This article was downloaded by: [The University of Texas at El Paso]On: 08 November 2014, At: 04:31Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Early Child Development and CarePublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gecd20

Theory of mind: children'sunderstanding of mental statesOlivia N. Sarachoa

a Department of Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership,University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USAPublished online: 24 Aug 2013.

To cite this article: Olivia N. Saracho (2014) Theory of mind: children's understanding of mentalstates, Early Child Development and Care, 184:6, 949-961, DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2013.821985

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2013.821985

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Theory of mind: children’s understanding of mental states

Olivia N. Saracho*

Department of Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership, University of Maryland,College Park, MD 20742, USA

(Received 26 June 2013; final version received 1 July 2013)

For more than three decades, theory of mind (ToM) has been one of the leading andprevalent issues in developmental psychology. ToM is the ability to ascribe mentalstates (e.g. beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge) to oneself and others aswell as to recognise that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that differ fromone’s own. The purpose of this article is to provide a background on ToM’stheoretical origins, describe young children’s understanding of mental states,explain the use of false beliefs tasks as an assessment measure, report severalfalse belief studies and their age-related variations, describe the children’s mentalmodels, and summarise the children’s understanding of mental states.

Keywords: false beliefs; theory of mind; false belief reasoning; conceptualdevelopment; mental states

Research on theory of mind (ToM) relates to the part in cognition that investigates theindividuals’ nature and development of their understanding of the mental world(Flavell, 2000, 2004). Since its initiation 35 years ago, this field has become one ofthe leading and prevalent issues in developmental psychology. ToM is the capacityto assign mental states (e.g. beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge) tooneself and others as well as to recognise that others have beliefs, desires, and inten-tions that differ from one’s own. ToM is a particular cognitive ability that helps indi-viduals understand others as intentional agents, that is, to interpret their minds inrelation to theoretical concepts of intentional states such as beliefs and desires. ToMresearchers have examined a wide range of areas including children’s understandingof emotion, thinking, perception, and desire (see Flavell & Miller, 1998; Wellman &Woolley, 1990). The purpose of this article is to provide a background on the ToM’stheoretical origins, describe young children’s understanding of mental states, explainthe use of false beliefs as an assessment measure, report several false belief studiesand their task-related variations, describe the children’s mental models, and summarisethe children’s understanding of mental states.

Theoretical origins

The children’s understanding about their own and others’ internal mental functioning isan enduring issue in cognitive development, which is evident in Piaget’s (1929)research on the children’s concepts about thoughts and dreams (Wellman &

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

*Email: ons@umd.edu

Early Child Development and Care, 2014Vol. 184, No. 6, 949–961, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2013.821985

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

Johnson, 1979). The history of cognitive development for the most part begins withPiaget. He provided evidence that as part of their development the children wereinitially cognitive egocentric. Piaget and his associates (Piaget, 1929; Piaget &Inhelder, 1948) based their developmental studies on a broad range of social-cognitivetopics (e.g. perceptual-perspective taking; egocentric communication; understanding ofthoughts, dreams, intentions, and morality) and their understanding of alternative labelsfor objects in a naming game.

Perspective-taking was a key area in Piaget’s work. He believed intellectual devel-opment involved prevailing one’s egocentrism by increasingly decentring from the waythe world is perceived within ones point of view (perspective) to a purpose and perspec-tive-independent understanding. For example, young infants need to understand thatobjects do not cease to exist when they vanish from the scene. Piaget and Inhelder(1948) examined the children’s ability to represent (understand) visual perspective.The concept of representing (understanding) perspective indicates the children’s under-standing of false belief (Perner, Stummer, Sprung, & Doherty, 2002). Researchers con-tinue to study these topics but some have deviated from a Piagetian theoreticalframework (Flavell, 2000, 2004), especially during the 1900s.

Before 1983, many studies concerning the children’s knowledge about the mindwere labelled metacognitive. In the early 1970s a movement of theory and researchwas metacognitive development. Metacognition (cognition about cognition – hencethe meta) refers to ‘any knowledge or cognitive activity that takes as its object, or regu-lates, any aspect of any cognitive activity’ (Flavell, 2004, p. 275). Most of the metacog-nitive developmental studies examined the children’s metamemory, which includes thechildren’s knowledge about variables related to memory performance and their knowl-edge and application of memory strategies. In addition, this concept has been used inmany studies to examine the children’s cognition concerning comprehension, com-munication, language, perception, attention, and problem solving (Flavell, 2004).Wellman and his colleagues (Estes, Wellman, & Woolley, 1989; Wellman & Estes,1986; Wellman & Lagattuta, 2000) independently initiated the concept of children’sdeveloping metacognitive knowledge and understanding of mental states as the devel-opment of ToM.

