Solving belief problems: toward a task analysis

Roth, Daniel; Leslie, Alan M.

doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(98)00005-5

Cited by 102 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…According to the processing-demands view, in contrast, there is substantial continuity in false-belief understanding from infancy to childhood, and early difficulties with traditional false-belief tasks are due primarily to these tasks' heavy processing demands (2,(27)(28)(29). Two separate lines of research have highlighted inhibitory-control demands, in particular.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands

Setoh

Scott

Baillargeon

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

133

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When tested with traditional false-belief tasks, which require answering a standard question about the likely behavior of an agent with a false belief, children perform below chance until age 4 y or later. When tested without such questions, however, children give evidence of false-belief understanding much earlier. Are traditional tasks difficult because they tap a more advanced form of false-belief understanding (fundamental-change view) or because they impose greater processing demands (processing-demands view)? Evidence that young children succeed at traditional false-belief tasks when processing demands are reduced would support the latter view. In prior research, reductions in inhibitory-control demands led to improvements in young children's performance, but often only to chance (instead of below-chance) levels. Here we examined whether further reductions in processing demands might lead to success. We speculated that: (i) young children could respond randomly in a traditional low-inhibition task because their limited information-processing resources are overwhelmed by the total concurrent processing demands in the task; and (ii) these demands include those from the response-generation process activated by the standard question. This analysis suggested that 2.5-y-old toddlers might succeed at a traditional low-inhibition task if response-generation demands were also reduced via practice trials. As predicted, toddlers performed above chance following two response-generation practice trials; toddlers failed when these trials either were rendered less effective or were used in a high-inhibition task. These results support the processing-demands view: Even toddlers succeed at a traditional false-belief task when overall processing demands are reduced.theory of mind | psychological reasoning | false-belief understanding | inhibitory control | information-processing resources

show abstract

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands

Setoh

Scott

Baillargeon

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

133

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As Roth and Leslie (1998) put it, "the emergence of [the "theory of mind" mechanism] solves a critical but limited problem. It allows the young brain to attend to .…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, such findings tell us nothing about the process through which any genetic influences might work. German & Leslie quote Roth and Leslie (1998), who state that the theory of mind mechanism is essential because it "allows the young brain to attend to . .…”

Section: R14 Is Modular Theory An Adequate Explanation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

2004

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Theories of children's developing understanding of mind tend to emphasize either individualistic processes of theory formation, maturation, or introspection, or the process of enculturation. However, such theories must be able to account for the accumulating evidence of the role of social interaction in the development of social understanding. We propose an alternative account, according to which the development of children's social understanding occurs within triadic interaction involving the child's experience of the world as well as communicative interaction with others about their experience and beliefs (Chapman 1991;. It is through such triadic interaction that children gradually construct knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of other people. We contend that the extent and nature of the social interaction children experience will influence the development of children's social understanding. Increased opportunity to engage in cooperative social interaction and exposure to talk about mental states should facilitate the development of social understanding. We review evidence suggesting that children's understanding of mind develops gradually in the context of social interaction. Therefore, we need a theory of development in this area that accords a fundamental role to social interaction, yet does not assume that children simply adopt socially available knowledge but rather that children construct an understanding of mind within social interaction.Keywords: language; Piaget; social interaction; theories of mind; Vygotsky; Wittgenstein et al. 1998;Symons & Clark 2000), mothers' education (Cutting & Dunn 1999), and socioeconomic circumstances (Holmes et al. 1996).Furthermore, a number of studies have found correlations between language and social understanding (e.g., Cutting & Dunn 1999; de Villers 2000; Happé 1995;Jenkins & Astington 1996). In longitudinal studies, forms of family talk about mental states have been found to be related to later success on false belief tests (e.g., Brown et al. 1996;Dunn et al. 1991a;Ruffman et al. 2002). In addition, mothers who think of their children in mentalistic terms ("mindmindedness"), and therefore, presumably talk to their children about the psychological world, have children who are more advanced in understanding beliefs than are other children (Meins & Fernyhough 1999;Meins et al. 1998). Similar correlations between family interaction and the development of children's understanding of emotions have also been reported (e.g., Dunn et al. 1991b;Hooven et al. 1995;Kuebli et al. 1995;Steele et al. 1999). In a longitudinal study, Astington and Jenkins (1999) found that earlier language abilities predict later false belief performance but earlier false belief competence does not predict later language abilities, supporting the conclusion that language is important in social cognitive development.Another source of evidence that social interaction is important for the development of a mentalistic understanding comes from research with deaf children. A number o...

show abstract

“…These performance demands are assumed to be handled by another mechanism, the Selection Processor (SP), which is a kind of executive function more domain general in character (at least, penetrable by more information than is ToMM), which may not necessarily be specific to the domain of belief desire reasoning (see e.g. Leslie & Thaiss, 1992;Roth & Leslie, 1998), though it is also possible that the inhibition and selection process is to some extent domain specific (see Leslie et al, in press). …”

Section: The 'Look First' Manipulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Leslie and colleagues have advanced the only models of belief-desire reasoning in which the processes leading to successful performance have been specified (Friedman & Leslie, in press;Leslie & Pollizi, 1998;Leslie et al, in press). The major currency in which task success and failure have been cashed out under these models is in terms of manipulations affecting the ability to control selection of responses via inhibition (see also German & Leslie, 2000, 2001German & Nichols, 2003;Leslie, 1994aLeslie, , 2000Leslie & Thaiss, 1992;Roth & Leslie, 1998;Surian & Leslie, 1999).…”

Section: Integrating 'Conversational' and 'Executive Inhibitory' Perfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competence and performance in belief-desire reasoning across two cultures: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about false belief?

et al. 2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Look first across two cultures 2 AbstractA recent meta-analysis of false belief task performance (Wellman, H.M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of theory mind development: The truth about falsebelief. Child Development, 72, confirmed that there is change in false belief task performance across the 3-5 year age range. The analysis identified several 'performance' factors that influence task success, including manipulations that highlight the salience of the initial belief content (e.g. by asking where Sally will look first for the marble). Because a proportion of variance in performance remained unexplained even when identified performance factors were controlled for, the authors concluded that children's improvement is the result of conceptual change. Further, the analysis showed that manipulations such as look first improve performance only in children who are in the older part of the 3-5 year range, and thus plausibly operating with a 'transitional' theory of mind. Here, we present three studies systematically investigating the 'look first' manipulation which showed that: i) the advantage for the look first question can be demonstrated in children across different cultures, ii) look first has an effect that is additive to the improvement with age; there is no interaction such that older children gain more benefit from younger children, iii) performance in younger children can be, but is not always, elevated to levels that are statistically above 'chance. These results are discussed in terms of models of belief-desire reasoning in which both conceptual competence and performance factors play central roles.Look first across two cultures 3

show abstract

Solving belief problems: toward a task analysis

Cited by 102 publications

References 45 publications

Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands

Two-and-a-half-year-olds succeed at a traditional false-belief task with reduced processing demands

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

Competence and performance in belief-desire reasoning across two cultures: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about false belief?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About