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Solving the Puzzle about Early Belief‐Ascription
Author(s) -
Helming Katharina A.,
Strickland Brent,
Jacob Pierre
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12114
Subject(s) - false belief , ascription , psychology , theory of mind , cognitive psychology , belief revision , constructivism (international relations) , epistemology , cognition , philosophy , international relations , neuroscience , politics , political science , law
Developmental psychology currently faces a deep puzzle: most children before 4 years of age fail elicited‐response false‐belief tasks, but preverbal infants demonstrate spontaneous false‐belief understanding. Two main strategies are available: cultural constructivism and early‐belief understanding. The latter view (unlike the former) assumes that failure at elicited‐response false‐belief tasks need not reflect the inability to understand false beliefs. The burden of early‐belief understanding is to explain why elicited‐response false‐belief tasks are so challenging for most children under 4 years of age. The goal of this article is to offer a pragmatic framework whose purpose is to discharge this burden.