ToM is a field in cognitive development research that examines the nature and devel-opment of the individuals’ understanding of themental world including their inner worldthat evolves from their beliefs, desires, emotions, thoughts, perceptions, intentions, andother mental states (Flavell, 2004). A ToM is the individuals’ ability to interpret, predict,and clarify the others’ actions in relation to their underlying mental states. Most individ-uals have this ability, which is evident in young children. Such ability is intrinsically‘metarepresentational’, where individuals predict beliefs about (others’) beliefs(Leslie, 1987; Perner, 1991; Pylyshyn, 1978). If the embedded belief is false, theability continues (Scholl & Leslie, 1999). Knowledge of human behaviour relies onhaving a representational ToM, which is an understanding of actions that are motivatedby internal mental states (e.g. intentions, desires, beliefs, Wellman, 1990).

Mental states

ToM describes how individuals use their abstract mental state perceptions to bothpredict and validate the others’ behaviour, like any theory that can be used to clarifyand predict related incidents (Sabbagh, Benson, & Kuhlmeier, 2013; Tomasello,2009). ToM refers to an understanding of mental states such as belief, desire, and

950 O.N. Saracho

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

knowledge that enables individuals to explain and predict the others’ behaviour (DeBruin & Newen 2012; Wellman & Estes, 1986). Mental states are used to understandthe others’ behaviour. For example, it is known that Cinderella wishes to go to the ball,is not aware that her fairy godmother will shortly appear to grant her wish, but shefalsely believes she will spend another evening mending clothes by the fireplace.

Developmental psychologists have a continued interest in understanding how chil-dren develop the ability to assign mental states to others (Baillargeon, Scott, & He,2010). ToM is to be able to reflect on the contents of one’s own and others’ minds(Baron-Cohen, 2000). The children’s story of Little Red Riding Hood can be used toillustrate the variance in the individuals’ knowledge about minds when they interpretand understand others. In refining the individuals’ mentalistic understanding, thestory is quite ironical. A woodcutter tells Little Red Riding Hood that her grandmotheris ill. She takes a basket of treats and goes to her grandmother’s house. She finds a wolfin her grandmother’s bed. The wolf leaps out and runs after her. A ToM analysis offersa logical and appealing story: Little Red Riding Hood finds out from the woodcutterthat her grandmother is ill. She would like to make her grandmother feel better (sheis kind and caring). Since she believes that a basket of treats can help, Little RedRiding Hood takes the basket through the woods to her grandmother’s house (beliefsand desires lead to actions). When she gets there, she finds the wolf in her grand-mother’s bed; but she falsely believes that the wolf is her grandmother (appearancescan be deceiving). When she becomes aware that it is a wolf, she panics and flees;because she knows that wolves can harm people. The wolf, who really wants to eather, jumps out of the bed, runs after her, and tries to catch her. An examination ofthe others’mental states in ToMmakes them more explicable, predictable, and interest-ing. Individuals attempt to reflect and evaluate the others’mental states and the motivesfor their behaviours to a great extent that Humphrey (1984) refers to our species asHomo psychologicus instead of Homo sapiens (Lillard, 1997).

Emergence and development of mental states

Over two decades, developmental psychologists have examined the beginning anddevelopment of the children’s psychological understanding in ToM (Premack & Woo-druff, 1978). Early studies on representations of mental states were generated by thehypothesis that apes also have a ToM (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). In 1978,Premack and Woodruff made an effort to examine if chimpanzees have a ToM,which they described as follows:

In saying that that an individual has a theory of mind, we mean that the individual imputesmental states to himself and others (either conspecifics or to other species as well). Asystem of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory, first, because suchstates are not directly observable, and second, because the system can be used to makepredictions, specifically about the behavior of other organisms. (p. 515)As to the mental states the chimpanzees may infer, let us look at some of those members ofour own species infer. It seems beyond question that purpose or intention is the state weimpute most widely; several other states are not behind (p. 515), such as knowledge,belief, thinking, doubt, guessing, pretending, and liking.

Several philosophers (Bennett, 1978; Dennett, 1978; Harman, 1978) independentlymade remarks about this report. They proposed the following to discover if ananimal had the concept of belief.

Early Child Development and Care 951

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

The subject animal sees another individual put an object in container A and then leave thescene. The subject then sees someone else transfer the object from container A into con-tainer B while the individual is still absent. The subject animal should then be creditedwith some understanding of belief if it acts as if it expects that the returning individualwill search for the object in A rather than B. (cited in Flavell, 2004, p. 277)

Presently, theories and research indicate that the evolutionary surfacing of an auth-entic ToM emerged after the hominid-line split off, which suggests that it may be exclu-sively human (Malle, 2005). These concepts motivated researchers to examine thechildren’s understanding of mental states. Mental states are not only non-physical,but they also provide the causes and explanations for the individuals’ actions andexperiences (Wellman & Lagattuta, 2000).

