Junin Quechua Children's Understanding of Mind

2 tasks that examine the child's understanding of false belief, representational change, and the appearance-reality distinction were conducted among 34 4- to 8-year-old Junin Quechua children in Peru. A majority of children demonstrated an understanding of the appearance-reality distinction, though there was a clear improvement with age. Both younger and older children, however, performed poorly on questions that tested their understanding of representational change and false belief. These results raise questions as to whether or not thinking about thought and its relation to action develops in a similar manner in all cultures. If the Junin Quechua children's understanding of the appearance-reality distinction is grounded in the same representational ability that is necessary to understand one's own and another's misrepresentation of reality, then we must look for other factors that prevent them from performing correctly on tasks that test their understanding of false belief and representational change.     

Children's understanding of representational change and its relation to the understanding of false belief and the appearance-reality distinction

This research concerns the development of children's understanding of representational change and its relation to other cognitive developments. Children were shown deceptive objects, and the true nature of the objects was then revealed. Children were then asked what they thought the object was when they first saw it, testing their understanding of representational change; what another child would think the object was, testing their understanding of false belief; and what the object looked like and really was, testing their understanding of the appearance-reality distinction. Most 3-year-olds answered the representational change question incorrectly. Most 5-year-olds did not make this error. Children's performance on the representational change question was poorer than their performance on the false-belief question. There were correlations between performance on all 3 tasks. Apparently children begin to be able to consider alternative representations of the same object at about age 4.     

Seeing and believing: children's understanding of the distinction between appearance and reality

When young children are asked questions about objects with misleading appearances, they make two kinds of errors: (1) phenomenism--they report appearance when asked to report reality; and (2) intellectual realism--they report reality when asked to report appearance. Two studies with 3-year-old children tested the hypothesis that phenomenism errors predominate when children are asked about objects' real and apparent properties, whereas intellectual realism errors predominate when children are asked about objects' real and apparent identities. The results of these studies provided some support for the property-identity hypothesis; children's appearance-reality judgments about properties tended to differ from those about identities. More phenomenism errors were elicited when the stimuli were described to the children in terms of their properties than when the very same stimulus objects were described in terms of their identities. Identity tasks were not found to elicit predominantly intellectual realism errors, although the data showed trends in this direction. The implications of these results for theories about young children's tendency to accept things in terms of their perceptual characteristics were briefly discussed.     

A tale of two representations: the misinformation effect and children's developing theory of mind

The present research investigates representational ability as a cognitive factor underlying the suggestibility of children's eyewitness memory. The misinformation effect is used as an index of children's suggestibility, and performance on the false belief task is used as an assessment of children's representational abilities (N = 117). Analyses that considered the effect of representational ability and general memory ability on children's susceptibility to misleading information showed that differences in representational ability and general memory ability predicted participants' susceptibility to misleading information. These results demonstrate that the eyewitness memory of children who lack either multirepresentational abilities, sufficient general memory abilities, or both (i.e., most 3- and 4-year-olds) is less accurate than the eyewitness memory of children with both multirepresentational abilities and sufficient memory abilities (i.e., most 6-year-olds and adults). Thus, it appears that the earliest age at which children's eyewitness memory can be considered to be similar to that of adults is 6 years of age, when children's mental representational abilities are similar to those of adults. These results suggest that one factor underlying children's vulnerability to misleading information is the number of representations of an event that they can simultaneously hold and compare.     

Things are not Always as they Seem: the appearance‐reality distinction and conservation

Abstract Two experiments were performed in order to test predictions derived from the ‘appearance‐reality’ hypothesis: (1) that encouraging children to regard conservation questions as questions about reality rather than about appearance should improve performance and (2) that giving realist interpretations of visual illusions should correlate with conservation ability. Both experiments demonstrated that presenting conservation problems as appearance‐reality problems does evoke higher levels of performance and that this improvement is not an artefact produced by the repetition of the post‐transformation question. The second experiment showed that there is a general association between appearance‐reality abilities as expressed in the interpretation of visual illusions and as expressed in conservation. However, giving realist interpretations of ‘neutral’ illusion questions (e.g. “Is the stick bent?") correlated with conservation ability only at age five.     

