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A Comparison of Young Children's Understanding of Contradictory Representations in Pretense, Memory, and Belief
Author(s) -
Custer Wendy L.
Publication year - 1996
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/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01759.x
Subject(s) - psychology , mental representation , representation (politics) , chose , developmental psychology , cognition , false belief , mental state , theory of mind , cognitive development , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , politics , political science , law
The present study examined the nature of young children's understanding of various mental representations. 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds were presented with story protagonists who held mental representations (beliefs, pretenses, and memories) that contradicted reality. Subjects chose 1 of 2 alternate “ thought pictures ” (depicting either the mental representation or reality) that reflected the mental state. While 4‐year‐olds performed relatively well on all scenario types, 3‐year‐olds chose the correct thought picture significantly more often for pretense and memory scenarios than for false belief scenarios. These results suggest that young children conceptualize pretense as involving mental representations, and that they have more difficulty understanding contradictory mental representations that purport to correspond to reality.