2009; Passolunghi, Brandimonte, & Cornoldi,
1995; Rendell, Vella, Kliegel, & Terrett, 2009; Wang, Kliegel, Liu, & Yang, 2008). Improvements in
PM during early childhood are mirrored by declines in PM during late adulthood (Henry, MacLeod,
Phillips, & Crawford, 2004; Smith & Bayen, 2006; West, Jakubek, & Wymbs, 2002; Zeintl, Kliegel, &
Hofer, 2007), giving rise to an ‘‘inverted U’’ developmental trajectory in regard to PM capabilities
across the lifespan (Zimmermann & Meier, 2006; Zöllig et al., 2007).

PM and executive functions

Given the multistage nature of PM, the task of identifying the causes of its development poses a
significant challenge. One suggestion has been that young children’s difficulties with PM are due
mainly to their forgetting what their intention was (Guajardo & Best, 2000). Given persistent evidence
of age effects in PM even after screening out participants with retrospective memory failures, how-
ever, it is clear that processes unique to PM are also subject to maturation (Kliegel & Jäger, 2007).
In terms of PM itself, a widely held view is that development is driven by age-related improvements
in executive functions, including working memory, planning, monitoring, inhibition, and cognitive
flexibility, all of which are subserved by the prefrontal cortex (Martin, Kliegel, & McDaniel, 2003). This
notion accords with the inverted U developmental trajectory in PM given that the prefrontal cortex
does not reach full maturity until late adolescence and, conversely, shows reductions of volume and
complexity during old age (West, 1996; Zimmermann & Meier, 2006).
Evidence of an involvement of executive functions in PM comes from studies showing that chil-
dren’s PM performance is impaired by raised cognitive load, for example, when a delay is introduced
between the appearance of the PM cue and the opportunity to enact the response (Rendell et al., 2009)
or when the ongoing task must be interrupted to execute the PM response (Kliegel, Mackinlay, & Jäger,
2008; Shum, Cross, Ford, & Ownsworth, 2008; Wang et al., 2008). In one of the first studies of this kind,
Kvavilashvili, Messer, and Ebdon (2001) asked 4- to 7-year-olds to name line drawings of everyday
objects and animals, presented in four stacks of 20 pictures each, while showing the pictures to a
toy mole (i.e., the ongoing task). To introduce a PM component, children were advised that the mole
was afraid of other animals and that if they came across a picture of an animal, they should not show it
to the mole but rather should place the picture out of sight on a table placed just behind them. There
was one picture of an animal embedded in each stack, either in the 10th position (interruption con-
dition) or in the final position (no-interruption condition). Results showed a reliable (albeit small)
age-related improvement in PM accuracy and a significant effect of condition, indicating that accuracy
was impaired when the ongoing task needed to be interrupted. In a computer-based experiment struc-
tured along similar lines, Kliegel et al. (2008) observed that the adverse effects of interruption were
greater for first-grade children, fourth-grade children, and older adults than for young adults. Their
results conformed to the predicted inverted U developmental pattern on measures of intention
470 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

formation, initiation, and execution. However, age differences in the efficiency of PM execution were
exacerbated significantly when responses to the cue required interruption of the ongoing activity.
Kliegel and colleagues speculated that PM execution depends on the ability to withdraw attention
from the ongoing activity, a skill that is compromised in children and older adults due to inefficient
powers of inhibitory control.
A complementary line of research has demonstrated robust correlations between children’s PM
and aspects of their executive functioning. Kerns (2000) observed that children’s performance on
time-based PM was linked positively with inhibition even after controlling for age. Other studies
of time-based PM have uncovered positive associations with updating (Mäntylä, Carelli, & Forman,
2007), planning, and task shifting (Mackinlay et al., 2009). Likewise, investigations of event-based
PM have shown that children’s performance is predicted by inhibition, working memory, cognitive
flexibility, and verbal fluency, at least when PM is assessed under conditions of high cognitive de-
mand (Shum et al., 2008; Ward, Shum, McKinlay, Baker-Tweeney, & Wallace, 2005). This last re-
sult mimics findings from research with adult participants indicating that executive functions
account for a greater share of the variance in PM when the ongoing task is difficult (Martin
et al., 2003).

PM, self-projection, and theory of mind

Recently, Brewer and Marsh (2010) suggested that there might be more to PM than executive func-
tion, speculating that performance might also be influenced by the capacity for episodic future simula-
tion, which has been defined as ‘‘a subset of thinking that involves imaginatively placing oneself in a
hypothetical scenario and exploring possible outcomes’’ (Schacter, Addis, & Buckner, 2008, p. 42). Spe-
cifically, they suggested that to set up a PM intention in the first place, participants need to mentally
project into the future and imagine performing the intended task (see also Atance & O’Neill, 2001).
Consistent with their account, adult participants who were asked to form an implementation inten-
tion (i.e., ‘‘If X occurs, then I will do Y’’ [Gollwitzer, 1999]) while visualizing themselves completing
the task in exactly the requested manner showed superior PM to those who received standard instruc-
tions (i.e., ‘‘Please do Y whenever X occurs’’) without any imaginative future simulation. Brewer and
Marsh (2010) argued that the advantages of future simulation can be explained in terms of the
strength of association between intention and retrieval cue and, hence, in terms of transfer-appropri-
ate processing. The effect of simulating the future context at encoding is to generate a strong (transfer-
appropriate) association, making it more likely that the PM intention will be enacted at the right
moment.
Paraskevaides and colleagues (2010) examined the effects of episodic future simulation (with-
out additional implementation intentions) on time- and event- based PM in healthy adults who
were administered either alcohol or a placebo. Specifically, for each PM task, participants were
asked to imagine the sequence of events and the people and objects likely to be encountered dur-
ing those events. It was found that although alcohol impaired PM in the standard encoding con-
dition, future simulation produced a reliable improvement of PM in both groups and significant
amelioration of the adverse effects of alcohol ingestion, particularly for the event-based tasks.
Similar to Brewer and Marsh (2010), Paraskevaides and colleagues attributed the advantages of
episodic future simulation to strengthening of target–cue associations, arguing that future simula-
tion enables participants to preexperience the retrieval cues that signal the need to enact the PM
response.
Because evidence from neuroimaging studies has indicated that the brain regions activated when
participants are asked to imagine themselves in the future (namely, frontal and medial temporal–
parietal lobe systems) overlap considerably with those regions activated in response to requests to
retrieve autobiographical memories or to perform theory-of-mind tasks (see Spreng, Mar, & Kim,
2009, for a meta-analysis), some researchers have postulated that such regions are involved generally
in redirecting one’s focus of attention away from current reality. This capability, called mental
self-projection, was defined by Buckner and Carroll (2007) as ‘‘the ability to shift perspective from
the immediate present to alternative perspectives’’ (p. 49). They argued that this core brain network
enables mental exploration of alternative perspectives based on previous experience whether
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 471

remembering the past, anticipating the future, or figuring out the thoughts and intentions of other
people. Although not agreed by everybody (e.g., Addis, Pan, Vu, Laiser, & Schacter, 2009), Buckner
and Carroll’s notion of self-projection accords with the claim that episodic memory corresponds to
mental time travel, that is, the ability to extend one’s sense of existence and identity across the
personal past, present, and future (Suddendorf & Corballis, 2007; Tulving, 2002).
In line with the notion of a single brain network underlying various forms of self-projection, dis-
orders of episodic memory in various clinical groups (e.g., depressed, amnesic, autistic, or schizo-
phrenic patients) tend to co-occur with impairments in the ability to imagine future events (e.g.,
Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2007; Hassabis, Kumaran, Vann, & Maguire, 2007) and impairments of the-
ory of mind (Lind & Bowler, 2008). In addition, developmental evidence indicates that episodic mem-
ory, future thinking, and theory of mind all show striking improvement during early childhood
(Atance & O’Neill, 2005; Busby & Suddendorf, 2005; Suddendorf & Nielsen, 2010). Moreover, individ-
ual differences approaches have uncovered positive relations among episodic memory, future think-
ing, and theory of mind among young children, all of which remain robust after controlling for age.
For example, children’s theory of mind predicts their episodic memory as gauged by free recall
(Perner, Kloo, & Gornik, 2007; Perner & Ruffman, 1995) and the ability to monitor the sources of their
memories (Naito, 2003). In turn, episodic memory is associated with future thinking as gauged by
planning and delay of gratification (Bischof-Köhler, 2000) and mental rotation (Perner, Kloo, &
Rohwer, 2010).

