scholarly journals How children come to understand false beliefs: A shared intentionality account

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (34) ◽  
pp. 8491-8498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Executive Function ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Individual Cognition ◽  
Response Measures ◽  
Different Response

To predict and explain the behavior of others, one must understand that their actions are determined not by reality but by their beliefs about reality. Classically, children come to understand beliefs, including false beliefs, at about 4–5 y of age, but recent studies using different response measures suggest that even infants (and apes!) have some skills as well. Resolving this discrepancy is not possible with current theories based on individual cognition. Instead, what is needed is an account recognizing that the key processes in constructing an understanding of belief are social and mental coordination with other persons and their (sometimes conflicting) perspectives. Engaging in such social and mental coordination involves species-unique skills and motivations of shared intentionality, especially as they are manifest in joint attention and linguistic communication, as well as sophisticated skills of executive function to coordinate the different perspectives involved. This shared intentionality account accords well with documented differences in the cognitive capacities of great apes and human children, and it explains why infants and apes pass some versions of false-belief tasks whereas only older children pass others.

Children Are Cursed

2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan A.J. Birch ◽  
Paul Bloom
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
False Belief ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowledge Attribution ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Older Children ◽  
False Belief Tasks ◽  
Curse Of Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Bias

Young children have problems reasoning about false beliefs. We suggest that this is at least partially the result of the same curse of knowledge that has been observed in adults—a tendency to be biased by one's own knowledge when assessing the knowledge of a more naive person. We tested 3- to 5-year-old children in a knowledge-attribution task and found that young children exhibited a curse-of-knowledge bias to a greater extent than older children, a finding that is consistent with their greater difficulty with false-belief tasks. We also found that children's misattributions were asymmetric. They were limited to cases in which the children were more knowledgeable than the other person; misattributions did not occur when the children were more ignorant than the other person. This suggests that their difficulty is better characterized by the curse of knowledge than by more general egocentrism or rationality accounts.

scholarly journals The Developmental Origins of False-Belief Understanding

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose M. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Developmental Origins ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Older Children ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
The World

Understanding that individuals can be mistaken, or hold false beliefs, about the world is an important human ability that plays a vital role in social interactions. When and how does this ability develop? Traditional investigations using elicited-response tasks suggested that false-belief understanding did not emerge until at least age 4. However, more recent studies have shown that children demonstrate false-belief understanding much earlier when tested via other means. In the present article, I summarize recent evidence that a robust, flexible understanding of false belief emerges in infancy and discuss why older children fail elicited-response tasks despite their ability to represent beliefs.

Predictions of Actions and Their Justifications in False-Belief Tasks: The Role of Executive Function

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 500-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Putko ◽  
Agata Złotogórska
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Function ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Current Location ◽  
False Belief Tasks ◽  
Development Of Language

Abstract The main objective of this study was to examine whether children’s ability to justify their action predictions in terms of mental states is related, in a similar way as the ability to predict actions, to such aspects of executive function (EF) as executive control and working memory. An additional objective was to check whether the frequency of different types of justifications made by children in false-belief tasks is associated with aforementioned aspects of EF, as well as language. The study included 59 children aged 3-4 years. The ability to predict actions and to justify these predictions was measured with false-belief tasks. Luria’s hand-game was used to assess executive control, and the Counting and Labelling dual-task was used to assess working memory capacity. Language development was controlled using an embedded syntax test. It was found that executive control was a significant predictor of the children’s ability to justify their action predictions in terms of mental states, even when age and language were taken into account. Results also indicated a relationship between the type of justification in the false-belief task and language development. With the development of language children gradually cease to justify their action predictions in terms of current location, and they tend to construct irrelevant justifications before they begin to refer to beliefs. Data suggest that executive control, in contrast to language, is a factor which affects the development of the children’s ability to justify their action predictions only in its later phase, during a shift from irrelevant to correct justifications.

scholarly journals Process in the Community, Detain Offshore or ‘Turn Back the Boats’? Predicting Australian Asylum-seeker Policy Support from False Beliefs, Prejudice and Political Ideology

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa K Hartley ◽  
Joel R Anderson ◽  
Anne Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Future Research ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Predictive Role ◽  
Practical Implications

Abstract Over the past few decades, there has been a progressive implementation of policies designed to deter the arrival of people seeking protection. In Australia, this has included offshore processing and towing boats of asylum seekers away from Australian waters. In a community survey of 164 Australians, this study examined the predictive role of false beliefs about asylum seekers, prejudice and political ideology in support of three policies. Multiple hierarchical regression models indicated that, although political ideology and prejudice were significant predictors of policy support, false beliefs was the strongest predictor. For the policy of processing asylum seekers in the community, less endorsement of false beliefs was a significant predictor, while, for the policy of offshore processing, more endorsement of false beliefs was a significant predictor. For the boat turn-back policy, an increase in false-belief endorsement was the strongest predictor; although increases in prejudice and a prejudice–political ideology interaction (i.e. the predictive value of prejudice was stronger for participants who identified as politically conservative) also independently predicted support. Practical implications and future research avenues are discussed.