Since the majority of ToM researchers examine the genesis and initial emergence ofknowledge about the most basic kinds of mental states (desires, beliefs, etc.), their sub-jects are usually infants and young children. On the other hand, since metacognitionresearchers frequently assume that young children lack the knowledge and skills forunderstanding mental states, their subjects are usually older children and adolescents.They believe that the children’s understanding of memory strategies (metacognition)cannot be studied when they are too young to understand what remembering somethingmeans (ToM).

This issue has expanded into important inquiries in relation to metcognition. Forexample, Wellman and Johnson (1979) investigated the children’s understanding ofmental processes. They recorded the development of children’s comprehension ofremember and forget. Since knowledge of remember and forget are integrated in theindividuals’ metamemory, which is their understanding of memory, Wellman andJohnson (1979) presume that remember and forget are similar to verbs such as think,know, guess, believe, and confuse. These verbs are compatible to mental states,which indicate that the individuals’ understanding of such verbs is based on theirconcept of cognitive performance. Wellman and Johnson (1979) found a general pro-gression from understanding of remember and forget in relation to obvious behaviourcharacteristics to later having knowledge of internal mental states. Developmental evi-dence suggests that such thinking is not automatic for young children, who mustdevelop a number of skills in order to reach the adult level of competence in an under-standing of mental states.

During the last two decades, researchers have focused their attention on youngchildren’s knowledge about the mental world (ToM). They have examined young chil-dren’s understanding of mental states and age-related variations in this understanding,such as knowing that mental representations of situations conflict with reality. ToM isan understanding of others’ mental states, which emerges early in young children.Younger children are aware of accidents, goals, and intentions. ToM abilities developthroughout childhood beginning with a simple understanding of perception and itsrelationship to knowledge that develops in the toddler years whereas understanding offalse belief andmental representation surfaces around age four (Lillard & Skibbe, 2005).

False beliefs

Cognitive researchers have been examining the young children’s development of rep-resentational ToM. Rationalising what other individuals believe is usually critical topredict and interpret human actions. Children have an intellectual capacity to

952 O.N. Saracho

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

understand purposes and other essential facets of the mind (as gaze direction, attention,pretense). The individuals false belief performance indicates their general mentalisticunderstanding. Researchers use the young children’s social cognition in relation totheir knowledge of false beliefs to assess their development of mentalistic understand-ings (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Identifying other individuals’ beliefs isusually necessary to predict and interpret their behaviour.

Numerous studies have examined the children’s understanding that the mind canmisrepresent reality, that is, their awareness that individuals have false beliefs (Birch& Bloom, 2007). Understanding false beliefs is critical, because (1) false beliefs under-standing requires a sophisticated ability to analyse the observed information to interpretand predict the others’ actions even when such information is erroneous and contradic-tory with their own and (2) children’s ability to assign false beliefs indicates the agewhen their psychological-reasoning subsystem that assesses the mental statesbecomes operational (Baillargeon et al., 2010).

Assessment of false beliefs

A foremost accomplishment in the realm of mental states reasoning involves the abilityto resolve problems where the individuals’ actions are predicted with a false belief(Yazdi, German, Defeyter, & Siegal, 2006). Researchers developed a task to diagnosea representational ToM in children called a ‘false belief’ task. A false belief taskdefines a fine dividing line between the children’s developmental stage, when theyhave a kind of ‘transparent’ reading of mind and reality (what people believe andwhat is the case), and a stage in which they show a capacity to have an ‘opaque’reading of mind and reality, that is, they can easily distinguish between what is thecase and what the individuals believe is the case. This is considered an importantpiece of evidence that shows the development of a domain specific ability indealing with mentalistic concepts (such as believe), which appears in the children’slater stages (Flavell, 2004).

The understanding of false beliefs is usually assessed using standard tasks such asthe Change in Location (Wimmer & Perner, 1983) or Unexpected Contents (Gopnik &Astington, 1988). In a standard false belief task, children predict the behaviour of anindividual who has attained a false belief after an object is moved without priornotice (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). Some researchers (Perner, 1991; Wellman, 1990)use this as an indication that children start to understand the mind as a representationalmedium (Wimmer & Mayringer, 1998). For instance, John goes to the refrigeratorbecause he wants a drink and thinks that he can find a carton of milk in the refrigerator(De Bruin & Newen, 2012). Lillard (1998) describesWimmer and Perner’s (1983) orig-inal false belief task:

Children are shown a doll [Maxi], who hides a piece of chocolate in a blue cupboard. ThenMaxi leaves the scene. During his absence, his mother arrives, moves the chocolate fromthe blue cupboard to a white one, then also leaves. Maxi returns. The chocolate is notvisible as both cupboards are closed, and Maxi has clearly not seen his mother movethe chocolate. Children are asked, ‘Where will Maxi look for his chocolate?’ Oneshould say, ‘The blue cupboard’ since that is where Maxi left the chocolate, and he hasno way of knowing that it has been moved. But what Wimmer and Perner found is thatchildren under four years of age tend to fail the test by claiming that Maxi will go tothe white cupboard, where his mother put it. (pp. 11–12)

Early Child Development and Care 953

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

The 1983 original results showed that children over five years of age were able tosuccessfully attribute to Maxi a false belief, whereas younger children predicted indif-ferently that Maxi could look for the chocolate where his mother had put it. Severalstudies on false beliefs have been conducted using these standard tasks.