The current research

We report here the findings of two studies conducted with the goal of exploring the link between
PM and theory of mind in 4- to 6-year-olds, a link that—as far as we are aware—has not yet been inves-
tigated. We assumed that if PM involves mental self-projection, specifically future thinking during
encoding of the intention, then this should be reflected in a reliable correlation between PM and the-
ory of mind. Our primary PM task was based on the picture-naming procedure devised by Kvavilash-
vili et al. (2001). Children were asked to name pictures of animals for the benefit of a watching hand
puppet (the ongoing task) but to refrain from naming and to remove from view any pictures of dogs
(the PM task). Mimicking the approach used by Kvavilashvili and colleagues, the pictures were pre-
sented in four stacks: two containing the PM target toward the middle and two containing the PM tar-
get in the final position. Kvavilashvili and colleagues argued that the former condition requires
children to interrupt their current activity (naming the pictures) to hide the target, whereas the latter
activity involves no interruption of ongoing activity because there are no more pictures remaining on
the table for children to name.
In both studies, we estimated children’s theory of mind using false-belief tests. Given the well-
documented domain-general demands of the false-belief tests, primarily in the form of language
(Astington & Jenkins, 1999), inhibitory control (Carlson & Moses, 2001), and working memory (Gordon
& Olson, 1998), we attempted to isolate the self-projection component, if any, by controlling for
children’s performance on the latter variables. Based on evidence linking executive functions and
PM (e.g., Kliegel et al., 2008), we predicted that inhibitory control and working memory would be
reliable predictors of PM, especially when the ongoing task needed to be interrupted to generate
the PM response. Based on the notion that theory of mind and PM may rely, to some extent, on a com-
mon brain network that underpins the ability to shift mental perspective away from current reality,
we anticipated a further independent contribution of theory of mind to PM.
In Study 1, we justified the PM response to participants by telling them that the puppet was afraid
of dogs; accordingly, we also administered a self-report measure of empathy to see whether superior
PM might be associated with greater sensitivity to the puppet’s phobia. In Study 2, conducted with a
different group of children, we did not use this cover story and instead modified the PM procedure,
such that the instructions were delivered without further explanation. Therefore, we omitted the
empathy test but sought greater control over the information processing demands of false-belief tests
by assessing children on false-sign tests that used the same narratives but did not require the children
to think about mental states.
472 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

Study 1

Method

Participants
The participants were 59 children (26 girls and 33 boys) between 4 and 6 years of age
(M = 60.7 months, SD = 6.2, range = 50–73). All were attending mainstream preschool or preparatory
classes in an affluent area, all spoke English as their primary language, and all had normal or cor-
rected-to-normal vision and hearing. Their participation in the study was subject to informed consent
from their parents or guardians.

Materials and procedure

Testing was conducted individually in a quiet location at the children’s school on four separate
occasions that were spread over 8 weeks. Each test session lasted approximately 20 min and was con-
ducted by a different member of a team of four researchers, each responsible for administering the
same subset of activities to all children to ensure consistency of presentation. Testing was arranged
so as to provide a mixture of different types of activity within each session. In total, children com-
pleted one test of verbal ability, one test of working memory, five tests of inhibitory control, six tests
of false-belief understanding, one test of empathy, and one test of PM.

Verbal ability. Verbal ability was assessed using the Receptive Vocabulary subtest of the Wechsler Pre-
school and Primary Scale of Intelligence – Australian, Third Edition (WPPSI-III Australian). Children’s
score on the test represented the number of correct responses (maximum possible score = 36).

Working memory. Working memory was assessed using a test of backward word span based on that
devised by Carlson, Moses, and Breton (2002). Children listened to a sequence of one-syllable words
uttered by the researcher (all being concrete nouns) before being asked to repeat the words in the re-
verse order (e.g., bus, cat ! cat, bus). The test commenced with three two-word sequences (each earn-
ing a score of 2 for a correct response), progressed to three three-word sequences (each earning a score
of 3 for a correct response), and concluded with three four-word sequences (each earning a score of 4
for a correct response). If a child failed three consecutive trials, then the test was discontinued.

Inhibitory control. Inhibitory control was assessed using a series of response conflict tests. First, the
Day/Night Test (Gerstadt, Hong, & Diamond, 1994) required children to respond ‘‘day’’ to pictures
of the moon and to respond ‘‘night’’ to pictures of the sun (16 trials scored 1 = pass and 0 = fail). Sec-
ond, the Hand Shape Game (Luria, Pribram, & Homskaya, 1964) required children to point their finger
when the researcher modeled a fist and to make a fist when the researcher pointed his or her finger
(16 trials scored 1 = pass and 0 = fail), Third, the Tapping Game (Luria et al., 1964) required children to
tap once on a drum after the researcher tapped twice and to tap twice on the drum after the researcher
tapped once (18 trials scored 1 = pass and 0 = fail). Fourth, the Whisper Test (Kochanska, Murray,
Jacques, Koenig, & Vandegeest, 1996) required children to whisper the names of children’s film and
television characters presented on individual pages in a test booklet (10 trials scored 0 = shout,
1 = normal or mixed voice, and 2 = whisper, with results being averaged to yield a maximum possible
score of 2). Fifth, the Pig/Wolf Test (modeled on the Bear/Dragon Test described by Carlson & Moses,
2001) required children to enact commands issued by a pig finger puppet but to ignore commands
issued by a wolf finger puppet (5 trials scored 3 = no movement, 2 = wrong movement, 1 = partial
commanded movement, and 0 = full commanded movement).

Theory of mind. Theory of mind was assessed using a series of false-belief tests. First, the Sally–Anne
Test (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985) asked children to predict where a little girl (Sally) would look
for her marble after her mother (Anne) moved the marble from its original location without Sally’s
knowledge; this test was enacted using two small figurines, a toy cupboard, a toy basket, and a marble.
Second, the Deceptive Box Test (Perner, Leekam, & Wimmer, 1987) asked children to report what a
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 473

teddy bear would assume was inside a Smarties box that they knew to contain hair clips; this test was
enacted using a stuffed toy and a Smarties box containing hair clips. Third, the Maxi Test (Wimmer &
Perner, 1983) asked children to predict in which kitchen cupboard a little boy (Maxi) would look for
his chocolate after his mother moved the chocolate to another cupboard without Maxi’s knowledge;
this test was administered using an A4 page (standard paper size) showing two pictures illustrating
the main events. Fourth, the Girl Fishing scenario (based on Woolfe, Want, & Siegal, 2002) involved
the use of two picture cards. The first depicted a little girl fishing in a pond and had a flap of blue paper
(representing the pond) that could be lifted up, thereby enabling children to see an old boot on the end
of the girl’s fishing line. The second card depicted the old boot together with a hat, a fish, and a wheel.
The first picture was presented, and children were encouraged to use their hand to cover the girl’s face
as they lifted the flap to reveal the boot. It was emphasized that the little girl was unable to see what
was on the end of her fishing line. Then the second picture was presented and children were told,
‘‘Please point to the object that the little girl thinks is on the end of her fishing line.’’ Finally, they were
told, ‘‘Please point to the object that is really on the end of the little girl’s fishing line.’’
The final two tests were of our own devising. The first test (the Ernie Test) required children to rea-
son about the false belief of a puppet whose Leggo bricks were moved from their usual location in the
toy box to a new location without the puppet’s knowledge and was enacted using small props. The
second test of our own devising (the Linda Test) required children to reason about the false belief
of a little girl whose book was moved by her sister to a new location while she was out of the room,
with the story being illustrated by three colored pictures that were presented one at a time. All tests
comprised an initial false-belief question (e.g., ‘‘Where does Ernie think his Leggo bricks are now?’’),
followed by a control question about current reality (e.g., ‘‘Where are the Leggo bricks really?’’). Chil-
dren were credited with passing the test if they answered both questions correctly (1 = pass and
0 = fail).

