Older children's misunderstanding of uncertain belief after passing the false belief test

A four-location belief task was designed to examine children's understanding of another's uncertain belief after passing a false belief (FB) task. In Experiment 1, after passing the FB task, participants were asked what a puppet would do after he failed to find his toy at the falsely believed location. Most 4-year-olds and half of 6-year-olds children who passed the FB test showed difficulty in handling uncertain belief; answering that the puppet would then look for his toy at the current (moved-to) location. Eight-year-old children and adults all recognized that the puppet would look for the toy everywhere, or at random. In Experiment 2, 4- and 6-year-olds were presented two other search tasks; it was shown that preschoolers could use search strategies to solve a similar search problem when FB was not involved. This new aspect of post-FB understanding can be interpreted in terms of limited understanding of uncertainty in a less-knowledgeable individual and of limited ability to infer the consequences of belief-disconfirmation.     

A Meadian account of social understanding: Taking a non-mentalistic approach to infant and verbal false belief understanding

Performance on false belief tasks has long been considered a key indicator of the development of social understanding in young children. We consider the enabling conditions for performing non-verbal and verbal false belief tasks as well as a typical developmental path toward false belief understanding. We argue that, in early ontogenesis, children anticipate the coordination of activity with others rather than read, probe, or reflectively engage with the psychological states of others. As linguistically mediated reflective thought emerges, children gradually become able to parse and isolate the myriad of incipient somatic, affective, and intentional responses that arise in any given moment. With reflective thought, children also begin to develop distinct and temporally coherent understandings about the minds of self and other. We provide an account of how the reflective thought that facilitates false belief understanding emerges. Our account focuses on a gradually developing refinement of social coordination and the shared perspectival understandings inherent in social coordination.     

Moore-paradoxical belief, conscious belief and the epistemic Ramsey test

Chalmers and Hájek argue that on an epistemic reading of Ramsey??s test for the rational acceptability of conditionals, it is faulty. They claim that applying the test to each of a certain pair of conditionals requires one to think that one is omniscient or infallible, unless one forms irrational Moore-paradoxical beliefs. I show that this claim is false. The epistemic Ramsey test is indeed faulty. Applying it requires that one think of anyone as all-believing and if one is rational, to think of anyone as infallible-if-rational. But this is not because of Moore-paradoxical beliefs. Rather it is because applying the test requires a certain supposition about conscious belief. It is important to understand the nature of this supposition.     

Children's understanding of promising, lying, and false belief

Understanding promising and lying requires an understanding of intention and the ability to interpret mental states. The author examined (a) the extent to which 4- to 6-year-olds focus on the sincerity of the speaker's intention when the 4-to 6-year-olds make judgments about promises and lies and (b) whether false-belief reasoning skills are related to understanding promising and lying. Participants watched videotaped stories and made promise and lie judgments from their own perspective and from the listener-character's perspective. Children also completed false-belief reasoning tasks. Older children made more correct promise judgments from both perspectives. All children made correct lie judgments from the listener's perspective. The author found that Ist-order false-belief reasoning was related to making judgments from the participant's perspective; 2nd-order false-belief reasoning was related to making judgments from the listener-character's perspective. Results suggest that children's understanding of promising and lying moves from a focus on outcome toward a focus on the belief that each utterance is designed to create.     

Training social cognition: from imitation to Theory of Mind

Evidence for successful socio-cognitive training in typical adults is rare. This study attempted to improve Theory of Mind (ToM) and visual perspective taking in healthy adults by training participants to either imitate or to inhibit imitation. Twenty-four hours after training, all participants completed tests of ToM and visual perspective taking. The group trained to inhibit their tendency to imitate showed improved performance on the visual perspective-taking test, but not the ToM test. Neither imitation training, nor general inhibition training, had this effect. These results support a novel theory of social cognition suggesting that the same self-other discrimination process underlies imitation inhibition and perspective taking. Imitation, perspective taking and ToM are all pro-social processes--ways in which we reach out to others. Therefore, it is striking that perspective taking can be enhanced by suppressing imitation; to understand another, sometimes we need, not to get closer, but to pull away.     

Counterfactual thinking and false belief: the role of executive function

The purpose of the current study was to examine further the relationship between counterfactual thinking and false belief (FB) as examined by Guajardo and Turley-Ames (Cognitive Development, 19 (2004) 53-80). More specifically, the current research examined the importance of working memory and inhibitory control in understanding the relationship between counterfactual thinking and FB. Participants were 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 76). Counterfactual thinking statements generated accounted for significant variance in FB performance beyond age and language. Working memory and inhibitory control each partially mediated the relationship between counterfactual thinking and FB performance. The maturation of executive functioning skills is important in children’s developing understanding of counterfactual reasoning and FB.     

