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The Role of Language in the Development of False Belief Understanding: A Training Study
Author(s) -
Lohmann Heidemarie,
Tomasello Michael
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00597
Subject(s) - psychology , syntax , perspective (graphical) , complement (music) , false belief , cognitive psychology , linguistics , language development , perspective taking , cognition , theory of mind , developmental psychology , social psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , complementation , neuroscience , empathy , gene , phenotype
The current study used a training methodology to determine whether different kinds of linguistic interaction play a causal role in children's development of false belief understanding. After 3 training sessions, 3‐year‐old children improved their false belief understanding both in a training condition involving perspective‐shifting discourse about deceptive objects (without mental state terms) and in a condition in which sentential complement syntax was used (without deceptive objects). Children did not improve in a condition in which they were exposed to deceptive objects without accompanying language. Children showed most improvement in a condition using both perspective‐shifting discourse and sentential complement syntax, suggesting that each of these types of linguistic experience plays an independent role in the ontogeny of false belief understanding.