Children's understanding of a first order false belief was compared with their understanding of a third order embedding of mental states, defined as "an intention about a false belief about an intention." Subjects were 72 Canadian middle-class children who were 3, 4, or 5 years of age. Materials were playfigures of a mother, little boy,…

A total of 48 Canadian, middle-class 3-year-olds participated in a study of their abilities to predict the actions of a story character with a false belief and a story character engaged in pretence. In the experimental situation, a red puppet with pen-markers for legs left an "inky trail" to the location of a hidden treasure in one of…