Where Is the Real Cheese? Young Children's Ability to Discriminate Between Real and Pretend Acts

Abstract

This study examined 2-to 3-year-olds' ability to make a pretend -real distinction in the absence of content cues. Children watched two actors side by side. One was really eating, and the other was pretending to eat, but in neither case was information about content available. Following the displays, children were asked to retrieve the real food (Experiment 1) or point to the container with the real food (Experiments 2 and 3). 3-and 2.5-year-olds distinguished between the real and pretend acts based on behavioral cues alone. Two-year-olds chose the containers at random, but their spontaneous reactions suggested that they discriminated the real acts from pretense to some degree. Possible accounts for the discrepancy between the different behavioral measures are discussed.Imagine the following situation: A child is observing a person pretending to drink "loudly" from an empty cup. To make sense of this event, the child must interpret the pretend drinking as nonserious, and distinguish it from real drinking behavior. If the child failed to do so, her representations of what real drinking should be like would get confused. Whether, when, and how young children make sense of pretend events is an important scientific issue. Evidence thus far is mixed.Some research suggests that children are able to comprehend others' pretend actions by the age of 28 months, in the sense that they respond correctly to the pretend content (e.g., imaginary tea) and can imagine the outcome of others' make-believe acts (Harris &

The development of infant detection of inauthentic emotion.

“…Infant understanding of pretense develops markedly between 15 and 24 months of age (see, Haight & Miller, 1992; McCune, 1995; Walker-Andrews & Kahana-Kalman, 1999). When engaging in pretend behaviors, mothers demonstrate increased smiling and looking toward their infant (Lillard & Witherington, 2004) and infants are able to correctly identify pretend and real behaviors at as young as 2.5 years of age (Ma & Lillard, 2006). These experiments relied on infant facial reactions or explicit identification of the discrepant events.…”

The representational status of pretence: Evidence from typical development and autism

“…Of course, one can question the extent to which this on‐line reading of the situation might be classed as a proper understanding of pretence. In such cases individuals may simply be relying on certain linguistic and affective cues that indicate that actions should be interpreted non‐literally, and may be basing their pretend interpretation of the events on the actions carried out by the play partner (Harris, 1994; Lillard & Witherington, 2004; Ma & Lillard, 2006; Richert & Lillard, 2004). For example, in the current study participants could pass the true pretence trials simply by repeating the most recent pretend description offered by the experimenter.…”

Preschoolers’ Theory-of-Mind Knowledge Influences Whom They Trust About Others’ Theories of Mind

“…Most preschoolers have a more action-based understanding of pretending, in which they equate pretending with behaving like or appearing like an entity, regardless of that person's other mental states (Lillard, 1993b(Lillard, , 1996(Lillard, , 1998Sobel, 2004Sobel, , 2007Sobel & Lillard, 2002), even though they can pretend appropriately (e.g., Harris & Kavanaugh, 1993) and recognize when another person is pretending just from behavioral cues (e.g., Lillard & Witherington, 2004;Ma & Lillard, 2006;Nishida & Lillard, 2007). By age 6 to 7 years old, the majority of children begin to respond based on the individual's mental states (Richert & Lillard, 2002).…”