Fostering theory of mind development. Short- and medium-term effects of training false belief understanding / Favorecer el desarrollo de la teoría de la mente. Efectos a corto y medio plazo de un entrenamiento en comprensión de la falsa creencia

Abstract

This study examines the temporal effect of different trainings designed to favour the development of false belief understanding. A sample of 78 pre-school children aged between three years, five months and three years, 11 months was divided into three training conditions. After three training sessions, they were immediately evaluated in post-test 1 and again a month and a half later in post-test 2. The results showed that the efficiency of the training conditions depended both on the type of linguistic communication and on the use of deceptive objects. Also, the effect of the training was maintained for at least a month and a half after post-test 1 and it was transferred from the trained task to other false belief tasks. The results are commented according to the possibility of using language-based trainings to foster children’s theory of mind understanding in educational contexts.     

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.     

The Role of Strategic Planning in Accessing False-Belief Understanding

Recently, Chandler and Hala found that actively involving 3-year-olds in planning a deception facilitated performance on false-belief questions. The methodology used, however, provided no basis for determining whether the good performance of these young subjects was the result of the deceptive intent of their planning efforts, or whether other sorts of planning would have been equally effective. The research reported here systematically varied both ( a ) subjects' responsibility for planning where to relocate an object and ( b ) whether the goal behind this relocation was a deceptive one. The present research demonstrated, first, when subjects simply watched the transfer take place, it made no difference whether the object was moved for deceptive or some more practical reason. In contrast, those subjects who had themselves strategically planned a deception were markedly better at answering questions about another's false beliefs than those who simply witnessed the transfer taking place. No comparable facilitating effect was found when subjects planned a transfer but without deceptive intent. We argue that strategic planning works to underscore the importance of the belief states of others and provide opportunities not afforded by "standard" unexpected change or transfer tasks for showcasing 3-year-olds' emerging understanding of the possibility of false belief.     

Language, cognitive flexibility, and explicit false belief understanding: longitudinal analysis in typical development and specific language impairment

The hypothesis that language plays a role in theory-of-mind (ToM) development is supported by a number of lines of evidence (e.g., H. Lohmann & M. Tomasello, 2003). The current study sought to further investigate the relations between maternal language input, memory for false sentential complements, cognitive flexibility, and the development of explicit false belief understanding in 91 English-speaking typically developing children (M age = 61.3 months) and 30 children with specific language impairment (M age = 63.0 months). Concurrent and longitudinal findings converge in supporting a model in which maternal language input predicts the child's memory for false complements, which predicts cognitive flexibility, which in turn predicts explicit false belief understanding.     

Fledgling Theories of Mind: Deception as a Marker of Three-Year-Olds' Understanding of False Belief

3 studies involving more than 70 3- and 4-year-olds were carried out in an effort to better secure an earlier but controversial set of findings interpreted as demonstrating that children younger than 4 already have a grasp of the possibility of false belief, and consequently deserve to be credited with some authentic if fledgling theory of mind. These studies, which relied on a measure of deceptive hiding rather than more familiar "unexpected change" procedures for indexing false belief understanding, all demonstrated that even the youngest of these subjects: (a) accurately anticipated the likely impact of their deceptive strategies on both the behaviors (Study 1) and beliefs (Study 3) of their opponents, and (b) were able to selectively employ these same methods of information management as a means of helping as well as hindering the efforts of others (Study 2).     

Guise and Guile: Children's Understanding of Narratives in Which the Purpose of Pretense Is Deception

This study examined children's understanding of pretense and deception in folktales in which a villam deceives his victim by pretending to be someone else. In Experiment 1, the 3-year-olds distinguished the real from the pretend persona, but neither understood the victim's false belief nor predicted that the villain would perpetrate the unwelcome act. In Experiment 2, revealing the villainous action facilitated 3-year-olds' predictions of this action during a retelling of the stories, but did not improve subjects' understanding of the victim's false belief. In Experiment 3, although the tasks were further refined to reduce the possibility of misinterpretation, 3-year-olds again did not follow the deception. The results are discussed in relation to 3-year-olds' difficulties with deceptive appearances and their understanding of acting-as-if in pretense.     