False belief studies

For numerous purposes, researchers have conducted studies using an increasingnumber of different false belief tasks that examine and validate false belief mistakes,performance, tasks, and competencies. ToM research goes well beyond this task andthese data. In particular, research on false beliefs provides evidence of a central chal-lenge in the study of cognitive development. Performance on any cognitive task indi-cates a minimum of two factors: (1) conceptual understanding necessary to resolve aproblem (‘competence’) and other non-focal cognitive skills (e.g. remembering impor-tant information, focusing attention, comprehending) and (2) responding to differentquestions) required to access and express understanding (‘performance’) (Wellmanet al., 2001).

Studies on children’s false belief reasoning have used some modification of the dis-placement task (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985; Birch & Bloom, 2007;Wimmer &Perner, 1983). For example, subjects are told a story about Sally, who puts her candy ina box and leaves the room. In her absence, another character moves the candy to abasket. When Sally returns, where will she look for her candy? The right answer,that she will look in the box, requires attributing a false belief to Sally (Birch &Bloom, 2007, p. 382). Four-year-old children usually do well with these types oftasks, but younger children usually fail. Younger children respond based on theirown knowledge, such as responding that Sally will think the candy is in the basket(Birch & Bloom, 2007). Dennett (1978) shows that children can only predict anyone’s behaviour when they experience a great deal of normal interaction. Falsebeliefs perspective on ToM is found in developmental psychology and it is an areaof knowledge that has emerged to assess the young children’s understanding of falsebeliefs (Wimmer & Perner, 1983).

Manifestation of age-related false beliefs’ ability

Researchers have also been investigating at what age children are able to assign falsebeliefs to others. They disagree about the age when children first acquire this ability,because tasks differ and provide a variety of responses to a question. Conventionalstudies have used elicited-response tasks. Children are required to respond to a directquestion about an agent’s false belief. The outcomes using such false belief tasksshow that children develop the capacity to ascribe false beliefs when they reach fouryears of age. Conversely, current studies that use spontaneous-response tasks indicatethat children develop this capacity before that age (He, Bolz, & Baillargeon, 2011).

Preschool children

Most four- and five-year-olds are better with these tasks than three-year-olds (Wellmanet al., 2001). Initially, ToM research primarily concentrated on children’s false beliefunderstanding approximately at the age of four years, because children’s ToMstudies indicate that approximately children who are four years of age are able to

954 O.N. Saracho

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

attribute false beliefs to other individuals and themselves (Lockl & Wolfgang, 2007).Wimmer and Perner (1983) show that ToM completely develops after the age offour years but may be present between the ages of three and four years (Lockl & Wolf-gang, 2007). These researchers used a series of experimental tasks to find out if children(ages three and five years) can assign false beliefs to someone else. Young children’sresponses to these tasks provided unexpected outcomes. These factors combined withthe importance of the knowledge under investigation – that people can believe thingsthat are not true – places it among the seminal findings of cognitive development(Lockl & Wolfgang, 2007).

Three’s. Conceptual change theories suggest that three-year-olds fail false belieftasks, because they do not understand that the mind can misrepresent reality. Childrenwho are three years of age use their real belief about the world to respond to a falsebelief task, because they do not know that beliefs (theirs or another’s) can misrepresentthe world, which implies that their belief about the world can differ from their reality(i.e. be ‘false’). For instance, if three-year-olds see that a box of crayons containscandles, rather than crayons, they will declare that they initially thought it hadcandles, failing to recognise their false belief. The children’s verbal responsesprovide important information, but a combination of various assessments can offeran understanding of the children’s most important cognitive processes (Atance, Bern-stein, & Meltzoff, 2010).

Processing theories indicate that the three-year-olds fail the false belief tasks,because they are processing the information rather than lacking the knowledge ofmisrepresentation. As children get older, their processing ability develops, which jus-tifies the older children’s higher success rate on false belief tasks. Both theories specifydistinctive patterns of predictions about response latencies. However, four-year-oldsare able to successfully perform on false belief tasks (Wellman et al., 2001).

