Three- to 5-year-old (N = 61) religiously schooled preschoolers received theory-of-mind (ToM) tasks about the mental states of ordinary humans and agents with exceptional perceptual or mental capacities. Consistent with an anthropomorphism hypothesis, children beginning to appreciate limitations of human minds (e.g., ignorance) attributed those…

Temperament dimensions influence children's approach to and participation in social interactive experiences which reflect and impact children's social understandings. Therefore, temperament differences might substantially impact theory-of-mind development in early childhood. Using longitudinal data, we report that certain early temperament…

Individuals in many cultures believe in omniscient (all-knowing) beings, but everyday representations of omniscience have rarely been studied. To understand the nature of such representations requires knowing how they develop. Two studies examined the breadth of knowledge (i.e., types of knowledge) and depth of knowledge (i.e., amount of knowledge…

How and when do children develop an understanding of extraordinary mental capacities? The current study tested 56 preschoolers on false-belief and knowledge-ignorance tasks about the mental states of contrasting agents--some agents were ordinary humans, some had exceptional perceptual capacities, and others possessed extraordinary mental…

We propose a new version of the "theory theory" grounded in the computational framework of probabilistic causal models and Bayesian learning. Probabilistic models allow a constructivist but rigorous and detailed approach to cognitive development. They also explain the learning of both more specific causal hypotheses and more abstract framework…

The processes and mechanisms of theory-of-mind development were examined via a training study of false-belief conceptions in deaf children of hearing parents (N = 43). In comparison to 2 different control conditions, training based on thought-bubble instruction about beliefs was linked with improved false-belief understanding as well as progress…

The emotional reactivity hypothesis holds that, over the course of phylogeny, the selection of animals with less reactive temperaments supported the development of sophisticated social-cognitive skills in several species, including humans (Hare, 2007). In the ontogenetic human case, an emotional reactivity hypothesis predicts that children with…

Young children show significant changes in their mental-state understanding as marked by their performance on false-belief tasks. This study provides evidence for activity in the prefrontal cortex associated with the development of this ability. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded as adults (N = 24) and 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old…

While recognizing major contributions of the contemporary theory-of-mind framework, we identify conceptual and cultural gaps with respect to its inattention to deontic considerations. The framework has tended to portray behavior as purely self-directed, thereby neglecting everyday reasoners' understanding of behavior as normatively based. However,…

Theory of mind is claimed to develop universally among humans across cultures with vastly different folk psychologies. However, in the attempt to test and confirm a claim of universality, individual studies have been limited by small sample sizes, sample specificities, and an overwhelming focus on Anglo-European children. The current meta-analysis…

Three studies investigated toddlers' judgments and communications about how desires, perceptions, and emotions connect in people's lives and minds. Findings indicated that in appropriate circumstances, young children realized that a person's perception of desirable or undesirable objects leads to related emotional experiences. Children's…

Maintains that authors' meta-analytic findings make early competence accounts of theory of mind increasingly unlikely. Asserts that findings argue against executive function expression accounts, including that advocated by Scholl and Leslie (PS532407). Explains that meta-analytic findings directly contradict Scholl and Leslie's predictions…

This research examines whether there are continuities between infant social attention and later theory of mind. Forty-five children were studied as infants and then again as 4-year-olds. Measures of infant social attention (decrement of attention during habituation to displays of intentional action) significantly predicted later theory of mind…

Uses results of laboratory and natural language analyses of 2- to 4-year olds' explanations of human behavior to argue for a theory-type view of biological, psychological, and physical domains of thought. Concludes that children as young as 2 years show three different reasoning systems in their explanations of everyday phenomena, especially human…

When and in what ways do infants recognize humans as intentional actors? An important aspect of this larger question concerns when infants recognize specific human actions (e.g. a reach) as object-directed (i.e. as acting toward goal-objects). In two studies using a visual habituation technique, 12-month-old infants were tested to assess their…