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The unexpected contents task is a well-established measure for studying young children's developing theory of mind. The task measures whether children understand that others have a false belief about a deceptive container and whether children can track the representational change in their own beliefs about the container's contents. Performance on both questions improves between the ages of 3 and 4. A previous meta-analysis (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001) found little evidence for a difference in children's responses on these questions, but did not investigate the weak effect size that was reported for the interaction between age and question type. The two meta-analyses reported here update the literature review, and find a more robust interaction between question type and age. Three-year-olds showed better performance on questions about their own representational change than others' false belief, while older children showed the reverse pattern. A mega-analysis of a sample of over 1200 children between the ages of 36–60 months then showed the same result. This response pattern requires novel theoretical interpretations, which include reframing the development of children's understanding of false belief.
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Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number
Abstract How do children form beliefs about the infinity of space, time, and number? We asked whether children held similar beliefs about infinity across domains, and whether beliefs in infinity for domains like space and time might be scaffolded upon numerical knowledge (e.g., knowledge successors within the count list). To test these questions, 112 U.S. children (aged 4;0–7;11) completed an interview regarding their beliefs about infinite space, time, and number. We also measured their knowledge of counting, and other factors that might impact performance on linguistic assessments of infinity belief (e.g., working memory, ability to respond to hypothetical questions). We found that beliefs about infinity were very high across all three domains, suggesting that infinity beliefs may arise early in development for space, time, and number. Second, we found that—across all three domains—children were more likely to believe that it is always possible to add a unit than to believe that the domain is endless. Finally, we found that understanding the rules underlying counting predicted children’s belief that it is always possible to add 1 to any number, but did not predict any of the other elements of infinity belief.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1749524
- PAR ID:
- 10532021
- Publisher / Repository:
- Open Mind
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Open Mind
- Volume:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 2470-2986
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 715 to 731
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00104
