Conversation and Theory of Mind

Abstract This chapter is concerned with the relationship between perspective taking in conversation and theory of mind (ToM). It begins by considering the conceptual overlap between children’s conversational skills and ToM reasoning. The overlap is evident in the use of common ground when producing and interpreting utterances in discourse and in the interpretation of non-literal utterances (e.g., irony and metaphor). The chapter also covers protoconversations in infancy, with a focus on the longitudinal relationship between joint attention skills and ToM development. Research and theory on verbal conversation and ToM are also covered. The chapter addresses whether frequent experience with perspective differences in conversation facilitates ToM. In addition, the conversational experiences of bilinguals as well as cross-linguistic differences in talk about epistemic concepts are discussed in the context of false belief understanding.