学障儿童与正常儿童心理理论四种成分的发展比较

采用统一背景的图片故事法,探讨7-12岁学障儿童（27人）和正常儿童（27人）在一级错误信念、二级错误信念、解释性心理理论和失言理解四个心理理论成分的发展趋势。结果表明,学障儿童的心理理论能力发展显著落后于正常儿童,主要表现在一级错误信念、二级错误信念、解释性心理理论方面;学障儿童的心理理论发展表现出随着年龄增长的特点,而正常儿童心理理论发展的年龄差异并不显著;整合全体被试探讨学龄期儿童心理理论诸成分之间的关系,结果表明,这四种心理理论成分的发展呈现复杂化的趋势。设计背景统一、内容简明的研究任务有助于全面考察心理理论能力的发展。     

Young children's attribution of action to beliefs and desires

When and how children understand beliefs and desires is central to whether they are ever childhood realists and when they evidence a theory of mind. Adults typically construe human action as resulting from an actor's beliefs and desires, a mentalistic interpretation that represents a common and fundamental form of psychological explanation. We investigated children's ability to do likewise. In Experiment 1, 60 subjects were asked to explain why story characters performed simple actions, such as looking under a piano for a kitten. Both preschoolers and adults gave predominantly psychological explanations, attributing the actions to the actor's beliefs and desires. Even 3-year-olds attributed actions to beliefs and false beliefs, demonstrating an understanding of belief not evident in previous research. In Experiment 2, 24 3-year-olds were tested further on their understanding of false belief. They were given both false belief prediction and explanation tasks. Children performed well on explanation taks, attributing an anomalous action to the actor's false belief, even when they failed to predict correctly what action would follow from a false belief. We concluded that 3-year-olds and adults share a fundamentally similar construal of human action in terms of beliefs and desires, even false beliefs.     

False Belief, Emotion Understanding, and Social Skills Among Head Start and Non-Head Start Children

The present study investigated relationships among false belief, emotion understanding, and social skills with 60 3- to 5-year-olds (29 boys, 31girls) from Head Start and two other preschools. Children completed language, false belief, and emotion understanding measures; parents and teachers evaluated children's social skills. Children's false belief performance related to their understanding of their friend's emotions and to teacher's ratings of social skills. Aspects of emotion understanding related to social skills. Head Start (n =30) and non-Head Start preschoolers (n = 30) performed similarly on social skills and emotion understanding measures, however, non-Head Start children performed significantly better on false belief tasks than Head Start children. Results demonstrate the importance of including diverse groups of children in studies of social cognition.     

False Belief,Emotion Understanding,and Social Skills Among Head Start and Non-Head Start Children

The present study investigated relationships among false belief, emotion understanding, and social skills with 60 3- to 5-year-olds (29 boys, 31girls) from Head Start and two other preschools. Children completed language, false belief, and emotion understanding measures; parents and teachers evaluated children's social skills. Children's false belief performance related to their understanding of their friend's emotions and to teacher's ratings of social skills. Aspects of emotion understanding related to social skills. Head Start (n =30) and non-Head Start preschoolers (n = 30) performed similarly on social skills and emotion understanding measures, however, non-Head Start children performed significantly better on false belief tasks than Head Start children. Results demonstrate the importance of including diverse groups of children in studies of social cognition.     

Social and cognitive correlates of children's lying behavior

The relation between children's lie-telling and their social and cognitive development was examined. Children (3–8 years) were told not to peek at a toy. Most children peeked and later lied about peeking. Children's subsequent verbal statements were not always consistent with their initial denial and leaked critical information revealing their deceit. Children's conceptual moral understanding of lies, executive functioning, and theory-of-mind understanding were also assessed. Children's initial false denials were related to their first-order belief understanding and their inhibitory control. Children's ability to maintain their lies was related to their second-order belief understanding. Children's lying was related to their moral evaluations. These findings suggest that social and cognitive factors may play an important role in children's lie-telling abilities.     

Understanding of Affective False Beliefs, Perceptions of Parental Discipline, and Classroom Behavior in Children from Head Start

Fifty-five children (21 boys, 34 girls) between the ages of 3 years 6 months and 5 years 6 months from 3 Head Start classrooms were administered 5 affective false belief tasks and 5 hypothetical scenarios that measured their perceptions of parental discipline. A subset of 40 children were rated by their teachers for behavior problems in the classroom. Results indicated that children performed better on questions about their own false beliefs than on questions about others' false beliefs. Overall, children performed below average on the false belief measures. Children expected parents in the hypothetical scenarios to use power-assertive methods of discipline more often than induction or love withdrawal. As predicted, total false belief scores were negatively correlated with classroom behavior problems. Children who stated that they or the child in the scenario would feel sad after being disciplined were also less likely to experience behavior problems in the classroom. The results of this study, together with the results of previous research, suggest that children from Head Start populations are not performing as well on measures of false belief understanding as children from traditional preschool populations. The causes of this discrepancy and possible interventions should be explored in future research.     

