AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THEORY-OF-MIND MEASUREMENT: CREATION OF THE EV-TOMI FROM OPEN-ENDED REPORTS

Theory-of-Mind (ToM), or mentalizing about what other people might be thinking about, is an important part of conscious experience that facilitates social cognition and navigation of our perceived worlds (e.g., predicting other people's thoughts and behaviours).In a 2023 study, our research group began exploring Theory-of-Mind in relation to inner speech, and we found that the selected ToM measures left something to be desired.For example, measures claiming to capture ToM had items that seemed to describe understanding of one's own time perception or one's own episodic memory rather than thinking about other people's mentalizations.Furthermore, existing ToM questionnaires are typically based on a priori notions of what researchers think ToM is, for example, as informed by literature reviews and judged by a panel of experts.To fill this gap, and in seeking ecological validity for ToM measurement, our team took an open-format approach to ask Canadian students, "if you are trying to infer what other people are thinking or experiencing, what comes into your mind?"We have used these responses to create the "Ecologically Valid Theory-of-Mind Inventory" (EV-ToMI).Here we present preliminary results of endorsement, reliability, and validity of this measure, and relationships with other self-processes.