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False‐belief understanding in 2.5‐year‐olds: evidence from violation‐of‐expectation change‐of‐location and unexpected‐contents tasks
Author(s) -
He Zijing,
Bolz Matthias,
Baillargeon Renée
Publication year - 2011
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.1467-7687.2010.00980.x
Subject(s) - psychology , false belief , cognitive psychology , theory of mind , developmental psychology , cognition , social psychology , neuroscience
Until recently, it was generally assumed that the ability to attribute false beliefs did not emerge until about 4 years of age. However, recent reports using spontaneous‐ as opposed to elicited‐response tasks have suggested that this ability may be present much earlier. To date, researchers have employed two kinds of spontaneous‐response false‐belief tasks: violation‐of‐expectation tasks have been used with infants in the second year of life, and anticipatory‐looking tasks have been used with toddlers in the third year of life. In the present research, 2.5‐year‐old toddlers were tested in violation‐of‐expectation tasks involving a change‐of‐location situation (Experiment 1) and an unexpected‐contents situation (Experiment 2). Results were positive in both situations, providing the first demonstrations of false‐belief understanding in toddlers using violation‐of‐expectation tasks and, as such, pointing to a consistent and continuous picture of early false‐belief understanding.