Children''s Interpretation of Messages from a Speaker with a False Belief

In 5 investigations we examined a new procedure for assessing children's understanding that messages arise from speakers' internal representations. 3- and 4-year-olds watched the enactment of a message-desire discrepant story in which a speaker doll, who believed wrongly that bag A was in location 1 and that bag B was in location 2, gave a message referring to the bag in location 1. In a message-desire consistent control condition, the speaker had a correct belief about the bags' locations. Children frequently judged correctly in the discrepant story that the speaker (who specified location 1) wanted the bag in location 2, and judged correctly in the consistent story that the speaker wanted the bag in location 1. That is, young children attended to the speaker's internal representations, and not just the real-world referent of the message, when judging what the speaker wanted. In one of the investigations, children performed better on the message-desire discrepant task than on a false belief task. We discuss why they might find it particularly easy to take into account false belief when inferring desire on the basis of behavior.     

语言逻辑视域中话语规则的句法意义及展开与深化

句法是制约着句子组合合法性的规则,即组词成句的规则。话语句法规则的意义既是语义学关注的内容,也是语用学的考察对象。在言语交际过程中,人们把握话语规则:一方面能够帮助人们认知句子在生成过程中的规律、规则;另一方面也能够帮助人们掌握话语的基本表达式在不同语境中的动态变化。所以,在语言逻辑视域中,话语规则的句法意义及其展开与深化,更能够帮助人们加深对语言与认识密切关系的研究。文章在分析言语交际与话语规则的基础上,论述了语言逻辑视域中话语规则的句法意义,以及这种句法意义的展开与深化在语言认知中的重要作用。     

标记主位的语篇功能

作为语言学的重要理论,标记理论在音系、句法和语义分析等语言学研究的各个领域都有广泛的应用。在语篇层面,标记理论与主位-述位切分理论相结合产生了标记主位。标记主位的本质与普遍性赋予其重要的语篇功能。在语篇建构过程中,人们常使用标记主位这种信息编排手段,用来调整已知信息和新信息的顺序,使语篇成为一个前后衔接、上下连贯、环环相扣、信息流畅的语义整体。     

Training Preschoolers on First‐Order False Belief Understanding: Transfer on Advanced ToM Skills and Metamemory

This study investigated the relation between theory of mind (ToM) and metamemory knowledge using a training methodology. Sixty‐two 4‐ to 5‐year‐old children were recruited and randomly assigned to one of two training conditions: A first‐order false belief (ToM) and a control condition. Intervention and control groups were equivalent at pretest for age, parents' education, verbal ability, inhibition, and ToM. Results showed that after the intervention children in the ToM group improved in their first‐order false belief understanding significantly more than children in the control condition. Crucially, the positive effect of the ToM intervention was stable over 2 months and generalized to more complex ToM tasks and metamemory.     

句素添入法在句法教学中的应用

句法教学是外语教学过程中重要的环节之一,句法知识是衡量外语学习者语言能力的重要指标。该文将结合实例,尝试在认知语言学的框架下,结合范畴化理论来探讨句法教学模式。该文认为句素添入法在句法教学中具有认识上的理据和比较省力的记忆加工优势。通过探讨其在句法教学中的应用,旨在加深对句法理解的同时以期提高语法学习效率。     

不同语言能力幼儿在三种错误信念任务中的表现

本研究采用了实验的方法,以言语、非言语性任务,意外转移与表征变化任务为变量,考察了不同语言能力的88名3-4岁幼儿的错误信念理解能力。研究结果发现,降低错误信念任务对语言能力的要求并不能改变幼儿在错误信念理解上的年龄特征;在3岁和4岁两个年龄组中,语言能力超常的幼儿在各项实验任务上的表现均好于语言能力一般的幼儿。     

孤儿错误信念认知与情绪理解发展及教育对策

研究用2个心理理论范式测量错误信念认知和情绪理解能力,比较33名孤儿和33名非孤儿的表现,并分析了错误信念认知和情绪理解的关系。结果显示:(1)孤儿错误信念认知水平发展趋势与非孤儿一致,但孤儿的错误信念认知能力发展显著低于非孤儿;(2)孤儿的情绪理解发展趋势和水平与非孤儿基本一致;(3)儿童(包括孤儿)错误信念认知和情绪理解在3-5岁期间发生明显变化,大多数儿童在5岁时已基本具备错误信念认知和情绪理解的能力,4岁是儿童错误信念认知和情绪理解能力发展的重要年龄;(4)儿童错误信念认知与情绪理解关系密切。     

Computer Mediated-Communication and Stylistics

Cyber language is a third language,which lies between spoken language and written language.Cyber language consists of three elements:1) technical terms that are related to computer science and network technology;2) new words and phrases that are related to cyber culture;and 3) cyber slang that is used mainly in CMC(Qin Xiubai,2003).Cyber language has its own linguistic features at four levels,namely,phonology,graphology,lexicon,syntax,and discourse.