Two reasons to abandon the false belief task as a test of theory of mind

The false belief task has often been used as a test of theory of mind. We present two reasons to abandon this practice. First, passing the false belief task requires abilities other than theory of mind. Second, theory of mind need not entail the ability to reason about false beliefs. We conclude with an alternative conception of the role of the false belief task.     

Beliefs about the social orientations of others: A parametric test of the triangle,false consensus,and cone hypotheses

This study tests a number of hypotheses proposed in the literature concerning the relationship between an actor's social orientation and her beliefs about the social orientations of others. In contrast to the existing literature, this study employs a parametric approach with an innovative methodology. First, the social orientation parameters of actors are estimated: the weights respondents add to (1) the outcomes of Alter and to (2) the absolute difference between the outcomes for Ego and Alter. Then, the mean and the variance of the distribution of beliefs about the social orientation parameters of others are estimated, conditional on the actor's social orientation parameters. The results show that (1) there is a positive association between an actor's social orientation and her belief about the mean of the social orientations of others and (2) those who have approximately zero social orientation parameter values (individualists) expect the variation of others' social orientations to be lower than those with smaller (competitors) or larger (cooperators/egalitarians) social orientation parameter values. These results support the cone model, which models the “false” consensus effect where the “false” consensus is highest for individualists.     

The relationship between second‐order false belief and display rules reasoning: the integration of cognitive and affective social understanding

To investigate the relation between cognitive and affective social understanding, Japanese 4‐ to 8‐year‐olds received tasks of first‐ and second‐order false beliefs and prosocial and self‐presentational display rules. From 6 to 8 years, children comprehended display rules, as well as second‐order false belief, using social pressures justifications decreasingly and motivational justifications with embedded perspectives increasingly with age. Although not related to either type of display across ages, second‐order tasks were associated with both types of display tasks only at 8 years when examined in each age group. Results suggest that children base their second‐order theory of mind and display rules understanding on distinct reasoning until middle childhood, during which time the originally distinct aspects of social understanding are integrated.     

Aspects of language pragmatics and the social perception of lying

Two experiments were conducted in order to examine the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic variables on the attribution of lying. In the first experiment, one of two tape recordings of a target person, who responded either true or false to a list of adjectives, was evaluated by 83 subjects. The subjects' task was to attempt to discover when the target person was not telling the truth. The stimulus tapes were constructed such that the time between the adjective and the target person's response was systematically varied and the adjectives varied on the likability of a person possessing that trait. Overall, it was found that if the target person responded either too quickly or too slowly the subjects attributed his response as a lie more often than if the delay was more intermediate in duration (p<0.01). The adjective likability value in combination with the true or false response of the target person also contributed to the attribution of lying (p<0.01). In the second experiment, the adjectives were rescaled on another dimension thought to influence the attribution of lying: the degree to which the adjective is true of the general population. The results suggest that this new scale is related to the degree to which lie attributions are made.This research was supported in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Research Grant 1 P01 HD-01762-01 and the National Institute of Mental Health under Research Grant MN 08260.     

Language and false belief: evidence for general, not specific, effects in cantonese-speaking preschoolers

Two studies were conducted with Cantonese-speaking preschoolers examining J. de Villiers's (1995) hypothesis that syntactic complements play a unique role in the acquisition of false belief (FB). In Study 1, the authors found a positive correlation between FB and syntactic complements in 72 four- to six-year-old Cantonese-speaking preschoolers. Study 2 followed 72 three- to five-year-old Cantonese-speaking children who initially failed an FB screening task and were then tested on general language abilities, short-term memory, inhibition, nonverbal IQ, and on FB and complement tasks. Once age and initial FB understanding were controlled for in both multiple regression and hierarchical linear modeling analyses, complements no longer uniquely predicted FB. Instead, individual differences in general language abilities and short-term memory contributed to the variation in both complements and FB.     

A longitudinal, microgenetic study of the emergence of false belief understanding and inhibition skills

Two theories that attempt to explain the relationship between false belief understanding and inhibition skills were investigated: (1) theory of mind development improves self-control, and (2) executive control is necessary for developing a theory of mind. A microgenetic approach was adopted, with a group of 21 children completing a battery of inhibition and false belief understanding tasks every four weeks for six phases of testing. The results showed that the majority of children were able to perform well on a test of executive inhibition before having a good understanding of false beliefs, thus supporting theory (2). The results also illustrated that while the children's inhibition skills developed relatively gradually, their understanding of false beliefs progressed from a consistent lack of understanding through a period of unstable performance, during which some children failed tests that they had previously passed.     