Index of empathy. Empathy was assessed using the Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents
(Bryant, 1982), scored according to the ‘‘yes/no’’ method recommended for younger participants. It
consists of 22 statements designed to gauge children’s propensity for recognizing and responding sen-
sitively to the feelings of other people (e.g., ‘‘It makes me sad to see a little boy who can’t find anyone
to play with’’).

Picture-naming PM test. The PM task was modeled on Kvavilashvili et al. (2001) and involved 45 col-
ored photographs of animals and insects. Every picture was different, but the set included several
examples of different types of animals and insects (e.g., more than one type of horse and more than
one type of spider). Of these, 40 pictures were used during the test phase and 5 pictures were used
during the practice session. Prior to the study, a pilot investigation was conducted (N = 5) to ensure
that all of the pictures were of animals that could readily be identified by 4- to 6-year-olds. Children
were introduced to a hand puppet (Kenny) and were asked whether they wanted to play a game with
him. Specifically, children were told that Kenny liked looking at pictures of animals and that their task
was to show him some pictures, one at a time, while naming the depicted animals. In addition, chil-
dren were informed that Kenny was afraid of dogs and that if they encountered a picture of a dog, they
should refrain from naming it and instead should immediately remove it from view by placing it on a
stool located just behind them. Children were asked to repeat the instructions to ensure that they had
been paying attention, and the researcher then handed them the set of five practice pictures, placed
face down in a pile, with the bottom picture being that of a dog. Children were requested to carry
out the task exactly as it had been described, that is, naming each depicted animal for Kenny before
placing the picture back on the table, in a face-down position, next to the stack from which it had been
taken. If they forgot the PM response on encountering the picture of the dog, then the researcher re-
minded them of the PM instructions before picking up the picture from the table, returning it to its
original position and coaching them in making the desired response.
Immediately following the practice, the researcher placed a single pile of 10 pictures, all being face
down, in front of the children. Once the first pile of pictures had been named, the researcher thanked
the children but did not comment on the accuracy of their PM. The procedure was repeated for the
remaining three stacks of pictures, and on each occasion the researcher expressed appreciation of
474 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

children’s efforts and cleared the table before presenting the next stack. All children went through the
stacks in the same order; in the first stack the dog appeared fifth, in the second stack it appeared last,
in the third stack it appeared fifth, and in the final stack it appeared last. The stacks where the dog
appeared fifth constituted the interruption condition, whereas the stacks where the dog appeared last
constituted the no-interruption condition. Pictures of four distinctly different dogs were used for the
PM targets to avoid practice effects from one stack to the next. For each of the targets, children were
scored separately for their success at (a) withholding naming and (b) remembering to remove the pic-
ture from view by placing it behind them. When the task was completed, the researcher assessed chil-
dren’s memory for the PM instructions by asking them to recall what they had been asked to do if they
saw a picture of a dog. If children volunteered only one aspect of the instructions (e.g., ‘‘hide it’’), then
they were prompted with the question, ‘‘Was there anything else you were supposed to do?’’

Results

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for the individual tests of inhibitory control, false belief,
working memory, receptive vocabulary, and empathy. Table 2 shows partial correlations between
the tests after controlling for age. There were reliable correlations between all inhibition tests apart
from the Whisper Test. Similarly, results of the theory-of-mind tests were positively linked, with most
of the correlations having p values less than .05. There were few reliable associations between the
inhibition tests and the theory-of-mind tests; such associations were largely restricted to the Decep-
tive Box Test and the Girl Fishing Test (two significant correlations in each case). Whereas outcomes
for the Index of Empathy were not reliably correlated with any of the other measures (all p values >
.05), there were numerous robust correlations among the inhibition tests, receptive vocabulary, and
working memory.
Given that results of the Whisper Test were uncorrelated with those of the remaining inhibition
tests, we excluded the Whisper Test from the inhibition battery when generating aggregate scores.
The aggregate score for inhibition was created by converting data for the remaining inhibition tests
to z scores and averaging them. The aggregate score for theory of mind was created by averaging
the raw data for the false-belief tests, producing a mean score for every participant that ranged be-
tween 0 and 1. After controlling for age, aggregate inhibition showed reliable correlations with recep-
tive vocabulary (partial r = .53, p < .001), working memory (partial r = .51, p < .001), and aggregate
theory of mind (partial r = .30, p = .022). There was a reliable correlation between aggregate theory
of mind and working memory (partial r = .42, p = .001) and a marginal correlation between aggregate
theory of mind and receptive vocabulary (partial r = .23, p = .083).

Table 1
Descriptive statistics for measures of cognitive ability and empathy (Study 1).

Measure N Range M SD
Receptive vocabulary 59 18–35 26.86 3.98
Empathy 59 6–20 11.98 3.02
Working memory 59 0–8 3.49 1.94
Inhibition
Day/night 58 0–16 14.79 3.38
Hand shape 59 7–15 14.30 1.39
Pig/wolf 59 0–15 13.56 3.55
Whisper 57 0.8–2 1.89 0.27
Tapping 59 4–18 15.96 2.57
Theory of mind
Sally–Anne 57 0–1 .70 .46
Linda 59 0–1 .42 .50
Deceptive box 59 0–1 .75 .44
Maxi 57 0–1 .53 .50
Ernie 56 0–1 .66 .48
Girl fishing 59 0–1 .59 .50
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 475

Table 2
Partial correlations between individual tests of cognitive ability and empathy after controlling for age (Study 1).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1. Receptive vocabulary –
2. Empathy .13 –
3. Working memory .38 .21 –
Inhibition
4. Day/night .53 .15 .44 –
5. Hand shape .42 .09 .10 .34 –
6. Pig/wolf .48 .13 .40 .55 .41 –
7. Whisper .10 .07 .28 .09 .17 –.02 –
8. Tapping .46 .14 .50 .69 .52 .50 .24 –
Theory of mind
9. Sally–Anne .04 .09 .20 .17 .22 .24 –.01 .11 –
10. Linda .26 .03 .24 .19 .15 .12 –.19 .29 .10 –
11. Deceptive box .28 .21 .31 .26 .29 .07 .00 .35 .37 .42 –
12. Maxi .07 .03 .33 .11 .06 .14 .07 .16 .48 .27 .15 –
13. Ernie .28 .23 .36 .17 .15 .25 –.10 .23 .74 .27 .49 .38 –
14. Girl fishing .16 .10 .22 .05 .28 .32 .08 .09 .23 .28 .18 .04 .33 –

Note: Bold figures represent correlations significant at p < .05.

Picture-naming PM task

Initial perusal of the data revealed that 6 children failed to make any PM responses at all, 29 chil-
dren made all possible PM responses, and 24 children remembered on some occasions and forgot on
others. In total, children failed to withhold naming on 90 occasions and failed to hide the picture on 30
occasions. Only 1 child withheld naming but subsequently forgot to hide the picture (on 1 occasion).
When prompted at the conclusion of the card sort task, all participants were able to recall both aspects
of the PM instructions—even if they had not acted on those instructions during the task.
Data for the four condition/response combinations (each with a maximum possible score of 2 PM
responses) were converted to proportional accuracy. A 2  2 repeated-measures analysis of variance
(ANOVA) for Condition (no interruption vs. interruption)  Response (withhold name vs. remove pic-
ture) showed that PM accuracy was significantly higher for the no-interruption condition than for the
interruption condition (M = .77, SD = .34 vs. M = .73, SD = .33), F(1, 58) = 9.54, p = .003, g2p = .14, and
that children removed the PM target from view significantly more often than they withheld naming
(M = .87, SD = .32 vs. M = .62, SD = .44), F(1, 58) = 25.46, p < .001, g2p = .31. There was a reliable interac-
tion between condition and response, F(1, 58) = 9.54, p = .003, g2p = .14. Whereas success at withhold-
ing naming was greater when the PM target appeared last (M = .66, SD = .45) rather than in the middle
(M = .58, SD = .45), t(58) = 3.44, p = .001, g2p = .17, success at hiding did not differ between PM targets in
the final position (M = .87, SD = .33) vs. the middle position (M = .87, SD = .32), t(58) = 0.00, p = 1.00,
g2p = .00. Children did better at hiding than withholding naming for both the interruption condition
(M = .87, SD = .32 vs. M = .58, SD = .45), t(58) = 5.47, p < .001, g2p = .34, and the no-interruption condi-
tion (M = .87, SD = .33 vs. M = .66, SD = .45), t(58) = 4.23, p < .001, g2p = .24.

