Browsing by Subject "Philosophy of mind in children"

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    A Child's Theory of Mind
    (1995) Gamble, Eleanor; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright; Boltz, Marilyn
    The purpose of the present experiment was to study children's theory of mind or their ability to attribute mental states to themselves and to others. Two tasks were used to test the theory of mind: the false belief task, the standard test for a theory of mind and the false pretend task, a newer version of the false belief task which employs pretense. The effects of perceptual pull and desire on task performance were also studied. The subjects of the experiment were twenty-seven preschoolers ages three, four and five. The major findings of this study showed that children's performance on these theory of mind tasks improves significantly between the third and fourth years. These results support a view claiming that children become more conceptually developed in this time period. In contrast to previous findings, the false belief task was also shown to be easier than the false pretend task. Future research needs to be conducted to determine under what conditions a child can and cannot use their theory of mind.
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    Child's Theory of Mind: Belief and Desire Distinction
    (1996) Murayama, Waki; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright; Boltz, Marilyn
    The present study investigated the child's theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states to other people. This study was based on Fodor's proposal that children use two strategies in solving false belief problems, one focusing on a desire component, and the other on a belief component of mental states. Sixteen three year-olds and 16 four year-olds were presented with four short stories that varied in the desirability of the story topics and the roles of the main characters. They were asked to describe the main character's emotional reaction to the unexpected outcome, and to also recall the false belief of the character. Results supported Fodor's proposal that young children are as capable of false belief comprehension as are older children. However, the manipulations of topic desirability and the main character's roles were not shown to affect children's performance. These findings are discussed in terms of past research and theory concerning the child's theory of mind.
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    Child's Theory of Mind: The False Belief and False Pretend Task
    (1994) Kohler, Christa; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright
    The purpose of the current research was to examine to what extent a theory of mind exists in young children. Previous studies have revealed that while four-year-olds demonstrate the presence of a theory of mind, three-year-olds lack this ability. A standard false belief task assesses whether children can attribute a false belief to another person and thus demonstrate a theory of mind. The present experiment used this method of research as well as a false pretend task, which while it is a similar test, is presented in a pretense context. The absence or presence of perceptual pull and desire were manipulated as well. The subjects consisted of twenty-seven preschool children whose ages ranged from three to five. A main effect of age was found with a large leap in accuracy seen between the ages of three and four supporting the conceptual change view that theory of mind develops between this time frame. A main effect of task type was also found indicating that the false belief tasks are easier for children than the false pretend tasks. While components of these findings differ with the research of past studies, further experiments should be performed to assess the extent to which three-year-olds can attribute false beliefs and in what context this ability is revealed.
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    The Ability of Young Children to Use Conflicting Information about Desires, Beliefs and Reality to Solve Theory of Mind Problems
    (1999) Brown, Eleanor D.; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright; Compton, Rebecca J. (Rebecca Jean)
    The relationship between desire and belief understanding in the context of children's theory of mind is not yet entirely substantiated. The prominent view, proposed by Wellman (1989), claims that before children understand that beliefs are central to reasoning about desires they will either disregard belief information or use it only when it suggests a route to desire satisfaction. Recent research by Cassidy (1998), however, suggests that children's ability to demonstrate the full extent of their desire and belief understanding is limited by certain biases. The current study used a sample of 23 three, four, and five year olds to test the hypothesis that even young children are able to reason appropriately about desires and beliefs in the absence of reality and egocentric biases. As predicted, children demonstrated success on two separate tasks of desire and belief understanding that was independent of their ability to reason about false beliefs. Evidence from the current study that (in the absence of particular biases) children understand that belief information is central to reasoning about desires contradicts a prominent view of desire understanding (Wellman, 1990), and suggests that children may in fact have a representational understanding of desire. This possibility is further supported by our finding that children were able to understand a representational construct of desire. Implications of our findings for research concerning desire and belief understanding are discussed.
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    The Ability of Young Children to Use Conflicting Information About Desires, Beliefs, and Reality to Solve Theory of Mind Problems
    (2000) Disney-Hoey, Deirdre; Cassidy, Kimberly Wright; Compton, Rebecca J. (Rebecca Jean)
    The relationship between desire and belief understanding in the context of children's theory of mind is not yet entirely substantiated. The prominent view, proposed by Wellman (1989), claims that before children understand that beliefs are central to reasoning about desires they will either disregard belief information or use it only when it suggests a route to desire satisfaction. Recent research by Cassidy (1998), however, suggests that children's ability to demonstrate the full extent of their desire and belief understanding is limited by certain biases. The current study used a sample of 23 three, four, and five year olds to test the hypothesis that even young children are able to reason appropriately about desires and beliefs in the absence of reality and egocentric biases. As predicted, children demonstrated success on two separate tasks of desire and belief understanding that was independent of their ability to reason about false beliefs. Evidence from the current study that (in the absence of particular biases) children understand that belief information is central to reasoning about desires contradicts a prominent view of desire understanding (Wellman, 1990), and suggests that children may in fact have a representational understanding of desire. This possibility is further supported by our finding that children were able to understand a representational construct of desire. Implications of our findings for research concerning desire and belief understanding are discussed.