Four’s and five’s. Four- and five-year-olds respond quickly and correctly, becausethey understand the situation and understand mental misrepresentation (Atance et al.,2010). It seems that children have the ability to assign false beliefs approximately atage four. The elicited-response on a false belief task has customarily been a reliableindicator when children have developed an understanding of false belief, whichusually occurs at about age four (De Bruin & Newen, 2012). Further experimentslower the threshold of attributing false beliefs to children who are three and fouryears of age (Lockl & Wolfgang, 2007). In contrast, current studies that use spon-taneous-response tasks indicate that such capacity emerges much earlier (Birch &Bloom, 2007; De Bruin & Newen 2012).

Infants

Studies with children who are three to five years of age focus on their false beliefreasoning, which can be used with younger children with some modifications to the dis-placement task (Birch & Bloom, 2007). Some researchers used spontaneous-responsetasks to show that false belief understanding takes place much earlier. (De Bruin &Newen, 2012), while others used non-verbal tasks (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005) andcomputer monitor tasks (De Bruin & Newen, 2012). Research evidence indicatesthat infants and toddlers do well on a broad range of non-elicited-response falsebelief tasks, that is, tasks where children do not have to respond to a direct questionabout a mistaken agent’s likely behaviour (He et al., 2011). Although there is anastounding agreement that two-year-old children are incapable of assigning false

Early Child Development and Care 955

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

beliefs, these children are able to predict the mental states of other individuals. Sincemany preschool children failed verbal tasks that are used to understand the falsebeliefs that others may have, Onishi and Baillargeon (2005) used a non-verbal taskwith 15-month-old infants to determine their ability to predict the others’ behaviourbased on the infants’ true or false belief prediction about a toy’s hiding place. The out-comes supported the concept that from a very young age children draw on mental states(e.g. goals, perceptions, beliefs) to describe the behaviour of others (Onishi & Baillar-geon, 2005).

In a later study, infants watched actions on a computer monitor. An eyetrackerrecorded their looking behaviour, which indicated that 25-month-old infants accuratelyprojected the others’ actions when these actions can be anticipated only by assigning afalse belief to others (Southgate, Senju, & Csibra, 2007). The interaction between theassociation module and the operating system allows infants to record progressivelymore complicated associations based on another agent’s movements, visual perspec-tive, and propositional attitudes. This can support the complete series of outcomeson their 25-month-old infants’ false belief understanding (De Bruin & Newen, 2012).

Other studies support these results. Baillargeon and Colleagues’ (2010) review of anumber of studies indicates that when researchers use several spontaneous-responsetasks, second year infants are able to assign false beliefs about location, identity, andfalse perceptions. These tasks show that the infants’ understanding of an agent’sfalse belief is interpreted from behaviours they spontaneously generate as they watcha scene develop (similar to when adults look at a movie, they could spontaneously gen-erate responses that show their understanding of the characters’mental states). Thus far,spontaneous response tasks support that infants can assign to an agent a false beliefabout an object’s location, a false view of an object, and a false belief about anobject’s identification (Baillargeon et al., 2010).

Conflicting results

ToM research shows some conflicting outcomes, especially in the first studies whereolder preschoolers continuously passed false belief tasks, a measure of an understand-ing of mental states. Younger children methodically failed the false beliefs task. Recentstudies show that three-year-olds improve their performance when they respond to situ-ations to the false belief task. Four-year-olds succeed with false belief tasks whereasyounger children fail (Wellman et al., 2001). Such results motivate researchers toassume that children go through a radical change in their understanding of the mind.For example, Gopnik (1993) states that ‘at about age 4, there is an important develop-mental shift to a representational model of the mind’ (p. 1). Wimmer and Weichbold(1994) state that ‘not until the age of about 4 years do children become able to attributebelief states to themselves and other people’ (p. 45). Such outcomes are experimentallyinteresting, especially when young children make such a stimulating mistake. Lillardand Flavell (1990) consider that a false belief is a representational mental state(Wellman, 1990), because it actually is a mental model (Johnson-Laird, 1983) of theworld.

Mental models

Various theorists think that children fail false belief tasks, because they lack the knowl-edge that mental models or representations may differ from reality, although others

956 O.N. Saracho

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

disagree with this concept. Wellman and Associates (Estes, Wellman, & Woolley,1989; Wellman & Estes, 1986; Wellman & Lagattuta, 2000) show that young childrenare knowledgeable about mental models, such as their mind has thoughts and imagesthat may differ in the world. However, they still fail false belief tasks. Lillard andFlavell (1990) studied beliefs that concentrate on a specific type of mental model.They used four mental states (pretend, think, dream, and looks like (to the person)that they consider to be representational of mental states, because they have a mentalmodel. For example, when children imagine that (a) a block is a comb, they have amental model of a comb; (b) a cow is in a boat, they have a mental model of a cowin a boat; (c) a sponge is a rock, they have a mental model of a rock. The beliefsconsist of things in the world when compared with beliefs about imagined entities orabstractions, which may be the actual element of false belief tasks that misleadsyoung children. They may incorrectly assume that all mental representations aboutreal-world entities perfectly correspond to those real-world entities (e.g. Maxi’sbelief about the chocolate’s location must match the chocolate’s actual location).

