Patterns of development of ToM belief abilities in intellectually disabled (ID) children and typically developing (TD) children matched on their developmental age were investigated. The links between cognition, language, social understanding and ToM belief abilities were examined. EDEI-R [Perron-Borelli M. (1996). "Echelles Differentielles…

Twelve- and 14-month-old infants' ability to represent another person's visual perspective (Level-1 visual perspective taking) was studied in a looking-time paradigm. Fourteen-month-olds looked longer at a person reaching for and grasping a new object when the old goal-object was visible than when it was invisible to the person (but visible to the…

In comprehending stories, adults create mental models from which they follow the actions of the characters from the characters' different mental vantage points. Using a novel methodology, this study is the first to examine when children attain the narrative ability to track the mental perspective of characters. That is, when do children follow…

The mechanisms underwriting our commonsense psychology, or "theory of mind", have been extensively investigated via reasoning tasks that require participants to "predict" the action of agents based on information about beliefs and desires. However, relatively few studies have investigated the processes contributing to a central component of…

Ritual has played an integral role in human development and socialization throughout history. This paper seeks to highlight that role so that the importance of perpetuating ritual becomes obvious and necessary. The purpose of this paper is to re-iterate the significance of ritual in human development, education, and social improvement; discuss the…

Although "hindsight bias" (the "I knew it all along" phenomenon) has been documented in adults, its development has not been investigated. This is despite the fact that hindsight bias errors closely resemble the errors children make on theory of mind (ToM) tasks. Two main goals of the present work were to (a) create a battery of hindsight tasks…

Most students in most schools today study subject matter. They and their teachers conceive of the educational task as committing to memory large numbers of facts, formulas, and figures. A far more sophisticated perspective emphasizes teaching disciplines and disciplinary thinking. The goal of this approach is to instill in students the disposition…

Three experiments studied preschoolers' understanding of false beliefs resulting from developmental misconceptions. Found that children showed some (but incomplete) mastery of Level 2 perspective taking, appearance-reality distinction, line of sight, and biological principles of growth and innate potential. Performance was comparable to that with…

Young children reliably distinguish reality from fantasy; they know that their friends are real and that Batman is not. But it is an open question whether they appreciate, as adults do, that there are multiple fantasy worlds. We test this by asking children and adults about fictional characters' beliefs about other characters who exist either…

The current study sought to determine the age at which children first engage in Level 1 visual perspective-taking, in which they understand that the content of what another person sees in a situation may sometimes differ from what they see. An adult entered the room searching for an object. One candidate object was out in the open, whereas another…

In two experiments using a large scale space and a third using a model of that space, the ability of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children to coordinate two perspectives of a large scale space was examined. (Author/SB)

The social judgments of 75 subjects aged 11 and 75 aged 14 were compared using Peel's three categories of judgment to measure and evaluate responses. Clear, if limited, evidence for progress between the two ages in the ability to judge other people's perspectives was obtained, in line with Peel's general theory. (Author)

Retarded (N=24) and nonretarded (N=46) individuals matched on MA and CA were tested on role-taking, self-image, and imitation. The findings supported the view that role-taking ability is a function of cognitive level and that self-image and imitation are determined by both cognitive and experiential factors. (Author)

Recent research on cognition demonstrates how significant it is to listen to and hear what children say about their experience. When we understand what they analyse about the daily events of school, we get a very different picture of what they go through than the official policies would suggest. Children have clear insights into the formal and…

The results of this study indicated that 4- and 5-year-old children are able to engage in veridical conceptual perspective taking. Furthermore, it was concluded that the ability to make a correct inference develops somewhat earlier than the ability to justify that inference. (JMB)