Article

Infants’ Theory of Mind Competency

Author

Yueh-Huey Wang, Shu-Chen Chien

Information

pp. 127~150 / 2010 Vol.4 No.2

Abstract

Prior Theory of Mind research using elicited-response tasks in which children areasked direct questions about an agent’s false belief suggests that children youngerthan age 4 do not attribute false beliefs to other agents. Recently, spontaneous-lookingstudies have claimed that soon after their first birthday, infants already reason aboutagents’ false belief, false perception and false identity. These visual fixation researchesnot only provide support for the possibility of knowledge and belief attribution ininfancy, but also prove that this ability is quite robust because it can be demonstratedwith different spontaneous-looking tasks. The authors first examine elicited-responsefalse belief research, which, while confirming that children under 4 years performpoorly on standard tests, suggests nevertheless that they have more implicit understandingof beliefs than they can express. We then address two recent bodies ofspontaneous-looking studies that suggest that infants in the second year of life canalready attribute false beliefs about location and identity as well as false perceptions.We also introduce the early psychological reasoning account for the discrepantfindings of elicited-response false belief tasks and spontaneous-looking tasks. Whyelicited-response tasks are particularly difficult for young children is also discussed.

Keywords