Implicit in this understanding error is the belief that false representations (falsebeliefs) are impossible. Therefore, it is possible that children fail the false belief task,because they are unable to understand that mental models of specific referents maydiffer from those referents. Also children might fail these tasks for all mental represen-tational states. In addition, Lillard and Flavell (1990) used mental models that involvedmental states about something in the real world. The mental models relate to all themental states that were similar to those in false belief studies, which included particularthings in the world. When children failed to recognise that the aspects of pretend, think,dream, and looks like differed from reality, it was considered that three-year olds mis-understood that a mental representation of a particular referent can be different fromthat referent. Young children fail the false belief tasks because they (a) are motivatedto describe reality, (b) are unable to understand that any mental representation candiffer from that which it represents; and (c) are unable to understand that any importantmental representation can differ from that which it represents. Potential difficulties withthe mental models may be that the story is complicated for very young children tofollow or children misunderstand the question. Wellman and Colleagues (2001)point out that very young children do not know anything about mental states and areunable to understand representational mental states. However, the older children’s suc-cessful false belief reasoning suggests that they understand that the individuals’ mentalworld is integrated in their real life experiences. The expression ‘ToM’ refers to theabstract mental state structure that both describes and predicts the others’ behaviour,which is similar to any theory that helps describe and predict related phenomena.ToM refers to an understanding of mental states such as belief, desire, and knowledgethat enables individuals to explain and predict others’ behaviour (Wellman & Estes,1986). Thus, ToM is to be able to reflect on the contents of one’s own and others’minds (Baron-Cohen, 2000). Developmental evidence suggests that such thinking isnot automatic for young children, who must develop a number of skills in order toreach the adult level of competence in understanding of mental states. For example,Dennett (1978) indicates that children can acquire this ability after they have encoun-tered many normal interaction experiences. Precursors of ToM include joint attention,appreciation of intentionality, recognition that different people have different perspec-tives, and use of mental state words and pretend play (Miller, 2006).

Many studies have examined the children’s understanding that the mind can misre-present reality, which means knowing that individuals have false beliefs. Initially, ToM

Early Child Development and Care 957

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

studies primarily showed that children’s false belief understanding emerges at approxi-mately at the age of four. Recently, some researchers (Baillargeon et al., 2010; De Bruin& Newen, 2012; Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005) modified the false beliefs task and foundthat 15- to 25-month-old infants have false beliefs understanding. Most subsequentresearch on the development of ToM have focused on false beliefs of children whoseages range between three and five years, their role in the prediction or explanation of be-haviour, and their attempts to manipulate behaviour. Currently, researchers are focusingtheir attention to the effects of such achievements that influenced older childrenwhohavedeveloped an understanding of false beliefs (Lockl & Wolfgang, 2007).

Research with young children provides evidence on the way ToM develops in earlychildhood and the children’s understanding of mental states. Between three and fiveyears of age, important developmental changes in ToM take place (Flavell, Everett,Croft, & Flavell, 1981; de Villiers & Pyers, 2002; Wellman et al., 2001; Youngblade& Dunn, 1995). Children at three years of age can distinguish between the mentaland physical worlds and can grasp the subjectivity of thoughts (Flavell, Flavell,Green, & Moses, 1990; Watson, Gelman, & Wellman, 1998; Wellman & Estes,1986). Three- and four-year-olds also distinguish thinking from doing (Flavell,Green & Flavell, 1995). Two-year-old children are able to understand desires, percep-tion, and emotions (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Wellman, Philips, & Rodriguez, 2000)as well as false beliefs (Baillargeon et al., 2010; De Bruin & Newen, 2012; Onishi &Baillargeon, 2005). An indication of the individuals’ human psychological reasoning istheir capacity to recognise that others have and act on false beliefs. Furthermore, theseresults support the developmental hypothesis that children’s ToM go through a mostimportant conceptual transformation in early life.

Most subsequent research on the development of ToM has concentrated on falsebeliefs between three and five years of age, their role in the prediction or explanationof behaviour, and their attempts to manipulate behaviour. Wimmer and Perner(1983) conclude that the emergence of children’s ability to understand another individ-ual’s beliefs and the way this individual will respond based on such beliefs and theirunderstanding of deception is more than a side effect of an increase in memory andcentral processing ability, but it is an innovative cognitive ability that surfaces withinthe period of four to six years of age. Children develop the ability to represent falsebeliefs and build a dishonest or honest expression in relation to the individual’s falsebeliefs. During this period, children also develop other related capacities. Childrenbegin to understand another individual’s absence of knowledge.

