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Test‐Retest Reliability for False‐Belief Tasks
Author(s) -
Mayes Linda C.,
Klin Ami,
Tercyak Kenneth P.,
Cicchetti Domenic V.,
Cohen Donald J.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1996.tb01408.x
Subject(s) - psychology , false belief , theory of mind , test (biology) , comprehension , developmental psychology , narrative , reliability (semiconductor) , task (project management) , typically developing , cognitive psychology , social psychology , cognition , autism , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , power (physics) , physics , management , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , economics , biology
Despite notable variations in children's rate of success on theory of mind tasks and the presumed theoretical implications drawn from a child's success or failure on such tasks, there have been no studies of the test‐retest reliability of children's performance on these tasks. Twenty‐three children (mean age 49.6 months, SD 8.6) watched three videotaped stories illustrating a false‐belief situation: the standard experimenter narrated false‐belief task, a minor variant replacing the narration of the story with a dialogue among the characters, and a third version involving a humorous situation. The time elapsed between test and retest was 2–3 weeks and the order of presentation was counterbalanced. Results corroborated previous findings of a developmental trend in the understanding of false‐belief questions but, despite a general improvement in children's comprehension of the stories, the test‐retest reliability for the false belief questions was poor. Although changes recorded between test‐retest sessions frequently occurred in the direction of children answering correctly questions they had previously failed, a subset of children incorrectly answered questions they had initially passed. These findings underscore the need for validation assessments of techniques for studying children's developing theories of mind.