Predictors of PM performance

Children’s overall PM accuracy showed reliable correlations with inhibition (r = .35, p = .007), work-
ing memory (r = .35, p = .006), and theory of mind (r = .48, p < .001) and showed marginal correlations
with receptive vocabulary (r = .22, p = .091) and age (r = .25, p = .057). There was no significant asso-
ciation with empathy (r = .16, p = .237).
To ascertain the best predictors of PM performance, we conducted backward regression analyses.
The backward elimination method was selected because it yields an initial model in which all
predictors are entered simultaneously, thereby revealing their unique contributions to the variance.
The dependent variables were (a) accuracy at withholding naming in the interruption condition,
476 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

(b) accuracy at withholding naming in the no-interruption condition, (c) accuracy at removing the pic-
ture in the interruption condition, and (d) accuracy at removing the picture in the no-interruption
condition. The independent variables were age, receptive vocabulary, working memory, inhibition,
theory of mind, and empathy. Table 3 presents results for the initial and final regression models for
each of the dependent measures. Theory of mind made a unique contribution to PM in three of the
four initial regression models (p values <.05) and was the only predictor to do so. In terms of withhold-
ing naming in the interruption condition, the final model was significant (adjusted R2 = .29), F(2,
56) = 13.07, p < .001, and showed reliable contributions of theory of mind (p = .002) and inhibition
(p = .010). In terms of withholding naming in the no-interruption condition, the final model was sig-
nificant (adjusted R2 = .28), F(2, 56) = 12.06, p < .001, and showed reliable contributions of theory of
mind (p = .001) and inhibition (p = .030). In terms of removing the picture in the interruption condi-
tion, the final model was significant (adjusted R2 = .08), F(1, 57) = 6.26, p = .015, and showed a reliable
contribution of theory of mind. In terms of removing the picture in the no-interruption condition, the
final model was significant (adjusted R2 = .07), F(1, 57) = 5.16, p = .027, and showed a reliable contri-
bution of theory of mind.
To see whether theory of mind and inhibition might be masking the contribution of the other pre-
dictors to PM, we repeated the four regression analyses with one or another of these variables omitted.
After excluding theory of mind, both analyses for the ‘‘withhold naming’’ measure produced signifi-
cant final models that retained inhibition and working memory (p values <.01). In the case of the ‘‘re-
move picture’’ measure, neither final model was significant. After excluding inhibition, both analyses
for the ‘‘withhold naming’’ measure produced significant final models that retained theory of mind
and working memory (p values <.01). In the case of the ‘‘remove picture’’ measure, both final models
were significant and retained only theory of mind (p values <.05).

PM performance and theory of mind

The final set of analyses explored the relations between PM and theory of mind in greater depth.
First, a hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to see how much variance in overall PM accu-
racy was explained specifically by theory of mind. When entered on the first step, the remaining pre-
dictors accounted for 18% of the variance in PM, F(5, 53) = 2.24, p = .063; when entered on the second
step, theory of mind produced a significant increase in variance of 11%, DF(1, 52) = 7.58, p = .008.

Table 3
Initial and final models of backward regression analyses examining best predictors of picture-naming PM performance (Study 1).

Withhold naming Remove picture

Interruption No interruption Interruption No interruption
B SE b B SE b B SE b B SE b
Initial model
Age .02 .02 .13 .02 .02 .12 .01 .02 .08 .00 .02 .04
Vocabulary –.03 .03 –.13 .00 .03 –.01 .00 .03 –.01 –.02 .03 –.14
Working memory .03 .08 .07 .04 .08 .10 –.04 .06 –.11 –.01 .06 –.03
Empathy .01 .04 .04 .01 .04 .05 .00 .03 .02 .00 .02 .03
Theory of mind .96 .37 .34* .95 .37 .33* .64 .30 .32* .61 .32 .29+
Inhibition .33 .15 .33* .20 .15 .21 .05 .12 .07 .01 .03 .04
Final model
Age – – – – – – – – – – – –
Vocabulary – – – – – – – – – – – –
Working memory – – – – – – – – – – – –
Empathy – – – – – – – – – – – –
Theory of mind 1.08 .34 .38** 1.14 .34 .40** .63 .25 .32* .60 .26 .29*
Inhibition .31 .12 .31* .26 .17 .26* – – – – – –
+
p < .10.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 477

Second, we examined whether the positive loading of theory of mind on PM was evident for each of
the individual false-belief tests. Results revealed significant correlations between overall PM accuracy
and the Sally–Anne Test (r = .35, p = .007), the Deceptive Box Test (r = .33, p = .010), the Linda Test
(r = .45, p < .001), the Maxi Test (r = .29, p = .028), and the Ernie Test (r = .38, p = .004). However, there
was no reliable association between PM and outcomes for the Girl Fishing Test (r = .12, p = .354).

Discussion

Theory of mind proved to be a robust predictor of children’s PM, making a unique or marginal con-
tribution to the variance in all of the initial regression models and being the only measure to figure in
all of the final models. There was no evidence that the relation between theory of mind and PM came
down largely to the effects of a single test; rather, it was the theory-of-mind battery as a whole that
was effective in capturing individual differences in PM. Given that we controlled for a comprehensive
set of cognitive measures, the unique link between theory of mind and PM cannot easily be explained
in terms of the inhibitory, language, and/or working memory components of false-belief tasks. It also
seems unlikely that children with a better developed theory of mind were more appreciative of the
puppet’s fear of dogs. First, fear of dogs would seem to be an easy mental state to understand even
in the case of children who perform poorly on false-belief tests. Second, we did not detect a positive
association between PM and outcomes of the empathy questionnaire, as might have been expected if
the theory-of-mind measure was picking up an affective element to PM performance in this particular
paradigm.
In line with previous studies (e.g., Kerns, 2000; Kliegel et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2008), the results
also implicated an important contribution of executive function to children’s PM, reflected in a robust
loading of inhibition on the ‘‘withhold naming’’ response for both the interruption and no-interruption
conditions. Similarly, working memory emerged as a significant predictor of children’s ability to with-
hold naming when either inhibition or theory of mind was excluded from the analyses, suggesting that
its influence was masked due to shared variance with these variables. Because neither inhibition nor
working memory predicted children’s success at remembering to remove the target pictures from
view (which instead showed a unique influence of theory of mind), the findings raise the possibility
that executive function might be important to PM primarily when there is a need to resolve interfer-
ence between the ongoing task and the PM task. Specifically, it appears that the aspect of the ongoing
task that was particularly absorbing for children was the picture-naming aspect rather than the pro-
cedure of putting one picture down and picking the next one up. Indeed, children often proceeded to
hide the picture after inappropriately naming it, leading to significantly higher accuracy for the ‘‘hid-
ing’’ measure than for the ‘‘withhold naming’’ measure.
Consistent with this interpretation of the findings, Bisiacchia, Schiff, Ciccolaa, and Kliegel (2009)
distinguished between task-switch PM paradigms, for which participants need to interrupt their per-
formance on the ongoing task to respond to the PM target, and dual-task PM paradigms, which allow
participants to continue work on the ongoing task before making their PM response. In an electrophys-
iological investigation of the neural correlates of these two different kinds of PM, these authors re-
ported that only the task-switch approach elicited event-related potential (ERP) components
associated with response inhibition and postretrieval monitoring (i.e., late positive complex), whereas
both the dual-task and task-switch approaches yielded ERPs indicative of PM event detection (i.e.,
N300) and retrieval of the intended action from long-term memory. Although our own procedure in-
volved a two-step PM response rather than unrelated tasks, the results nevertheless agree with
Bisiacchia and colleagues’ conclusion that executive processes are important to PM primarily at the
stage of interrupting ongoing activities.
Given the novelty of our finding linking theory of mind and PM, our main objective in Study 2 was
to replicate it in a new group of children. To this end, we repeated the picture-naming task, this time
modifying the instructions so as to avoid telling children that the puppet was afraid of dogs. In addi-
tion, we omitted the empathy index from our set of predictor variables and replaced it with a measure
of children’s ability to reason about false signs. In false-sign tests, the sequence of events causes a sign
(rather than a belief) to become outdated, such that it no longer reflects the true state of affairs
478 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