Future research can provide some insight about these issues. In addition, researchersneed to examine how and why distinctive environmental-social and child-cognitiveelements influence the development of ToM, especially concerning successful interven-tions for children who have a less developed ToM. Furthermore, most of the researchershave used middle class andWestern children. They need to conduct studies with childrenfrom a variety of backgrounds and cultures to compare similarities and differences in thedevelopment ofToM (Astington&Edward, 2010). It is essential that researchers continueto examine ToM to develop a better understanding of its impact on young children’s lives.

Notes on contributorOlivia N. Saracho is a professor of education in the Department of Teaching, Learning, Policy,and Leadership at the University of Maryland. She has conducted research and written numerousarticles on children’s play. She is the author of An integrated play-based curriculum for youngchildren (Routledge/Taylor & Francis). She has also edited books on children’s play such as

958 O.N. Saracho

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

Contemporary perspectives on play in early childhood education (Information Age Publishing)and Multiple perspectives on play in early childhood education (State University of New YorkPress). She is coeditor, with Bernard Spodek, of the Handbook of research on the education ofyoung children, 3rd ed. (2013 Routledge/Taylor & Francis). She is also editor of the Contem-porary perspectives in early childhood education series (Information Age).

ReferencesAstington, J. W., & Edward, M. J. (2010). The development of theory of mind in early childhood.

Montreal, Canada: Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, Centre of Excellencefor Early Childhood Development.

Atance, C. M., Bernstein, D. M., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2010). Thinking about false belief: It’s notjust what children say, but how long it takes them to say it. Cognition, 116(2), 297–301.

Baillargeon, R., Scott, R. M., & He, Z. (2010). False-belief understanding in infants. Trends inCognitive Sciences, 14(3), 110–118.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2000). Theory of mind and autism: A fifteen year review. In S. Baron-Cohen,H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Understanding other minds: Perspectives fromdevelopmental cognitive neuroscience (pp. 3–20). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a ‘theory of mind’?Cognition, 21, 37–46.

Bartsch, K., & Wellman, H. M. (1995). Children talk about the mind. New York, NY: OxfordUniversity Press.

Bennett, J. (1978). Some remarks about concepts. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(4),557–560.

Birch, S. A. J., & Bloom, P. (2007). The curse of knowledge in reasoning about false beliefs.Psychological Science, 18(5), 382–386.

De Bruin, L. C., & Newen, A. (2012). An association account of false belief understanding.Cognition, 123(2), 240–259.

Dennett, D. C. (1978). Beliefs about beliefs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(4), 568–570.Estes, D., Wellman, H. M., & Woolley, J. D. (1989). Children’s understanding of mental

phenomena. In H. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (pp. 41–87).New York, NY: Academic Press.

Flavell, J. H. (2000). Development of children’s knowledge about the mental world.International Journal of Behavioral Development, 24(1), 15–23.

Flavell, J. H. (2004). Theory-of-Mind development: Retrospect and prospect. Merrill-PalmerQuarterly, 50(3), 274–290.

Flavell, J. H., Everett, B. A., Croft, K., & Flavell, E. R. (1981). Young children’s knowledgeabout visual perception: Furthering evidence for the Level 1-Level 2 distinction.Developmental Psychology, 17, 99–103.

Flavell, J. H., Flavell, E. R., Green, F. L., & Moses, L. J. (1990). Young children’s understand-ing of fact beliefs versus value beliefs. Child Development, 61, 915–928.

Flavell, J. H., Green, F. L., & Flavell, E. R. (1995). Young children’s knowledge of thinking.Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60, (1, Serial No. 243), 1–95.

Flavell, J. H., & Miller, P. H. (1998). Social cognition. In D. Kuhn & R. S. Siegler (Eds.),Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 2. Cognition, perception and language (5th ed., pp.851–898). New York: Wiley.

Gopnik, A. (1993). How we know our minds: The illusion of first-person knowledge of inten-tionality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 1–14.

Gopnik, A., & Astington, J. W. (1988). Children’s understanding of representational change andits relation to the understanding of false belief and the appearance-reality distinction. ChildDevelopment, 59(1), 26–37.

Harman, G. (1978). Studying the chimpanzee’s theory of mind. Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1(4), 576–577.

He, Z., Bolz, M., & Baillargeon, R. (2011). False-belief understanding in 2.5-year-olds:Evidence from violation-of-expectation change-of-location and unexpected-contents tasks.Developmental Science, 14, 292–305. doi:10.1111/j.1467–7687.2010.00980.x

Early Child Development and Care 959

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

Humphrey, N. (1984). Consciousness regained. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Mental models. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Leslie, A. M. (1987). Children’s understanding of the mental world. Retrieved from http://www.

answers.com/topic/children-s-understanding-of-the-mental-worldLillard, A. S. (1997). Other folks’ theories of mind and behavior. Psychological Science, 8(4),

268–274.Lillard, A. S. (1998). Playing with a theory of mind. In O. N. Saracho & B. Spodek (Eds.),

Multiple perspectives on play in early childhood education (pp. 11–33). New York, NY:State University of New York Press.