How language does (and does not) relate to theory of mind: A longitudinal study of syntax,semantics, working memory and false belief

Forty‐four children (mean 3.8 years) were given three false belief, a working memory, and four language tasks (each designed to tap a different aspect of syntax or semantics), and were tested again 6 months later. Once the range of scores in the language and false belief tasks were equated, there was a bidirectional relation between language and theory of mind. There was no evidence for syntax playing a unique role in the contribution of language to theory of mind. No one measure of syntax or semantics was more likely than any other to predict later false belief. Nor was false belief related more to one aspect of later language (syntax vs. semantics) than another. Our data, taken with other findings, are consistent with the idea that both syntax and semantics contribute to false belief understanding. Working memory did not mediate the relation between language and theory of mind, nor did it facilitate later false belief.     

Finding "meaning" in psychology: a lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and social development

Much of psychology focuses on universal principles of thought and action. Although an extremely productive pursuit, this approach, by describing only the "average person," risks describing no one in particular. This article discusses an alternate approach that complements interests in universal principles with analyses of the unique psychological meaning that individuals find in their experiences and interactions. Rooted in research on social cognition, this approach examines how people's lay theories about the stability or malleability of human attributes alter the meaning they give to basic psychological processes such as self-regulation and social perception. Following a review of research on this lay theories perspective in the field of social psychology, the implications of analyzing psychological meaning for other fields such as developmental, cultural, and personality psychology are discussed.     

Logic, beliefs, and instruction: a test of the default interventionist account of belief bias

According to dual-process accounts of thinking, belief-based responses on reasoning tasks are generated as default but can be intervened upon in favor of logical responding, given sufficient time, effort, or cognitive resource. In this article, we present the results of 5 experiments in which participants were instructed to evaluate the conclusions of logical arguments on the basis of either their logical validity or their believability. Contrary to the predictions arising from these accounts, the logical status of the presented conclusion had a greater impact on judgments concerning its believability than did the believability of the conclusion on judgments about whether it followed logically. This finding was observed when instructional set was presented as a between-participants factor (Experiment 1), when instruction was indicated prior to problem presentation by a cue (Experiment 2), and when the cue appeared simultaneously with conclusion presentation (Experiments 3 and 4). The finding also extended to a range of simple and more complex argument forms (Experiment 5). In these latter experiments, belief-based judgments took significantly longer than those made under logical instructions. We discuss the implications of these findings for default interventionist accounts of belief bias.     

Social interaction,social observation,and cognitive development in young children

Eighty first-grade childen were pretested on a variety of conservation tasks. Subjects who were either nonconservers or intermediate conservers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: social interaction, social observation, and individual control. Subjects in the social interaction condition worked collaboratively on conservation tasks with a same sex partner. Subjects in the social observation condition individually observed pairs of subjects working together and control subjects worked individually on conservation tasks. The purpose of the social observation condition was to control for the effects of task relevant information that was expressed during dyadic interactions. All subjects were individually post-tested on conservation tasks that were the same form but different content than the pretest items. Subjects in the social interaction condition had significantly greater cogntive change scores (post-test less pretest) than subjects in the social observation and control conditions. There were no significant differences between change scores of subjects in the latter two conditions. Also, subjects in the social interaction condition gave significantly more novel explanations for conservation judgments than subjects in the social observation condition. These findings supported a socio-cognitive conflict model of cognitive development in young children.     

The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation

In The End of Science, I argued that particle physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, and other fields of pure science have entered an era of diminishing returns (Horgan, 1997). Although scientists will continue refining and extending current theories and applying their knowledge in the realms of technology and medicine, they may never again achieve insights into nature as profound as quantum mechanics, relativity theory, the big bang theory, natural selection, and DNA-based genetics. One reasonable objection to the book was that mind-related research, of all current scientific enterprises, has the most revolutionary potential, and it deserves a more thorough treatment than it received in The End of Science. I responded to this objection by writing a book that focused on "mind-science"(Horgan, 1999). The Undiscovered Mind considered not only the debate over consciousness, which was the primary focus of The End of Science; it also reviewed the record of fields such as clinical psychology, psychiatry, behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. I contended that there has been little progress in understanding the mind, replicating its properties, or treating its disorders—especially compared with the extravagant claims made by proponents of certain approaches. In this article, I summarize some of my book's main points.     

Acting and planning on the basis of a false belief: its effects on 3-year-old children's reasoning about their own false beliefs

This study examined 3-year-olds' explanations for actions of theirs that were premised on a false belief. In Experiment 1, children stated what they thought was inside a crayon box. After stating "crayons," they went to retrieve some paper to draw on. Children were then shown that the box contained candles and were asked to (a) state their initial belief and (b) explain their action of getting paper. Children who were unable to retrieve their false belief were unable to correctly explain their action. Experiments 2 and 3 ruled out several alternative interpretations for these findings. In Experiment 4, children planned and acted on their false belief. Again, children who were unable to retrieve their false belief were unable to correctly explain their action.