Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind
Authors: Emanuele Castano
David Comer Kidd
Journal: Science (2013)
Discipline: Multidisciplinary
Keywords: Theory of Mind; literary fiction; affective ToM; cognitive ToM; social relationships
Affiliations: The New School for Social Research, 80 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, USA.

Abstract:  Understanding others' mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies. Yet little research has investigated what fosters this skill, which is known as Theory of Mind (ToM), in adults. We present five experiments showing that reading literary fiction led to better performance on tests of affective ToM (experiments 1 to 5) and cognitive ToM (experiments 4 and 5) compared with reading nonfiction (experiments 1), popular fiction (experiments 2 to 5), or nothing at all (experiments 2 and 5). Specifically, these results show that reading literary fiction temporarily enhances ToM. More broadly, they suggest that ToM may be influenced by engagement with works of art. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Figure 1 shows 10,926  Linked COVID-19 deaths from a final studied population of 17,278,392 cases. The earlier preprint states  In the UK, cases have reached 171,253, with 22,791 deaths in hospital. The results section of the preprint, which indicates  Population: 17,425,445 adults. also states:  Results: There were 5683 deaths attributed to COVID-19. Could the authors offer some indication why, between the preprint and final Nature paper, with crudely similar number of cases, almost double the number of deaths are reported? What is the cause of these apparent discrepancies? , 
 I m linking Figure 1 from both the preprint and the paper in its current form. ![file] ![file] As you can see, not much has changed in inclusion criteria. The biggest difference is that more records have been deemed incomplete based on demographic data available. The main difference in COVID19 attributable deaths is apparently this line in the preprint: *5683 of the individuals had a COVID19 hospital death recorded in CPNS.* Compared with the text in its current form: *10,926 of the study population had COVID-19 related death recorded in linked death registration data.* In the reviewer comments (see supplemental) this was one exchange: **Given the fast-moving nature of this crisis and the fast-accruing data, there is a great deal of data that has matured since the 6 April date u2013 coming up on 2 months ago. If there was a way to perform an updated analysis, this would also add to the impact of the paper.** *Response* *We agree with the reviewer that, given the rapid changes occurring, an updated analysis is warranted. We have therefore updated our analysis with the most recent data available to us. Our revised results include more than 10,000 COVID-19 deaths in contrast to the previous version which included ~5,700 deaths.* *The most up-to-date data available to us on deaths now come from Office of National Statistics (ONS) death registrations, rather than inpatient hospital death notifications data (CPNS), so we have used the ONS data in the revised version. This improves our ascertainment of COVID-19 deaths as out-of-hospital deaths are also now captured (see also response to referee #3). We have updated the manuscript accordingly; patterns of results remain very similar, though the trend by age is even stronger, likely reflecting a relatively high proportion of out-of-hospital deaths in the elderly that we did not capture in the original analysis.* *We have removed the original results on inpatient hospital deaths (from CPNS data) from the revised manuscript as we do not think they add to the paper in the light of our updated analysis with the more complete ONS death registration data. However, we are open to adding these to the extended data if the Editors wish.* And additionally they include their codelists for independent review if you d like to take a look at how they expanded their analysis. ,