ERIC Number: EJ1118680
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1524-8372
EISSN: N/A
Are Infants' Theory-of-Mind Abilities Well Integrated? Implicit Understanding of Intentions, Desires, and Beliefs
Yott, Jessica; Poulin-Dubois, Diane
Journal of Cognition and Development, v17 n5 p683-698 2016
The development of theory of mind (ToM) in infancy has been mainly documented through studies conducted on a single age group with a single task. Very few studies have examined ToM abilities other than false belief, and very few studies have used a within-subjects design. During 2 testing sessions, infants aged 14 and 18 months old were administered ToM tasks based on the violation-of-expectation paradigm which measured intention, true belief, desire, and false-belief understanding. Infants' looking times at the congruent and incongruent test trials of each task were compared, and results revealed that both groups of infants looked significantly longer at the incongruent trial on the intention and true-belief tasks. In contrast, only 18-month-olds looked significantly longer at the incongruent trial of the desire task and neither age group looked significantly longer at the incongruent trial on the false-belief task. Additionally, intertask comparisons revealed only a significant relation between performance on the false-belief and intention task. These findings suggest that implicit intention and true-belief understanding emerge earlier than desire and false-belief understanding and that ToM constructs do not appear to be integrated, as is the case for explicit ToM.
Descriptors: Infants, Theory of Mind, Cognitive Ability, Intention, Task Analysis, Beliefs, Age Differences, Eye Movements, Comparative Analysis, Infant Behavior, Coding, Reliability, Correlation, Statistical Analysis
Psychology Press. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (NIH)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A