Children's understanding of the distinction between real and apparent emotion

2 experiments examined children's understanding of the distinction between real and apparent emotion. In Experiment 1, 6- and 10-year-old children listened to stories in which it would be appropriate for the story protagonist to feel either a positive or negative emotion but to hide that emotion. Subjects were asked to say both how the protagonist would look and how the protagonist would really feel, and to justify their claims. The results indicated that 6- and 10-year-olds alike could distinguish quite accurately between real and apparent emotion, although 10-year-olds were somewhat better at justifying this distinction. In Experiment 2, a slightly modified procedure was used to test 4- and 6-year-olds. Again, 6-year-olds demonstrated their grasp of the difference between real and apparent emotion, and even 4-year-olds showed a limited grasp of the distinction. The findings are discussed in relation to recent research concerning children's concept of mind, their grasp of the appearance-reality distinction, their ability to produce complex, embedded justifications, and their ideas about emotion.     

Using Representations: Comprehension and Production of Actions with Imagined Objects

Previous research suggests that young children have difficulty producing actions with imagined objects (pantomimes): They frequently substitute a body part to represent the object involved in the action. This response has also been observed in neurologically impaired adults. Study 1 examined the comprehension and production of pantomimes in 3- and 5-year-old children and normal adults to explore further this aspect of representational ability. Results indicate that young children not only have difficulty producing imaginary object representations in contrast to normal adults, they also have difficulty comprehending imaginary object representations and are better at comprehending pantomimes with a body part representation. The results from the pantomime comprehension task were replicated in Study 2 with 3- and 4-year-olds. These findings are discussed in the context of the development of representational ability as children demonstrate increasing independence from concrete environmental support in their knowledge about actions.     

Young children's ability to differentiate appearance-reality and level 2 perspectives in the tactile modality

A key acquisition in the child's developing knowledge of the mind is the subjective-objective distinction, which includes a clear understanding that things may appear to be other than the way they really are (appearance-reality distinction) and may present different appearances to self and others (Level 2 perspective-taking). Previous studies using tasks involving visual appearances have found that most children do not show such understanding until 4 or 5 years of age. However, a conceptual analysis of tactile as compared to visual and other perceptual experiences suggested the hypothesis that this understanding might appear earlier if the appearances the child must identify are tactile rather than visual. This hypothesis was supported by the results of 3 studies. In Studies 1 and 2, 3-year-old subjects could correctly indicate, for example, that an ice cube they were feeling with a heavily gloved finger did not feel cold to that finger (tactile appearance for the self), did feel cold to the experimenter's ungloved or thinly gloved finger (tactile appearance for another person), and was a cold ice cube, really and truly (reality). In contrast, and consistent with previous research findings, they were much poorer at distinguishing between real and visually apparent object identity, number, and color. Similarly, in Study 3 they tended to perform better on tactile appearance-reality tasks involving the properties of number, wetness, and intactness than on visual appearance-reality tasks that involved these same properties.     

Children''s Understanding of the Modal Expression of Speaker Certainty and Uncertainty and Its Relation to the Development of a Representational Theory of Mind

2 experiments examined children's understanding of the expression of speaker certainty and uncertainty and its relation to their developing theory of mind. In the first experiment, 80 children between 3 and 6 years of age were presented with a task in which they had to guess the location of an object hidden in 1 of 2 boxes. As clues to location, the children were presented with contrasting pairs of statements by 2 puppets. Different trials contained all of the possible pairwise combinations of either the modal verbs must, might, and could or the modal adjuncts probably, possibly, and maybe. Results showed that while 3-year-olds did not differentiate between any of the modal contrasts presented, 4-year-olds and older children were able to find the hidden object on the basis of what they heard. Performance was best for contrasts involving a highly certain term (either must or probably) paired with a less certain term (might, could, possibly, and maybe). Experiment 2 was designed to determine whether competence with modal terms was related to competence with mental terms in the same task, and whether performance on the certainty task was related to other aspects of the child's understanding of the nature of beliefs. 26 4-year-olds were presented with the certainty task, involving both modal and mental terms, and with tasks assessing their understanding of false beliefs, representational change, and the appearance-reality distinction. Results showed that all of these tasks were intercorrelated, implying that what may develop at 4 years of age may be a general understanding of the representational nature of belief.     

Children's perseverative appearance-reality errors are related to emerging language skills

Two experiments explored the communicative bases of preschoolers' object appearance-reality (AR) errors. In Experiment 1, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 36) completed the AR test (with high- and low-deceptive objects), a control test with the same discourse structure but nondeceptive stimuli, and stimulus naming and memory tests. AR performance correlated positively with control (discourse) and naming test performance. Object deceptiveness had little effect. In Experiment 2, 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 64) completed AR tests that experimentally varied question phrasing and use of exemplar objects. Children also completed memory, vocabulary, and control tests (of verbal perseveration). AR performance variance was predicted by a composite perseveration score from three non-AR tasks, vocabulary, and exemplars. The results indicate that the discourse structure of the AR test elicits a perseverative tendency that is mediated by children's verbal knowledge.     

