Zihin Kuramının Bilişsel Psikoloji Bağlamında İncelenmesi: Yönetici İşlevlerden Ayrıştırma ve Bilgisayar Temelli Batarya Geliştirme Çalışması

Abstract

The main purpose of this PhD thesis is to develop a computer-based original battery consisting of vivid-colored animations and social interaction that examine Theory of Mind (ToM) with different dimensions (cognitive and affective) in terms of experimental methodology within the framework of cognitive psychology theories and approaches and to perform validity and reliability studies of the tasks in the developed battery named as Hacettepe-Computer Based ToM (Hacettepe-CBToM) Battery. The secondary purpose is to develop executive function tasks that consist of original computer-based vivid-colored animations to show whether or not ToM is a cognitive skill separate from executive functions and to determine the norms special to our culture for two different age groups of all the tasks in the developed battery.

The validity and reliability studies of the battery were conducted with 214 healthy volunteers aged between 18-36 (20.56 ± 3.19) and 112 healthy volunteers aged between 18-64 for norm determination and hypothesis testing.

The construct validity of ToM battery was evaluated by CFA and the fit indices showed that the model had a very good fit [χ2 (19, N = 214) = 26.14, p > 0.05, χ2/sd = 1.38, RMSEA = 0.042, SRMR = 0.05, GFI = 0.97, AGFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.98, TLI (NNFI) = 0.97]. There was a positive and significant relationship (r = 0.32, p < .05) between the scores obtained from the developed Hacettepe-CBToM Battery and Dokuz Eylül Theory of Mind Index (DEToMI), which was used for criterion validity. Inter-rater reliability and internal consistency coefficients were r = 0.94 and r = 0.72, respectively. In addition, norm data for cognitive and emotional ToM tasks and alternative executive function tasks were determined separately. As a result of the analyzes conducted to test the hypotheses, the scores obtained from cognitive ToM and the irony tasks found to be higher compared to affective ToM scores and second order false-belief (p < 0.05).

According to the results, the developed Hacettepe-CBToM Battery is a powerful psychometric assessment tool with high ecological validity and suitable for our culture and it has also been shown that the ToM differs from the executive functions by experimentally. In addition to this, it is considered that the developed alternative executive function tasks can be used within the scope of ToM and other scientific researches.