(Sabbagh, Moses, & Shiverick, 2006). Not only are results of false-sign tests positively correlated with
those of false-belief tests (Leekam, Perner, Healey, & Sewell, 2008), such tests also mimic false-belief
tests in drawing heavily on inhibitory skills (Sabbagh et al., 2006). Nevertheless, brain imaging studies
with adult participants have suggested that the two procedures are dissociable. Because false-belief
tests activate both the right and left temporo–parietal junction (TPJ), whereas false-sign tests activate
only TPJ-left (TPJ-L), it has been concluded that TPJ-right (TPJ-R) handles unobservable mental states,
whereas TPJ-L deals more generally with conflicting perspectives or representations (Aichhorn et al.,
2009; Perner, Aichhorn, Kronbichler, Staffen, & Ladurner, 2006). Based on this evidence, we reasoned
that only false-belief tests index self-projection and, hence, that performance on false-sign tests
should not contribute unique variance to PM (i.e., beyond the variance contributed by the language
and executive skills inherent to passing such tests). Following the lead of previous research (e.g.,
Leekam et al., 2008), our false-sign tests were identical to the false-belief tests in terms of narrative
content and structure, differing only in the test question.
Finally, we included in our test battery a second event-based PM procedure that was designed to be
more naturalistic. For the new task, we asked children to return to the researcher a lightweight object
(a medallion that was hung around their neck) at the end of the activities. This task was included to
evaluate the influence of the predictor variables on PM under conditions where (a) children experi-
enced a considerable delay between forming the intention and having the opportunity to enact the
PM response and (b) there was no competition from an ongoing task at the due time for PM
enactment.

Study 2

Method

Participants
The participants were 50 children (16 girls and 34 boys) aged 4 or 5 years (M = 57.4 months,
SD = 4.2, range = 49–67). All children were attending mainstream preschool or preparatory classes
in an area of low socioeconomic status, and all spoke English fluently. All had normal or corrected-
to-normal vision and hearing. Participation in the study was subject to informed consent from chil-
dren’s parents or guardians.

Materials and procedure

In total, children completed one test of verbal ability, one test of working memory, five tests of
inhibitory control, two tests of false-belief understanding, two tests of false-sign understanding,
and two tests of PM. Once again, data were collected in four sessions lasting approximately 20 min
each that were spread over 8 weeks, with each session containing a mixture of activities and being
handled by a different researcher. The tests of verbal ability, working memory, and inhibitory control
were the same as for Study 1 apart from the fact that the Whisper Test used a different set of pictures
appropriate to the demographic characteristics of the new sample. In addition, there were four tests
that could be presented as either false-belief tests or false-sign tests simply by changing the wording
of the test question. The tests were the Maxi Test, the Ice Cream Van Test, the Horse Test, and the
Necklace Test (see Appendix for descriptions). For 24 participants, the Maxi Test and the Necklace Test
took the form of false-belief tests, whereas the Ice Cream Van Test and the Horse Test took the form of
false-sign tests. For the remaining 26 participants, the Maxi Test and the Necklace Test took the form
of false-sign tests, whereas the Ice Cream Van Test and the Horse Test took the form of false-belief
tests (we had intended that 25 participants be assigned to each arrangement but made an error with
our counterbalancing).

Picture-naming PM test. The picture-naming PM task was administered in the same manner as for
Study 1 with two exceptions. First, children were presented with a box with a slot in its lid into which
they were asked to post the pictures after naming them for Kenny. Second, we did not attribute any
fear of dogs to the puppet. Instead, children were informed without further explanation that if they
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 479

encountered a picture of a dog, they should not name it or put it in the box but instead should hand it
to the researcher (who placed it in her lap, out of sight of the children).

Return medallion PM test. Prior to the picture-naming PM task, the researcher produced an attractive
lightweight medallion with the word ‘‘helper’’ printed on it (round with a diameter of 6 cm) and told
children what it said. She then hung it around their neck before explaining that she needed them to
help her entertain Kenny by naming and displaying some pictures of animals. The researcher made it
clear that the medallion was only on loan and that children must remember to give it back when the
game was over. To emphasize this point, she mentioned that she was forgetful and might not remem-
ber to ask them to take it off. At the conclusion of the picture-naming PM task, the researcher waited
to see whether children spontaneously removed the medallion and handed it back to her. If they failed
to do so, then she stopped them just before they exited the room and retrieved it from them. Children
were credited with passing the task if they remembered to return the medallion before being stopped
at the door by the researcher.

Results

Table 4 presents descriptive statistics for the individual tests making up the predictor variables. A
paired-samples t test indicated that overall accuracy for the false-belief tests (M = .49, SD = .42) was
reliably lower than for the false-sign tests (M = .67, SD = .39), t(49) = 2.64, p = .011.
Table 5 shows partial correlations between the tests after controlling for age. Because each of the
false-belief tests and false-sign tests was administered to only half of the group, the table presents
outcomes for the aggregate measures in these cases (obtained by averaging the relevant two scores
to generate a mean between 0 and 1). Results revealed numerous reliable correlations between the
individual inhibition tests; hence, data were converted to z scores and averaged to create an aggregate
score for inhibition. Mimicking Study 1, there were reliable associations among the inhibition tests,
receptive vocabulary, and working memory. After controlling for age, aggregate inhibition showed sig-
nificant correlations with receptive vocabulary (partial r = .57, p < .001), working memory (partial
r = .40, p = .005), and false-belief performance (partial r = .44, p = .001). There was a marginal correla-
tion between aggregate inhibition and false-sign performance (partial r = .27, p = .059).

Table 4
Descriptive statistics for measures of cognitive ability (Study 2).

Measure N Range M SD
Receptive vocabulary 50 7–31 22.48 5.71
Working memory 50 0–12 3.26 3.85
Inhibition
Day/night 50 0–16 12.45 4.24
Hand shape 50 2–16 14.38 2.76
Pig/wolf 50 0–15 12.08 5.10
Whisper 50 0–2 1.64 0.42
Tapping 50 0–16 11.78 5.13
False belief
Ice cream van 26 0–1 .42 .50
Maxi 24 0–1 .46 .51
Horse 26 0–1 .58 .50
Necklace 24 0–1 .50 .51
False sign
Ice cream van 24 0–1 .71 .46
Maxi 26 0–1 .50 .51
Horse 24 0–1 .67 .48
Necklace 26 0–1 .81 .40
480 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

Table 5
Partial correlations between individual tests of cognitive ability after controlling for age (Study 2).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Receptive vocabulary –
2. Working memory .53 –
3. False belief .48 .40 –
4. False sign .45 .16 .29 –
Inhibition
5. Day/night .30 .26 .34 .09 –
6. Hand shape .52 .30 .27 .29 .13 –
7. Pig/wolf .45 .28 .42 .17 .33 .60 –
8. Whisper .29 .14 .09 .23 .33 .15 .29 –
9. Tapping .34 .33 .35 .13 .31 .55 .52 .29 –

Note: Bold figures represent correlations significant at p < .05.