Children’s Use of Testimony to Determine Reality Status

Verbal testimony about reality status is critical but often contradictory. These studies address whom children consider reliable sources of information about reality and how they evaluate conflicting testimony. In Study 1, seventy 4- to 8-year-olds heard an adult or child provide testimony about how to cook food and use toys, and about the reality of unfamiliar entities. Children selected the adult for food and the child for toys. Six- and 8-year-olds also selected the adult regarding reality. In Study 2, ninety 4- to 8-year-olds heard conflicting reality information from children and adults. Six- to 8-year-olds endorsed adult and child claims differentially and stated that adults knew more. By age 6, children favor adult testimony about reality over that of children.     

Origin and Truth: Young Children's Understanding of Imaginary Mental Representations

In 2 studies, we address young children's understanding of the origin and representational relations of imagination, a fictional mental state, and contrast this with their understanding of knowledge, an epistemic mental state. In the first study, 54 3- and 4-year-old children received 2 tasks to assess their understanding of origins, and 4 stories to assess their understanding of representational relations. Children of both ages understood that, whereas perception is necessary for knowledge, it is irrelevant for imagination. Results for children's understanding of representational relations revealed intriguing developmental differences. Although children understood that knowledge represents reality more truthfully than imagination, 3-year-olds often claimed that imagination reflected reality. The second study provided additional evidence that younger 3-year-olds judge that imaginary representations truthfully reflect reality. We propose that children's responses indicate an early understanding of the distinction between mental states and the world, but also a confusion regarding the extent to which mental contents represent the physical world.     

Preschoolers' Understanding of Plan and Oblique Maps: The Role of Geometric and Representational Correspondence

To study conditions that affect preschoolers' understanding of maps, we asked 4-and 5-year-olds to place stickers on classroom maps to show locations of objects currently in view. Varied were vantage point (eye level vs. raised oblique), map form (plan vs. oblique), and item type (floor vs. furniture locations). Even though they were working with maps of a familiar referent space, preschoolers evidenced difficulty. While an oblique vantage point did not enhance performance, using the oblique map first aided subsequent performance on the plan map. As predicted, performance on floor locations was worse than on furniture locations. Findings are discussed in relation to performance by adults given the mapping task and preschoolers given a nonreferential sticker placement task. Data suggest the importance of ( a ) iconicity and ( b ) studying geometric as well as representational correspondences in map research.     

Inhibitory control and visuospatial working memory contribute to 5-year-old children's use of quantitative inversion

This study examined the hypothesis that general cognitive resources moderated 5-year-old children's performance differences between the Concrete Identical and the Pure Quantity conditions on inversion problems (a + b – b) but not on standard problems (a + b – c). Study 1 (N = 104) showed that children who experienced higher visuospatial working memory burden performed significantly poorer in solving the inversion problems in the Pure Quantity condition than in the Concrete Identical condition, whereas those who experienced lower working memory burden showed no such difference. Study 2 (N = 194) demonstrated that children with lower levels of inhibitory control solved significantly fewer inversion problems in the Pure Quantity condition than in the Concrete Identical condition, whereas no such difference was found in children with higher levels of inhibitory control. These findings suggest that inhibitory control and visuospatial working memory may support children's use of quantitative inversion.     

Development of knowledge about the appearance-reality distinction

7 studies of the acquisition of knowledge about the appearance-reality distinction suggest the following course of development. Many 3-year-olds seem to possess little or no understanding of the distinction. They fail the simplest Appearance-Reality (AR) tasks and are unresponsive to efforts to teach them the distinction. Skill in solving simple AR tasks is highly correlated with skill in solving simple perceptual Perspective-taking (PT) tasks; this suggests the hypothesis that the ability to represent the selfsame stimulus in two different, seemingly incompatible ways may underlie both skills. Children of 6-7 years have acquired both skills but nevertheless find it very difficult to reflect on and talk about such appearance-reality concepts as "looks like," "really and truly," and "looks different from the way it really and truly is." In contrast, children of 11-12 years, and to an even greater degree college students, possess a substantial body of rich, readily accessible, and explicit knowledge in this area.     

