ToM e Invecchiamento secondo una prospettiva motivazionale: effetto della vicinanza relazionale percepita nei confronti dello sperimentatore

Theory of Mind (ToM) (defined as the ability to interpret and predict others’ behavior in terms of their beliefs and intentions ) generally declines with age. However, recent researches focusing motivational perspective showed that non-cognitive variables, such as motivation, coud mediate the ToM age-related decline; in those studies, perceived closeness between participants and the experimenter had shown a positive effect in aged people performance: when closeness was experimentally increased, older adults enhanced their performance, and they performed at a comparable level as younger adults. In the present study, perceived closeness between participants and the experimenter was manipulated to examine whether the closeness could influence participants’ performance in ToM tarks (Triangol task). Our results show that the percieved closeness with experimenter is not sufficient to enhance ToM performance in old population, while it seems to negatively influence performance in young people. We argue that cross-cultural differences between the oriental ed occidental population, whose different works referred to, could explain, almost in part, these discrepancies. Other possible explanations are discussed.