Picture-naming PM task

Initial perusal of the data revealed that 3 children failed to make any PM responses at all, 19 chil-
dren performed perfectly, and 28 remembered sometimes and forgot sometimes. In total, children
failed to withhold naming on 73 occasions and failed to hide the picture on 16 occasions. There were
no instances where children withheld naming but forgot to give the picture to the researcher. When
queried at the conclusion of the picture-naming task, 46 of the 50 participants were able to recall both
aspects of the PM instructions—even if they had not acted on those instructions during the task. Of the
4 participants who could not perfectly recall the PM instructions, 3 made no PM responses at all,
whereas the remaining child remembered to give pictures of dogs to the researcher but failed to with-
hold naming. Given that PM failures among children who could not report the PM instructions might
have reflected inefficient retrospective memory, data from the 4 participants in question were ex-
cluded from subsequent analyses.
Data for the four condition/response combinations (each with a maximum possible score of 2 PM
responses) were converted to proportional accuracy. A 2  2 repeated-measures ANOVA for Condition
(no interruption vs. interruption)  Response (withhold name vs. remove picture) showed that PM
accuracy was marginally higher for the no-interruption condition than for the interruption condition
(M = .86, SD = .23 vs. M = .81, SD = .22), F(1, 45) = 3.73, p = .060, g2p = .08, and that children remembered
to give the PM targets to the researcher significantly more often than they remembered not to name
them (M = .98, SD = .16 vs. M = .69, SD = .36), F(1, 45) = 33.54, p < .001, g2p = .43.There was a marginal
interaction between condition and response, F(1, 45) = 3.73, p = .060, g2p = .08. Whereas success at
withholding naming was greater when the PM target appeared last rather than in the middle
(M = .74, SD = .39 vs. M = .64, SD = .40), t(45) = 2.03, p = .048, g2p = .08, success at removing the PM tar-
get did not differ according to its position (M = .98, SD = .15 vs. M = .98, SD = .10), t(45) = 0.00, p = 1.00,
g2p = .00. Further inspection of the data for the ‘‘remove picture’’ measure indicated that performance
was at ceiling level, with only 2 children making errors in the interruption condition and 1 child mak-
ing errors in the no-interruption condition.

Predictors of PM performance

Children’s total number of PM responses (maximum possible score = 8) showed significant corre-
lations with age (r = .34, p = .022), theory of mind (r = .55, p < .001), and inhibition (r = .60, p < .001).
There were marginal correlations with receptive vocabulary (r = .28, p = .061) and working memory
(r = .28, p = .056). Overall PM accuracy was not significantly associated with false-sign performance
(r = .05, p = .759).
Table 6 presents results of the initial and final models of backward regression analyses conducted
to determine the best predictors of the ‘‘withhold naming’’ measure in the interruption and no-
interruption conditions. Results for the ‘‘remove picture’’ measure were not examined given the lack
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 481

Table 6
Initial and final models of backward regression analyses examining best predictors of ‘‘withhold naming’’ measure in picture-
naming PM task (Study 2).

Withhold naming
Interruption No interruption
B SE b B SE b
Initial model
Age .02 .02 .12 .04 .03 .21
Vocabulary .00 .03 .00 .00 .03 –.02
Memory span .02 .03 .08 .00 .03 .01
False sign –.01 .28 .00 –.04 .30 –.02
Theory of mind .71 .27 .36* .59 .29 .32*
Inhibition .59 .21 .37** .46 .23 .30*
Final model
Age – – – .04 .02 .22+
Vocabulary – – – – – –
Memory span – – – – – –
False sign – – – – – –
Theory of mind .79 .24 .39** .57 .26 .31*
Inhibition .63 .20 .41** .47 .21 .30*
+
p < .10.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.

of variance. The independent variables were age, receptive vocabulary, working memory, inhibition,
false-belief performance, and false-sign performance. As indicated by Table 6, both theory of mind
and inhibition made unique contributions to the variance in PM in the initial models (p values
<.05). In terms of children’s success at withholding naming in the interruption condition, the final
model was significant (adjusted R2 = .43), F(2, 43) = 17.96, p < .001, and showed reliable contributions
of theory of mind (p = .003) and inhibition (p = .002). In terms of children’s success at withholding
naming in the no-interruption condition, the final model was significant (adjusted R2 = .31), F(3,
42) = 7.63, p < .001, and showed a marginal contribution of age (p = .099) as well as reliable contribu-
tions of theory of mind (p = .030) and inhibition (p = .033).
Mimicking Study 1, we repeated the regression analyses after omitting either theory of mind or
inhibition from the set of independent variables. This time, no new predictors appeared in the final
models regardless of whether it was inhibition or theory of mind that was excluded.

Predictors of return medallion PM performance

Table 7 shows the outcomes of independent-samples t tests examining age and performance on the
cognitive measures as a function of whether children remembered to return the medallion (n = 33) or

Table 7
Age and intellectual ability as a function of whether children remembered to return the medallion (Study 2).

Dependent variable Remembered (n = 33) Forgot (n = 17) t(48) p g2p

M SD M SD
Age 57.64 4.57 56.82 3.32 0.65 .520 .01
Receptive vocabulary 23.42 4.83 20.65 6.92 1.66 .104 .05
Memory span .07 .78 –.13 .86 0.83 .409 .01
False sign performance .71 .38 .59 .40 1.08 .287 .02
Theory of mind .59 .40 .29 .40 2.47 .017* .11
Inhibition .10 .61 –.19 .74 1.50 .140 .05
*
p < .05.
482 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

Table 8
Performance on individual false-belief and false-sign tests as a function of whether children remembered to return the medallion
(Study 2).

Dependent variable Na Remembered Forgot Remembered Forgot

M SD M SD Mb SE Mb SE
False belief tests
Ice cream van 17 vs. 9 .47 .51 .33 .50 .44 .11 .34 .16
Maxi 16 vs. 8 .63 .50 .13 .35 .61 .12 .29 .19
Horse 17 vs. 9 .64 .49 .44 .53 .63 .11 .49 .15
Necklace 16 vs. 8 .63 .50 .25 .46 .60 .10 .45 .15
False sign tests
Ice cream van 16 vs. 8 .75 .43 .63 .52 .72 .12 .74 .18
Maxi 17 vs. 9 .47 .51 .56 .53 .43 .12 .51 .16
Horse 16 vs. 8 .81 .40 .38 .52 .79 .11 .42 .17
Necklace 17 vs. 9 .82 .39 .78 .44 .77 .10 .74 .13
a
Numbers of children who remembered vs. forgot to return the medallion.
b
Adjusted means after controlling for receptive vocabulary, inhibition, and working memory.

forgot to return it (n = 17). Although most measures showed superior performance among the children
who passed the PM test, the group difference was significant only in the case of theory of mind
(p < .05). A simultaneous entry binary logistic regression analysis showed that, within the context
of the remaining five predictor variables, theory of mind made a marginally unique contribution to
the variance (B = .70, SE = .42, Wald’s v2 = 2.80, p = .094, odds ratio = 2.01).
Children who returned the medallion showed marginally greater success at withholding naming in
the interruption condition of the picture-naming PM task (M = .67, SD = .43 vs. M = .44, SD = .39),
t(48) = 1.82, p = .070, g2p = .06, but not in the no-interruption condition (M = .71, SD = .42 vs. M = .62,
SD = .45), t(48) = 0.74, p = .463, g2p = .01.

PM performance and theory of mind

When overall PM accuracy was entered as the dependent variable, a hierarchical regression anal-
ysis that included all predictors except theory of mind on the first step was found to account for 16% of
the variance, F(4, 41) = 3.06, p = .027. After entering theory of mind on the second step, there was a
reliable increase in variance of 14%, DF(1, 40) = 8.79, p = .005.
For the picture-naming PM procedure, we observed significant full correlations between overall PM
performance and three individual measures of theory of mind, namely the following false-belief tests:
the Ice Cream Van Test (r = .40, p = .050), the Maxi Test (r = .64, p = .001), and the Necklace Test (r = .63,
p = .002). In contrast, there were no reliable associations between PM and any of the individual false-
sign tests (p values >.10). For the return medallion PM procedure, we examined performance on the
individual false-belief and false-sign tests as a function of whether children remembered or forgot
to return the medallion. As shown in Table 8, the means indicated superior performance among the
children who remembered to return the medallion on all false-belief tests and one false-sign test,
namely the Horse Test. When we inspected the results of the Horse FS Test in detail, we found that
it was children’s accuracy in answering the reality control question that differentiated between those
who remembered to return the medallion (M = .94, SD = .25, adjusted M = .94, SE = .09) and those who
forgot (M = .38, SD = .52, adjusted M = .38, SE = .13) more so than their accuracy at answering the test
question (‘‘remembered’’ M = .88, SD = .43, adjusted M = .84, SE = .10 vs. ‘‘forgot’’ M = .63, SD = .52,
adjusted M = .69, SE = .14).

