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An investigation of pretend play, mental state terms and false belief understanding: In search of a metarepresentational link
Author(s) -
Nielsen Mark,
Dissanayake Cheryl
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1348/026151000165887
Subject(s) - psychology , exhibition , comprehension , object (grammar) , mental state , the imaginary , lexicon , mental representation , cognition , cognitive psychology , theory of mind , expression (computer science) , developmental psychology , social psychology , linguistics , psychotherapist , artificial intelligence , computer science , art , visual arts , philosophy , programming language , neuroscience
The aim of this study was to investigate the association between false belief comprehension, the exhibition of pretend play and the use of mental state terms in pre‐school children. Forty children, aged between 36 and 54 months were videotaped engaging in free play with each parent. The exhibition of six distinct acts of pretend play and the expression of 16 mental state terms were coded during play. Each child was also administered a pantomime task and three standard false belief tasks. Reliable associations were also found between false belief performance and the pretence categories of object substitution and role assignment, and the exhibition of imaginary object pantomimes. Moreover, the use of mental state terms was positively correlated with false belief and the pretence categories of object substitution, imaginary play and role assignment, and negatively correlated with the exhibition of body part object pantomimes. These findings indicate that the development of a mental state lexicon and some, but not all, components of pretend play are dependent on the capacity for metarepresentational cognition.