Infants' performance in the indirect false belief tasks: A second‐person interpretation

Abstract

Research in the last 15 years has challenged the idea that false belief attribution develops at 4 years of age. Studies with indirect false belief tasks contend to provide evidence of false belief attribution in the second year of life. We review the literature on indirect false belief tasks carried out in infants using looking and active helping paradigms. Although the results are heterogeneous and not conclusive, such tasks appear to capture a real effect. However, it is misleading to call them “false belief” tasks, as it is possible to pass them without making any false belief attribution. Infants need to keep track of the object's and agent's positions, trajectories, and focus of attention, given an intentional understanding of the agent, to pass these new tasks. We, therefore, argue that the evidence can be better explained in terms of second‐person attributions, which are transparent, extensional, nonpropositional, reciprocally contingent, and implicit. Second‐person attributions can also account for primates' mentalizing abilities, as revealed by similar indirect tasks. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition

The Referential Problem Space revisited: An ecological hypothesis of the evolutionary and developmental origins of pointing

“…Moreover, denying such precocious representations to preverbal children dissolves the apparent mystery of how preverbal children allegedly discriminate others' false belief in their own gazing behavior, by looking where a person might falsely believe an object to be hidden (e.g., Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005), but cannot verbally express this putative insight until well into their fifth years of life (see, e.g., Wellman et al, 2001, for discussion). Concerning claims of infant discriminations of false beliefs, in a recent review published in the present journal, Barone and Gomila (2020) have developed a second-person perspective on mental attribution that they characterize as a non-propositional attribution of mentality to others; mentality, in this perspective, is transparent in the interactive patterns of babies and their caregivers. As they put it, these "indirect false belief tasks" that are administered to preverbal infants do not require the attribution of a belief state to pass the tasks.…”

Primitivist theories of truth: Their history and prospects

“…See also Barone et al. (2019), Barone and Gomila (2020), Newen and Wolf (2020), and Phillips and Norby (2019).…”

“… Cp. Spaulding (2020, p. 1).37 On humans, seeBaillargeon et al (2018),Barone et al (2019),Barone and Gomila (2020),Burge (2018),Dudley (2018),Newen and Wolf (2020),Phillips and Norby (2019), Poulin-Dubois et al (2018),Scott and Baillargeon (2017), and the references therein. On non-human animals, seeHorschler et al (2020),Krupenye and Call (2019, § 2.2-2.3), and the references therein.38 For criticism of Burge's interpretation, seeCarruthers (2020) andJacob (2020).…”

“…On non-human animals, seeHorschler et al (2020),Krupenye and Call (2019, § 2.2-2.3), and the references therein.38 For criticism of Burge's interpretation, seeCarruthers (2020) andJacob (2020). See alsoBarone et al (2019),Barone and Gomila (2020),Newen and Wolf (2020), andPhillips and Norby (2019).…”

“…(2018), Barone et al. (2019), Barone and Gomila (2020), Burge (2018), Dudley (2018), Newen and Wolf (2020), Phillips and Norby (2019), Poulin‐Dubois et al. (2018), Scott and Baillargeon (2017), and the references therein.…”