Discussion

Study 2 replicated our initial finding that theory of mind made an important contribution to chil-
dren’s PM in the picture-naming task, further to a reliable impact of inhibitory control. Whereas high
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 483

levels of accuracy on the ‘‘remove picture’’ measure made it impossible to ascertain the best predictors
of the frequency with which children remembered to hand the target pictures to the researcher (sug-
gesting that her visible presence served as a robust retrieval cue for this particular response), the un-
ique influences of theory of mind and inhibition on children’s success at withholding naming were
once again evident for both the interruption and no-interruption conditions.
Study 2 also extended our earlier findings in two important ways. First, it demonstrated an asso-
ciation between theory of mind and PM in a new task that asked children to remember to return a
loaned object (a medallion) to the researcher before they left the room. In this task, theory of mind
was the only variable to predict PM performance. Second, it was revealed that PM was not predicted
by children’s performance on false-sign tests that were identical to the false-belief tests in narrative
content and structure. This was despite the fact that the false-sign tests mimicked the false-belief tests
in showing positive associations with verbal ability, working memory, and inhibition even after con-
trolling for age. This latter observation suggests that it was the unique element of mental state reason-
ing inherent in the false-belief tests that was important to PM.

General discussion

The current study provided a first-time demonstration that children’s theory of mind, as gauged by
false-belief tests, predicts their success on measures of PM. This was true for two event-based PM
tasks that used quite different methods and stimuli. For the return medallion task, theory of mind
was the only measure to distinguish between children who remembered to return the medallion
and children who forgot. For the picture-naming task, theory of mind made a unique contribution
to the variance in overall PM accuracy beyond that explained jointly by the remaining predictor vari-
ables (accounting for an additional 11% of the variance in Study 1 and an additional 14% of the vari-
ance in Study 2). Both theory of mind and inhibition explained significant variance in PM further to
chronological age, indicating that these variables were not merely surrogate indexes of development.
In the ensuing discussion, we consider the implications of these findings for (a) executive process
models of PM and (b) the self-projection hypothesis. We conclude with suggestions for future
research.

PM and executive function

Results of the current research have added to a growing body of evidence implicating a major
involvement of prefrontal control processes in children’s PM (Kliegel et al., 2008; Rendell et al.,
2009; Shum et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2008). For both studies, there was a robust influence of inhibitory
skills on children’s success at withholding naming in the picture-naming PM procedure. Despite no
unique influence of working memory on PM in either study, it was nevertheless shown that working
memory was positively correlated with PM in the picture-naming task, particularly children’s success
at refraining from naming the target pictures. Given the robust associations among working memory,
inhibition, and theory of mind, it seems fair to conclude that that our measure of working memory did
not lack sensitivity; rather, it appears that the working memory demands of the picture-naming PM
procedure were largely obscured due to shared variance with inhibition and theory of mind.
The finding that inhibition failed to predict children’s performance in relation to the ‘‘remove pic-
ture’’ PM response in Study 1, or whether they remembered to return the medallion in Study 2, ac-
cords with the suggestion that inhibition is integral to PM mainly when participants need to
withdraw attention from the ongoing task when the opportunity arises to enact their intention
(Bisiacchia et al., 2009; Kliegel et al., 2008). Importantly, results of Study 1 argue against the possibility
that the picture-naming activity was really an inhibition test that did not involve any PM, a potential
concern given that we did not introduce a delay between presenting the PM instructions and asking
participants to commence naming the pictures. If instances where children failed to withhold naming
but went onto hide the picture were merely examples of delayed inhibition, then outcomes for the
inhibition tests should have predicted success on the latter measure as well as on the former one.
484 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

Instead, the frequency of correct responses for the ‘‘remove picture’’ measure in Study 1 was related
only to theory of mind.

PM and theory of mind

The primary objective of the current investigation was to look for evidence of an association be-
tween children’s PM and their theory of mind. As described at the outset, neuroimaging, clinical,
and developmental evidence has converged on the conclusion that a common brain network underlies
various forms of mental self-projection, including remembering the past, imagining the future, and
conceiving what other people think (Buckner & Carroll, 2007). It has further been proposed that
self-projection, in the form of future simulation, is an important component of PM (Brewer & Marsh,
2010). Notions about self-projection raise the possibility that children with a better developed theory
of mind were more inclined to think about themselves performing the desired response in the future
at the time the PM instructions were issued. As proposed by Brewer and Marsh (2010), such future
simulation might have strengthened the cue–response association and, thus, increased the likelihood
that children retrieved it to conscious awareness at the appropriate time.
It seems unlikely that the false-belief tests simply tapped an aspect of executive function that we
failed to measure. First, the variance in PM explained by such tests was independent of both inhibition
and working memory despite positive correlations among all three variables. Second, the contribution
of theory of mind to PM remained robust in Study 2 after controlling for children’s achievements on
matched false-sign tests. This finding, which implies that only the false-belief tests indexed self-
projection, is consistent with the idea that both false-belief tests and false-sign tests require partici-
pants to deal with conflicting representations, but only false-belief tests require them to reflect on
mental states (Aichhorn et al., 2009; Perner et al., 2006). Dissociation between false-belief and
false-sign reasoning in relation to children’s PM was apparent for most of the individual tests. For
the picture-naming task, we found that three of the four false-belief tests, but none of the false-sign
tests, were predictive of PM in their own right. For the return medallion task, PM performance was
linked to outcomes on all of the false-belief tests but on only one of the false-sign tests. This was
despite the fact that false-sign performance was correlated with verbal ability, working memory,
and inhibition, bolstering the claim that false-sign tasks involve similar domain-general processes
to false-belief tasks (Leekam et al., 2008; Perner & Leekam, 2008).
It is doubtful that the failure of the false-sign tests to predict PM was due to a ceiling effect.
Although the pass rate on such tests was significantly higher than on the false-belief tests, there
was similar variance. Moreover, the reliable correlations between false-sign accuracy and both inhibi-
tion and working memory indicate that the false-sign tests were effective in tapping cognitive pro-
cesses that are important to PM. Finally, the contrast between false-belief and false-sign
performance as predictors of children’s success at remembering to return the medallion was greatest
for the Maxi Test scenario despite the fact that this procedure elicited nearly identical pass rates
regardless of whether it was delivered as a false-belief test or a false-sign test.
Given that so many false-belief tests were individually predictive of PM, the fact that neither the
Girl Fishing Test in Study 1 nor the Horse Test in Study 2 conformed to this pattern might mean that
these particular tests evaluated unintended aspects of children’s understanding of the events. For
example, the Girl Fishing Test might have assessed general knowledge more than theory of mind, such
that children who passed the test had a better understanding of what people expect to catch when
they go fishing. In the case of the Horse Test, it could be argued that children assumed that the farmer
was accustomed to his horse escaping and other animals getting into his field, throwing them off
when answering the false-belief question. Unexpectedly, in the case of the Horse Test scenario, it
was the reality control question (‘‘What kind of animal is in the field really?’’) that predicted PM in
the return medallion task when it was posed following the false-sign question. Reinforcing our argu-
ments above, we suggest that it was children’s misunderstanding of the test question that made the
subsequent reality question an effective index of PM. That is, one possibility consistent with the self-
projection account is that the reality question alerted those children with a superior theory of mind to
the researcher’s intent to highlight a contrast between the true state of affairs and what people might
mistakenly believe.
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 485