Children's hypothetical reasoning about complex and dynamic systems

Children's hypothetical reasoning about a complex and dynamic causal system was investigated. Predominantly White, middle-class 5- to 7-year-old children from the Greater Toronto Area learned about novel food chains and were asked to consider the effects of removing one species on the others. In Study 1 (N = 72; 36 females, 36 males; 2018), 7-year-olds answered questions about both direct and indirect effects with a high degree of accuracy, whereas 5-year-olds performed at chance. Six-year-olds showed intermediate performance. Using food chains with clearer constraints, Study 2 (N = 72; 35 females, 37 males; 2020–2021) replicated these findings. These results indicate that the ability to think about hypothetical changes to dynamic causal systems develops between 5 and 7 years. Implications for science education are discussed.     

Assessing early arithmetic abilities: Effects of verbal and nonverbal response types on the calculation performance of middle-and low-income children

In two studies, we compared young children's performance on three variations of a nonverbally presented calculation task. The experimental tasks used the same nonverbal mode of presentation but were varied according to response type: (1) putting out disks (nonverbal production); (2) choosing the correct number of disks from a multiple-choice array (nonverbal recognition); and (3) giving a number word (verbal production). The verbal production task required children to map numerosities onto the conventional number system while the nonverbal production and nonverbal recognition tasks did not. Study 1 showed that the performance of 3-, 4- and 5-year-old middle-income children (N = 72) did not vary with the type of response required. Children's answers to nonverbally presented addition and subtraction problems were available in both verbal and nonverbal forms. In contrast. Study 2 showed that low-income children (3- and 4-year-olds; N = 48) performed significantly better on both nonverbal response type tasks than on the verbal response type task. Analysis of individual data indicated that a number of the low-income children were successful on the completely nonverbal calculation tasks, even though they had difficulty with verbal counting (i.e., set enumeration and cardinality). The findings suggest that the ability to calculate does not depend on mastery of conventional symbols of arithmetic.     

Taking decisions seriously: young children's understanding of conventional truth

Research suggests that young children may see a direct and one-way connection between facts about the world and epistemic mental states (e.g., belief). Conventions represent instances of active constructions of the mind that change facts about the world. As such, a mature understanding of convention would seem to present a strong challenge to children's simplified notions of epistemic relations. Three experiments assessed young children's abilities to track behavioral, representational, and truth aspects of conventions. In Experiment 1, 3- and 4-year-old children (N = 30) recognized that conventional stipulations would change people's behaviors. However, participants generally failed to understand how stipulations might affect representations. In Experiment 2, 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old children (N = 53) were asked to reason about the truth values of statements about pretenses and conventions. The two younger groups of children often confused the two types of states, whereas older children consistently judged that conventions, but not pretenses, changed reality. In Experiment 3, the same 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 42) participated in tasks assessing their understanding of representational diversity (e.g., false belief). In general, children's performance on false-belief and "false-convention" tasks did not differ, which suggests that conventions were understood as involving truth claims (as akin to beliefs about physical reality). Children's difficulties with the idea of conventional truth seems consistent with current accounts of developing theories of mind.     

Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel entities

Three studies examined the effects of context on decisions about the reality status of novel entities. In Experiment 1 (144, 3- to 5-year-olds), participants less often claimed that novel entities were real when they were introduced in a fantastical than in a scientific context. Experiment 2 (61, 4- to 5-year-olds) revealed that defining novel entities with reference to scientific entities had a stronger effect on reality status judgments than did hearing scientifically oriented stories before encountering the novel entities. The results from Experiment 3 (192, 3- to 6-year-olds) indicated that definitions that support inferences facilitate reality status judgments more than do definitions that simply associate novel and familiar entities. These findings demonstrate that children share with adults an important means of assessing reality status.     

The Representation of Extendedness in Children''s Drawings of Sticks and Discs

Piaget has suggested that the reason why children find it difficult to draw foreshortened views is because they lack any conscious awareness of their own viewpoint. Instead, it is proposed that most of these difficulties derive from the constraints of drawing as a representational system: for example, although a round region shows a true view of a foreshortened stick, it is unsatisfactory as a representation. To test between these alternative proposals, 4-, 7-, and 12-year-olds were asked to draw sticks and discs in foreshortened and nonforeshortened positions. As predicted, fewer 7- and 12-year-olds used a round region to represent a foreshortened stick, compared with children of the same age who used a long region to represent a foreshortened disc. In addition, the 12-year-olds used a different and more effective denotation system compared with the 7-year-olds.