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Young children's understanding of multiple object identity: appearance, pretense and function
Author(s) -
Abelev Maxim,
Markman Ellen
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00537.x
Subject(s) - psychology , object (grammar) , counterfactual thinking , identity (music) , competence (human resources) , theory of mind , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , function (biology) , dual (grammatical number) , social psychology , cognition , artificial intelligence , linguistics , neuroscience , computer science , philosophy , evolutionary biology , biology , physics , acoustics
Evidence from theory‐of‐mind tasks suggests that young children have substantial difficulty thinking about multiple object identity and multiple versions of reality. On the other hand, evidence from children's understanding of pretense indicates that children have little trouble understanding dual object identity and counterfactual scenarios that are involved in pretend play. Two studies reported here show that this competence is not limited to pretend play. Three‐year‐olds also understand the dual identity involved in unusual functional use (X is being used as Y), even though they have difficulty understanding deceptive appearance (X looks like Y). We suggest that children are able to distinguish extrinsic object properties from intrinsic ones (function vs. category‐membership) better than they can distinguish superficial object properties from deep ones (appearance vs. category‐membership).