Evolutionary foundations of knowledge and belief attribution in nonhuman primates

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumihiro Kano ◽  
Josep Call
Keyword(s):  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Belief Attribution ◽  
Belief Attributions ◽  
Anticipatory Looking

Abstract Recent findings from anticipatory-looking false-belief tests have shown that nonhuman great apes and macaques anticipate that an agent will go to the location where the agent falsely believed an object to be. Phillips et al.'s claim that nonhuman primates attribute knowledge but not belief should thus be reconsidered. We propose that both knowledge and belief attributions are evolutionary old.

Do children understand desires before they understand beliefs? A comparison of 3-year-olds’ grasp of incompatible desires, competitive games and false beliefs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Proft ◽  
Cornelia Hoss ◽  
Katharina Manfredini Paredes ◽  
hannes rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
False Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
False Belief Understanding ◽  
Active Choice ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Competitive Games ◽  
Cognitive Attitudes

A long-standing dispute in theory of mind research concerns the development of understanding different kinds of propositional attitudes. The asymmetry view suggests that children understand conative attitudes (e.g., desires) before they understand cognitive attitudes (e.g., beliefs). The symmetry view suggests that notions of cognitive and conative attitudes develop simultaneously. Relevant studies to date have produced inconsistent results, yet with different methods and dependent measures. To test between the two accounts more systematically, we thus combined different forms of desire tasks (incompatible desires and competition) with different forms of measurement (verbal ascription and active choice) in a single design. Additionally, children’s performance in the desire tasks was compared to their false-belief understanding. Results revealed that 3-year-olds were better at ascribing desires than at ascribing beliefs for both desire tasks whereas they had difficulties actively choosing the more desired option in the competition task. The present findings thus favor the asymmetry theory.

The Virtue of Epistemic Trustworthiness and Re-Posting on Social Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-264
Author(s):  
Sarah Wright
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Fake News ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Additional Risk ◽  
The Real ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Psychological Evidence ◽  
Other Regarding

Re-posting fake news on social media exposes others to epistemic risks that include not only false belief but also misguided trust in the source of the fake news. The risk of misguided trust comes from the fact that re-posting is a kind of credentialing; as a new kind of speech-act, re-posting does not yet have established norms and so runs an additional risk of “bent credentialing.” This chapter proposes that other-regarding epistemic virtues can help us mitigate the epistemic risks that come with re-posting—specifically the virtue of epistemic trustworthiness. It further considers how an epistemically trustworthy person should regulate her re-posting behavior in light of the psychological evidence that retracting false beliefs is far more difficult than might be supposed. Behaving in an epistemically trustworthy way requires being responsive to the real risks that our actions expose others to, as well as recognizing the real ways that others depend on us.

scholarly journals Anti-Exceptionalism About Requirements of Epistemic Rationality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Field
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Points ◽  
Special Property ◽  
Phenomenological Research ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Total Evidence ◽  
False Beliefs

Abstract I argue for the unexceptionality of evidence about what rationality requires. Specifically, I argue that, as for other topics, one’s total evidence can sometimes support false beliefs about this. Despite being prima facie innocuous, a number of philosophers have recently denied this. Some have argued that the facts about what rationality requires are highly dependent on the agent’s situation and change depending on what that situation is like (Bradley, Philosophers’ Imprint, 19(3). 2019). Others have argued that a particular subset of normative truths, those concerning what epistemic rationality requires, have the special property of being ‘fixed points’—it is impossible to have total evidence that supports false belief about them (Smithies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 85(2). 2012; Titelbaum 2015). Each of these kinds of exceptionality permits a solution to downstream theoretical problems that arise from the possibility of evidence supporting false belief about requirements of rationality. However, as I argue here, they incur heavy explanatory burdens that we should avoid.

scholarly journals Children's understanding of homonymy: metalinguistic awareness and false belief

2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTIN J. DOHERTY
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Chronological Age ◽  
Metalinguistic Awareness ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Mental Age ◽  
And Control ◽  
Selection Of

The aim of this study was to explain why children have difficulty with homonymy. Two experiments were conducted with forty-eight children (Experiment 1) and twenty-four children (Experiment 2). Three- and four-year-old children had to either select or judge another person's selection of a different object with the same name, avoiding identical objects and misnomers. Older children were successful, but despite possessing the necessary vocabulary, younger children failed these tasks. Understanding of homonymy was strongly and significantly associated to understanding of synonymy, and more importantly, understanding of false belief, even when verbal mental age, chronological age, and control measures were partialled out. This indicates that children's ability to understand homonymy results from their ability to make a distinction characteristic of representation, a distinction fundamental to both metalinguistic awareness and theory of mind.

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