Future research

Although robust, our observation that theory of mind predicts PM in young children is preliminary
and in need of further research that subjects the self-projection account to greater scrutiny. As well as
studying the role of theory of mind in a greater variety of PM paradigms (e.g., time-based paradigms,
paradigms that do not involve puppets or other people), an obvious way forward would be to examine
self-projection using explicit measures of future thinking. Whereas Atance and Jackson (2009) failed
to find robust associations between such measures (planning and delay of gratification) and children’s
PM, these researchers speculated that any common component of future thinking might have been
masked by the fact that the tasks differed markedly in their demands on other cognitive processes
such as inhibitory control and working memory. Similar to the current investigation, therefore, future
studies along these lines should control for important aspects of executive function.
Another approach would be to seek to pinpoint which stage of PM engages theory of mind using the
process model of Kliegel et al. (2002) as a guide. Whereas we assumed that theory of mind indexes self-
projection at the stage of intention formation, it could be argued instead that it taps the retrospective
component of PM, that is, the ability to recall the intention at the appropriate time. One way of inves-
tigating this possibility would be to see whether theory of mind continues to predict PM after control-
ling for episodic recollection. Alternatively, future studies could manipulate the likelihood that children
engage in future thinking while encoding the PM intention, as has been done with adult participants
(e.g., Brewer & Marsh, 2010). This would help to distinguish the contribution of theory of mind to
PM from that of executive function. If theory of mind gauges self-projection during encoding, then
its involvement in PM should be heightened when future thinking is encouraged but not when the dif-
ficulty of the ongoing task is increased. Conversely, the impact of executive function should be unaf-
fected by manipulations of future thinking but related to the cognitive demands of the ongoing task.
Finally, there is scope to examine relations between theory of mind and PM after controlling for
binding processes. Opposing Buckner and Carroll (2007), some researchers have suggested that what
is common to episodic memory and future thinking is not so much the subjective sense of self trav-
eling through time but rather the ability to engage in scene generation, that is, by binding together
the co-occurring aspects of an experienced or imagined event into a coherent representation (Addis
et al., 2009; Hassabis & Maguire, 2007; Rosenbaum, Gilboa, Levine, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2009;
Russell, Dean, & Clayton, 2010). This view, emphasizing the constructive nature of memory, agrees
with conceptualizations of the childhood emergence of episodic remembering that dispense with
notions of self-awareness and focus simply on children’s ability to recall events in terms of what,
where, and when (Clayton & Russell, 2009). In its support, evidence that young children’s performance
on tests of feature binding is a reliable predictor of their recall of complex events has been taken to
suggest that the development of episodic memory reflects growing efficiency of binding processes
handled by the hippocampus (Sluzenski, Newcombe, & Kovacs, 2006). If putative measures of self-
projection can be shown to explain unique variance in PM even after controlling for binding processes,
then this would support the view that future-oriented event construction and simulation cannot occur
in the absence of any ability to project the self forward in time (e.g., Perner et al., 2010).
In summary, the current investigation has provided novel evidence of a link between theory of
mind and PM in young children. This relation held up after controlling for age, verbal ability, working
memory, and inhibition, bolstering the suggestion that theory of mind and PM share a common ele-
ment of mental self-projection. As discussed, future research on this topic has the potential to increase
our understanding not just of the development of PM in young children but also of the broader
relations between memory and consciousness.

Appendix A. False-belief and false-sign tests used in Study 2

Ice Cream Van Test

This task was adapted from Perner and Leekam (2008). Children were shown four pictures, one at a
time, while listening to the following story. ‘‘(1) Here is an ice cream van that sells lots of yummy ice
486 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489

creams. This picture shows the ice cream van just about to drive into a village. (2) The van drives along
the main road of the village, turns left, and parks behind a house with a green roof. See? [researcher
points along the road and then to the van]. (3) The driver wants people to know where his van is so
that they will come and buy ice cream. So, he puts a sign next to the road pointing to his van. See?
[researcher points to the sign]. The people see the sign and follow it. They buy lots of ice cream,
and the man is happy because he makes lots of money. He says to the people, ‘Look out for me tomor-
row because I’ll be back. If you want another ice cream tomorrow, then come back and find me here
behind the house with the green roof.’ (4) The next day, the man goes back to the village and drives up
the main road. However, he accidentally turns right instead of left [researcher points] and ends up
parked behind the church. See?’’
False-belief test question: ‘‘Where do the people in the village think the ice cream van is today—be-
hind the house or behind the church?’’
False-sign test question: ‘‘Where does the sign show the ice cream van is today—behind the house or
behind the church?’’
Control question: ‘‘Where is the ice cream van really—behind the house or behind the church?’’

Maxi Test

This task was based on the Maxi false-belief test devised by Wimmer and Perner (1983). Two
scenes were depicted on a single A4 sheet of paper. In the uppermost scene, a boy (Maxi) stands be-
tween a green cupboard and a blue cupboard while holding a bar of chocolate. The green cupboard has
a picture of foodstuffs on the front, and the blue cupboard has a picture of crockery on the front. In the
bottom scene, Maxi’s mother stands between the cupboards while holding the same chocolate. An ar-
row in each scene indicates in which cupboard the character places the chocolate. Children viewed the
pictures while listening to the following story. ‘‘There was a little boy called Maxi, and he had a bar of
chocolate. He kept his chocolate in the green cupboard in the kitchen. Maxi’s mother put pictures on
the cupboards in her kitchen to show where things should go. See? The green cupboard is for food, and
the blue cupboard is for cups and plates. One day Maxi was hungry, and so he ate some of his choc-
olate. When he was finished, he put the rest of the chocolate back in the green cupboard and then he
went outside to play. While he was gone, his mother came in and took the chocolate out of the green
cupboard. She wanted to make a chocolate cake, and she needed some of the chocolate to make icing.
After she finished with the chocolate, she put it away—only she made a mistake and put it in the blue
cupboard. Then Maxi’s mother went upstairs to do some ironing, leaving Maxi’s chocolate in the blue
cupboard.’’
False-belief test question: ‘‘Where does Maxi think the chocolate is—the green cupboard or the blue
cupboard?’’
False-sign test question: ‘‘Where does the picture show that the chocolate is—the green cupboard or
the blue cupboard?’’
Control question: ‘‘Where is the chocolate really—the green cupboard or the blue cupboard?’’

Horse Test

This task involved a small model of a field bordered by a fence and small plastic figurines of a horse,
a sheep, and a man. There was a picture of a horse attached to the fence. The researcher used the props
to enact the following story. ‘‘There is farmer who has a field in which he keeps his horse. The farmer is
so proud of his horse that he puts a sign with a picture of the horse on the fence to show what is inside
the field. See? One day, the farmer went into town [researcher moves the figurine of the farmer out of
sight], and while he is away the horse jumps over the fence [researcher makes the horse leap out of the
enclosure] and gets out! See? The horse is now galloping around outside! Then a sheep comes along.
The sheep sees some lovely green grass inside the field. So, the sheep makes an enormous jump and
gets over the fence into the field [researcher makes the sheep jump inside the enclosure]. The sheep
starts eating all the tasty grass! See?’’
False-belief test question: ‘‘What kind of animal does the farmer think is inside the field right now—
horse or sheep?’’
 R.M. Ford et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 111 (2012) 468–489 487

False-sign test question: ‘‘What kind of animal does the sign show is inside the field right now—
horse or sheep?’’
Control question: ‘‘What kind of animal is in the field really—horse or sheep?’’

Necklace Test

The researcher enacted the following story using two small boxes (a blue box with a picture of a
necklace on the lid and a red box with a picture of perfume bottles on the lid), a small necklace, a small
set of perfume bottles, and two Barbie dolls. At the start of the story, the necklace was inside the blue
box and the perfume was inside the red box. ‘‘There was a shopkeeper, and in her shop she sold lots of
lovely things for other ladies to buy. One day, a lady came into the shop and said that she wanted to
buy something. So, the shopkeeper opened the blue box and showed her the necklace, and she opened
the red box and showed her the perfume. The lady looked at the things carefully. After a while, she
decided that she wanted to buy the necklace. She said to the shopkeeper, ‘I want to buy the necklace,
please,’ but when she looked in her purse she said, ‘Oh dear, I don’t have enough money to buy the
necklace. I will have to go to the bank to get some money out. Please put the necklace back in the
box for me, and when I come back I’ll pay for it.’ So, the lady went out of the shop to get some more
money. While she was gone, the shopkeeper packed up the necklace. Only, you know what? She acci-
dentally put the necklace in the red box with the picture of perfume bottles on it, and she put the per-
fume in the blue box with the picture of a necklace on it. See? Just then, the lady came back from the
bank and she wanted to pay for her new necklace.’’
False-belief test question: ‘‘Which box does this lady [researcher indicates the customer] think the
necklace is in—the blue box or the red box?’’
False-sign test question: ‘‘Which box does the picture show the necklace is in—the blue box or the
red box?’’
Control question: ‘‘Which box is the necklace in really—the blue box or the red box?’’

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