Lillard, A. S., & Flavell, J. H. (1990). Young children’s preference for mental state versus be-havioral descriptions of human action. Child Development, 61(3), 731–741.

Lillard, A. S., & Skibbe, L. (2005). Theory of mind: Conscious attribution and spontaneous traitinferences. In R. Hassin, J. Uleman, & J. Bargh (Eds.), The new unconscious (pp. 277–305).Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lockl, K., & Wolfgang, S. (2007). Knowledge about the mind: Links between theory of mindand later. Child Development, 78(1), 148–167.

Malle, B. F. (2005). Folk theory of mind: Conceptual foundations of social cognition. In R. R.Hassin, J. S. Uleman, & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The new unconscious (pp. 225–255). Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Miller, C. A. (2006). Developmental relationships between language and theory of mind.American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 15, 142–154.

Onishi, K. H., & Baillargeon, R. (2005). Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs?Science, 308(5719), 255–258.

Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Perner, J., Stummer, S., Sprung, M., & Doherty, M. J. (2002). Theory of mind finds its Piagetian

perspective: Why alternative naming comes with understanding belief. CognitiveDevelopment, 17(3/4), 1451–1472.

Piaget, J. (1929). The child’s conception of the world. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1948). The child’s conception of space. London: Routledge and Kegan

Paul.Premack, D., & Woodruff, G. (1978). Does the chimpanzee have a Theory of Mind? Behavioral

and Brain Sciences, 1(4), 515–526.Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1978). When is attribution of beliefs justified? Behavioral and Brain Sciences,

1(4), 592–593.Sabbagh, M. A., Benson, J. E., & Kuhlmeier, V. A. (2013). False belief understanding in infants

and preschoolers. In M. Legerstee, D. Haley, & M. Bornstein (Eds.), The developing infantmind: Integrating biology and experience. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Scholl, B., & Leslie, A. M. (1999). Modularity, development and ‘theory of mind’. Mind andLanguage, 14(1), 131–153.

Southgate, V., Senju, A., & Csibra, G. (2007). Action anticipation through attribution of falsebelief in 2-year-olds. Psychological Science, 18(7), 587–592.

Tomasello, M. (2009). Why we cooperate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.de Villiers, J. G., & Pyers, J. E. (2002). Complements to cognition: A longitudinal study of the

relationship between complex syntax and false-belief understanding. CognitiveDevelopment, 17, 1037–1060.

Watson, J. K., Gelman, S. A., &Wellman, H. M. (1998). Young children’s understanding of thenon-physical nature of thoughts and the physical nature of the brain. British Journal ofDevelopmental Psychology, 16, 321–335.

Wellman, H. M. (1990). The child’s theory of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., &Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development:

The truth about false belief. Child Development, 72(3), 655–684.Wellman, H. M., & Estes, D. (1986). Early understanding of mental entities: A reexamination of

childhood realism. Child Development, 57(4), 910–923.Wellman, H. M., & Johnson, C. N. (1979). Understanding of mental processes: A developmen-

tal study of ‘remember’ and ‘forget’. Child Development, 50(1), 79–88.Wellman, H. M., & Lagattuta, K. H. (2000). Developing understandings of mind. In S. Baron-

Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. Cohen (Eds.), Understanding other minds: Perspectives

960 O.N. Saracho

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014

from developmental cognitive neuroscience, second edition (pp. 21–49). New York, NY:Oxford University Press.

Wellman, H. M., Phillips, A. T., & Rodriguez, T. (2000). Young children’s understanding ofperception, desire, and emotion. Child Development, 71(4), 895–912.

Wellman, H. M., & Woolley, J. D. (1990). From simple desires to ordinary beliefs: The earlydevelopment of everyday psychology. Cognition, 35(3), 245–275.

Wimmer, H., & Mayringer, H. (1998). False belief understanding in young children:Explanations do not develop before predictions. International Journal of BehavioralDevelopment, 22(2), 403–422.

Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining func-tion of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition, 13(1),103–128.

Wimmer, H., & Weichbold, V. (1994). Children’s theory of mind: Fodor’s heuristics examined.Cognition, 53, 45–57.

Yazdi, A. A., German, T. P., Defeyter, M. A., & Siegal, M. (2006). Competence and perform-ance in belief-desire reasoning across two cultures: The truth, the whole truth and nothingbut the truth about false belief? Cognition, 100, 343–368.

Youngblade, L. M., & Dunn, J. (1995). Individual differences in young children’s pretend playwith mother and sibling: Links to relationships and understanding of other people’s feelingsand beliefs. Child Development, 66, 1472–1492.

Early Child Development and Care 961

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

The

Uni

vers

ity o

f T

exas

at E

l Pas

o] a

t 04:

31 0

8 N

ovem

ber

2014