Action Anticipation Through Attribution of False Belief by 2-Year-Olds

Southgate, Victoria; Senju, Atsushi; Csibra, Gergely

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01944.x

Cited by 821 publications

(1,008 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This growing body of evidence casts doubt on the notion that infants' successful performance in falsebelief tasks is the result of primitive abilities that apply to only a limited range of situations and behaviors. Such findings instead support recent mentalistic accounts, which propose that infants make sense of agents' behavior by reasoning about their motivational, epistemic, and counterfactual states (e.g., Baillargeon, Scott, & Bian, 2016;Baillargeon et al, 2010;Barrett et al, 2013;Buttelmann et al, 2009;Carruthers, 2013;Kovács et al, 2010;Luo, 2011;Scott et al, 2010;Southgate et al, 2007;Surian et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

“…The results of such tasks suggested that the ability to attribute false beliefs to others did not emerge until at least 4 years of age (for reviews, see Devine & Hughes, 2014;Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Recently, however, researchers have developed a number of alternative paradigms for assessing false-belief understanding in much younger children (e.g., Buttelmann, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009;Kovács, Téglás, & Endress, 2010;Luo, 2011;Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005;Scott, Baillargeon, Song, & Leslie, 2010;Southgate, Senju, & Csibra, 2007). Positive results have now been obtained with infants aged 8 to 25 months using a variety of response measures (for reviews, see Baillargeon et al, 2015;Scott, Roby, & Smith, in press), leading many investigators to conclude that the capacity to attribute false belief to others emerges by at least the end of the first year of life (e.g., Baillargeon, Scott, & He, 2010;Barrett et al, 2013;Buttelmann et al, 2009;Carruthers, 2013;Kovács et al, 2010;Luo, 2011;Scott, in press;Southgate et al, 2007;Surian, Caldi, & Sperber, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Surprise! 20-month-old infants understand the emotional consequences of false beliefs

Scott

2017

Cognition

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Recent studies suggest that by the second year of life, infants can attribute false beliefs to agents.However, prior studies have largely focused on infants' ability to predict a mistaken agent's physical actions on objects. The present research investigated whether 20-month-old infants could also reason about belief-based emotional displays. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants viewed an agent who shook two objects: one rattled and the other was silent. Infants expected the agent to express surprise at the silent object if she had a false belief that both objects rattled, but not if she was merely ignorant about the objects' properties. Experiment 3 replicated and extended these findings: if an agent falsely believed that two containers held toy bears (when only one did so), infants expected the agent to express surprise at the empty, but not the full, container.Together, these results provide the first evidence that infants in the second year of life understand the causal relationship between beliefs and emotional displays. These findings thus provide new evidence for false-belief understanding in infancy and suggest that infants, like older children, possess a robust understanding of belief that applies to a broad range of belief-based responses.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surprise! 20-month-old infants understand the emotional consequences of false beliefs

Scott

2017

Cognition

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“…Indeed, there is even evidence that children can pass versions of the false belief task before the age of three (Buttelmann et al 2009;Chandler et al, 1989;Kovács et al 2010;;Southgate et al 2007;Surian et al, 2007) with some evidence suggesting that children as young as 15-months can pass some versions of the false belief task (Onishi and Baillargeon, 2005). Again, to take just one example, in a study where children had to actively deceive a protagonist, Chandler, Fritz and Hala (1989) found that children as young as 2 ½ years of age were successful in misleading a target protagonist.…”

Section: Evidence From Theory Of Mind Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Belief Is Prior to Knowledge

Rosé¹

2015

Episteme

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Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is a composite of belief and non-mental factors. However, Timothy Williamson suggests that orthodoxy implies that the concept of belief is acquired before the concept of knowledge, whereas developmental data suggest the reverse. More recently, Jennifer Nagel reviews the psychological evidence, building a psychological case that the concept of knowledge emerges prior to belief. I assess the psychological state of the art and find support for the opposite conclusion. Overall the empirical evidence supports the orthodox view that the concept of belief is prior to the concept of knowledge.

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“…Work on how children reason about other agents' goals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], desires [9][10][11], beliefs [12][13][14][15][16][17][18], and pro-social behavior [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] has advanced our understanding of what in our commonsense psychology is at work in early infancy [30][31][32] and what develops [16][17][33][34][35]. Nonetheless, major theoretical questions remain unresolved.…”

Section: Commonsense Psychologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Naïve Utility Calculus: Computational Principles Underlying Commonsense Psychology

Jara‐Ettinger¹,

Gweon²,

Schulz³

et al. 2016

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

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We propose that human social cognition is structured around a basic understanding of ourselves and others as intuitive utility maximizers: From a young age, humans implicitly assume that agents choose goals and actions to maximize the rewards they expect to obtain relative to the costs they expect to incur. This "naïve utility calculus" lets both children and adults observe others' behavior and infer their beliefs and desires, their longer-term knowledge and preferences, and even their character: who is knowledgeable or competent, who is praiseworthy or blameworthy, who is friendly, indifferent or an enemy. We review studies providing support for the naïve utility calculus, and we show how it captures much of the rich social reasoning humans engage in from infancy. Commonsense PsychologyTheories of decision-making have been at the heart of psychology since the field's inception, but only recently has the field turned to the study of how humans -especially the youngest humansthink humans make decisions. When we watch someone make a choice, we explain it in terms of their goals, preferences, personalities, and moral beliefs. This capacity -our commonsense psychology -is the cognitive foundation of human society. It lets us share what we have and know, with those from whom we expect the same in return, and it guides how we evaluate those who deviate from our expectations.The representations and inferential power underlying commonsense psychology trace back to early childhood -before children begin kindergarten, and often even in infancy. Work on how children reason about other agents' goals [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], desires [9][10][11], beliefs [12][13][14][15][16][17][18], and pro-social behavior [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] has advanced our understanding of what in our commonsense psychology is at work in early infancy [30][31][32] and what develops [16][17][33][34][35]. Nonetheless, major theoretical questions remain unresolved. What computations underlie our commonsense psychology, and to what extent are they specific to the social domain? Are there a small number of general principles by which humans reason about and evaluate other agents, or do we instead learn a large number of special case rules and heuristics? To what extent is there continuity between the computations supporting commonsense psychology in infancy and later ages? Is children's social-cognitive development a progressive refinement of a computational system in place from birth, or are there fundamentally new computational principles coming into play?In this article we advance a hypothesis that offers answers to each of these questions, and provides a unifying framework in which to understand the diverse social-cognitive capacities we see even in young children. We propose that human beings, from early infancy, interpret others' intentional actions through the lens of a naïve utility calculus: that is, people assume that others choose actions to maximize utilities -the rewards they expect to obtain relative to the costs...

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Action Anticipation Through Attribution of False Belief by 2-Year-Olds

Cited by 821 publications

References 41 publications

Surprise! 20-month-old infants understand the emotional consequences of false beliefs

Surprise! 20-month-old infants understand the emotional consequences of false beliefs

Belief Is Prior to Knowledge

The Naïve Utility Calculus: Computational Principles Underlying Commonsense Psychology

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