Four males and four females from each of grades one through six served as subjects in an investigation of the development of recursive thought (imagining other people's thoughts). One half of the subjects were asked to tell what a little boy in a picture was thinking about various configurations of faces. The remaining subjects were told the thought process and were asked to construct a picture of it using cutouts of faces and plastic "thought clouds" similar to those seen in cartoon strips. It was hypothesized that the language reception task would yield higher success than the language expression task for all grades, that decreasing success with increasing item complexity would be evident for both tasks, and that individual subjects would demonstrate decreasing success with increasing item complexity. The first hypothesis was accepted and the second two were rejected. Results indicated a two-level development of recursive thought when language expression is minimized, with contiguity and action thoughts comprising the first level and the second level including all higher recursive thinking. The results were conclusive in showing that development occurs at an age earlier than reported previously. (TJ)