Young children's knowledge about the apparent-real and pretend-real distinctions.

Abstract

Three experimental tests were made of the hypothesis that understanding of the pretend-real distinction develops earlier than understanding of the theoretically related apparent-real distinction. As predicted, 3-year-old children consistently performed better on pretend-real tasks than on apparentreal tasks, even when the two tasks were identical except for the distinction tested. Speculations were made about why understanding of the two distinctions might develop in that particular sequence and about how they might be related developmentally Psychologists have long been interested in the development of children's knowledge about the mind (Piaget, 1929). In fact, much of the now-extensive research literature on metacognitive and social-cognitive acquisitions has dealt with one or another aspect of this development. For reviews of this literature, see,

Intention and Knowledge in Preschoolers' Conception of Pretend

“…Specifically, children were tested on their ability to discriminate between involuntary behaviors (e.g., a sneeze) and the same behaviors emitted voluntarily through acts of pretend. The rationale of this approach was to use children's familiarity with pretend-real contrasts (Flavell et al, 1987) to test their understanding of the intentional nature of pretense as well as their understanding of intention as a mental cause of action. It was reasoned that if children could use mental state cues to discriminate with regard to intentionality between externally identical behaviors, they must be operating with some mentalistic understanding of pretense as well as some understanding of intent that is independent of information about outcomes.…”

“…On the one hand, given that children's pretend play seems to entail the capacity to adopt one's own and recognize others' counterfactual mental representations of a pretend situation, many investigators have viewed pretense as a domain of early mental state understanding (e.g., Flavell, 1988;Forguson & Gopnik, 1988;Leslie, 1987), and several studies have provided evidence to support this point of view (e.g., Bruell & Woolley, in press;Custer, 1996;Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1987;Gopnik & Slaughter, 1991;Hickling, Wellman, & Gottfried, 1998). It has been argued that young preschoolers are better able to represent and reason about nonserious mental states such as pretense before they understand epistemic mental states such as false belief because, although both contradict reality, the former do not purport to represent reality accurately and therefore do not involve the child in considerations of truth (Custer, 1996;Perner, Baker, & Hutton, 1994;Woolley, 1995).…”

Pretend Play as Twin Earth: A Social-Cognitive Analysis

“…In what was perhaps the earliest study aimed at whether young children understanding pretense representations, Flavell and his colleagues compared children's understanding of the pretense-reality distinction with their understanding of the appearance-reality one (Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1987). Children were shown an apple-candle out of which a confederate pretended to take bites (Flavell et al, 1987).…”

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

“…For instance, Flavell and colleagues asked 3-year-olds about the real and pretend identities of a sponge that an adult pretended was a truck. Children responded correctly most of the time: They judged the real identity of the sponge as "really and truly a sponge," and identified its pretend state by agreeing with "She is pretending that thing is a truck" (Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1987).…”