Both syntax and Executive Functions (EF) are involved in Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM) but their contributory roles have mainly been studied separately. Moreover, researchers have mostly administered False Belief (FB) tasks while they may not be representative of all ToM abilities. Studies of adults give valuable information regarding whether syntax and EF are useful for ToM reasoning (i.e., Reasoning account), however, only the study of children brings direct evidence in favor of ToM emergence (i.e., Emergence account). Also, because the ToM tasks used often entail verbal and executive demands, the links observed could mostly result from such confounds (i.e., Expression account). We evaluated ToM, syntactic and EF abilities in 126 children (3‐11 y.o.) using a set of ToM tasks with minimal verbal and executive demands. Our goals were to assess (1) the hierarchical contribution of syntax and EF to ToM, (2) whether results previously obtained for FB tasks are representative of ToM in general, (3) whether the ToM‐syntax and ToM‐EF links are constant (i.e., Reasoning account) or decrease during development (i.e., Emergence accounts). Results of stepwise regression analyses showed a predominant role of syntax over EF to predict ToM abilities. The comparison of results for ToM and FB tasks showed that FB is not always representative of ToM. Finally, there was no moderating effect of age on the syntax‐ToM or EF‐ToM relations, thus suggestive of the Reasoning account rather than the Emergence account.

中文翻译：

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儿童时期的思想理论：调查句法和执行力贡献

语法和执行功能（EF）都涉及心智理论（ToM），但其主要作用已分别进行了研究。此外，研究人员大多执行了虚假信念（FB）任务，但它们可能并不代表所有ToM能力。对成年人的研究提供了有关语法和EF是否对ToM推理（即，推理帐户）有用的有价值的信息，但是，只有对儿童的研究才为支持ToM出现（即，出现帐户）提供直接证据。另外，由于使用的ToM任务通常需要口头和执行上的要求，因此观察到的链接可能主要是由于这种混淆（例如，表达帐户）。我们使用一组最小的口头和执行要求的ToM任务评估了126名儿童（3-11岁）的ToM，句法和EF能力。我们的目标是评估（1）语法和EF对ToM的层次结构贡献;（2）先前从FB任务获得的结果是否总体上代表ToM;（3）ToM语法和ToM-EF链接是否恒定（即推理帐户）或开发期间减少（即紧急帐户）。逐步回归分析的结果表明，语法比EF在预测ToM能力方面具有主要作用。ToM和FB任务的结果比较表明，FB并不总是代表ToM。最后，年龄对语法-ToM或EF-ToM关系没有调节作用，因此提示推理帐户，而不是紧急帐户。