From infants’ to children's appreciation of belief

Evidence is accumulating that infants are sensitive to people's false beliefs, whereas children pass the standard false belief test at around 4 years of age. Debate currently centres on the nature of early and late understanding. We defend the view that early sensitivity to false beliefs shown in ‘online tasks’ (where engagement with ongoing events reflects an expectation of what will happen without a judgement that it will happen) reflects implicit/unconscious social knowledge of lawful regularities. The traditional false belief task requires explicit consideration of the agent's subjective perspective on his reasons for action. This requires an intentional switch of perspectives not possible before 4 years of age as evidenced by correlations between the false belief task and many different perspective-taking tasks. Evidence is accumulating that infants are sensitive to people's false beliefs, whereas children pass the standard false belief test at around 4 years of age. Debate currently centres on the nature of early and late understanding. We defend the view that early sensitivity to false beliefs shown in ‘online tasks’ (where engagement with ongoing events reflects an expectation of what will happen without a judgement that it will happen) reflects implicit/unconscious social knowledge of lawful regularities. The traditional false belief task requires explicit consideration of the agent's subjective perspective on his reasons for action. This requires an intentional switch of perspectives not possible before 4 years of age as evidenced by correlations between the false belief task and many different perspective-taking tasks. Young children's understanding of the role of belief in intentional action has been investigated intensely over the past few decades. This research has uncovered dissociation between different measures of understanding. In the classical false belief tasks, children are asked to predict where the protagonist, Mistaken Max, will look for an object. Max puts his chocolate in the blue cupboard. In his absence it is transferred to the green cupboard. When Max returns, children are asked where he will look for his chocolate 1Perner J. Lang B. Development of theory of mind and executive control.Trends Cogn. Sci. 1999; 3: 337-344Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (438) Google Scholar. Most 2- and 3-year-olds reliably and resolutely claim that Max will look in the green cupboard, yet young children do show sensitivity to false beliefs in a range of what might be called ‘online tasks’ (Box 1). For example, in the Anticipatory Looking task children observe the agent watching an object being moved from one cover to another and have learned that the agent's hand will appear through whichever window is located behind the object's actual location. In the false belief condition, the agent is distracted by a phone call and fails to see how it is removed from that second cover, believing it is still in there. The windows start blinking to indicate that the agent is about to search for the object. The child's eye gaze to the left or right window is recorded as indicator of where the child expects the agent's hand to appear 2Southgate V. et al.Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by 2-year-olds.Psychol. Sci. 2007; 18: 586-592Google Scholar.Box 1Tasks showing infants’ sensitivity to beliefAnticipatory looking 2Southgate V. et al.Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by 2-year-olds.Psychol. Sci. 2007; 18: 586-592Google ScholarThe set-up for this task was later used by Low and Watts 18Low, J. and Watts, J. Attributing false-belief about object identity is a signature blindspot in humans’ efficient mindreading system. Psychol. Sci. (in press)Google Scholar and is shown in Figure 1. Children learn first that, when a target object is put under one of two covers, the agent will always reach through the window behind that cover. Children's anticipatory looking to this window is triggered by both windows starting to blink. In Southgate et al.’s version 2Southgate V. et al.Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by 2-year-olds.Psychol. Sci. 2007; 18: 586-592Google Scholar, children observe the agent watching the object being moved from one cover to the other. The agent is then distracted by a phone call and fails to see how the object is removed from under the second cover. The windows start blinking to indicate that the agent is about to search for the object. The child's eye gaze to the left or right window is recorded as an indicator of where the child expects the agent's hand to appear.Violation of expectation 5Onishi K.H. Baillargeon R. Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs?.Science. 2005; 308: 255-258Crossref PubMed Scopus (1349) Google ScholarInfants are shown either the objectively expected (when the agent goes to or reaches to the believed location) or the unexpected action (when the agent goes to the object's actual location). Looking for longer at the unexpected than at the expected action is interpreted as infants sharing these objective expectations.Helping 37Buttelmann D. et al.Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping PubMed Scopus Google the helping task of et [37Buttelmann D. et al.Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping PubMed Scopus Google Scholar, an how to and two the left a agent the a in one of and left In the agent's the transferred the to the and both his the agent to the where he the without When to the infants the the one the agent not to that that the agent believed the was still in and to et false belief test for J. Psychol. Scopus Google of and Scopus Google V. et to false beliefs to Sci. PubMed Scopus Google the task of Southgate et V. et to false beliefs to Sci. 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The agent is then distracted by a phone call and fails to see how the object is removed from under the second cover. The windows start blinking to indicate that the agent is about to search for the object. The child's eye gaze to the left or right window is recorded as an indicator of where the child expects the agent's hand to are shown either the objectively expected (when the agent goes to or reaches to the believed location) or the unexpected action (when the agent goes to the object's actual location). 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