Do 15-Month-Old Infants Understand False Beliefs?

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - Tập 308 Số 5719 - Trang 255-258 - 2005
Kristine H. Onishi1,2, Renée Baillargeon1,2
1Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1B1 Canada
2Department of Psychology University of Illinois Champaign, IL 61820, USA

Tóm tắt

For more than two decades, researchers have argued that young children do not understand mental states such as beliefs. Part of the evidence for this claim comes from preschoolers' failure at verbal tasks that require the understanding that others may hold false beliefs. Here, we used a novel nonverbal task to examine 15-month-old infants' ability to predict an actor's behavior on the basis of her true or false belief about a toy's hiding place. Results were positive, supporting the view that, from a young age, children appeal to mental states—goals, perceptions, and beliefs—to explain the behavior of others.

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We thank K. Chambers G. DeJong C. Fisher and G. L. Murphy for comments and suggestions; H. Song and the staff of the Infant Cognition Laboratory at the University of Illinois for their help with the data collection and analyses; and the parents who kindly agreed to participate in the research. This work was supported by a predoctoral traineeship from the National Institute of Mental Health (1 T32MH19990) to K.O. and by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-21104) to R.B.

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American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Tập 308 Số 5719

255-258

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