Young Children's Understanding of Second-Order Mental States

Abstract

This study examined young children's understanding of second-order mental states, which have embedded structures such as beliefs about beliefs. Participants were 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds. First-order and second-order false belief tasks were prepared with similar structures to minimize the difference between them. The results showed that over half of the 6-year-olds were successful on both tasks, while the 5year-olds were successful on the first-order but not the second-order false belief task. This time lag between understanding first-order and second-order mental states is consistent with the findings of previous studies. These findings suggest that information processing of embedded mental states is a significant factor for understanding second-order mental states.

Theory of mind, perceived intentions and reciprocal behaviour: Evidence from individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…ND children typically pass this test by the age of six (Hayashi, 2007;Perner & Wimmer, 1985), but it is not uncommon for them to fail it, especially in particular cultures (Lecce & Hughes, 2010). 10 ASD children are much more likely to fail (Baron-Cohen, 1989;Yirmiya, Erel, Shaked, & Solomonica-Levi, 1998).…”

“…9 Other studies, including Sally and Hill (2006), use a different version of the test, the so-called 'birthday puppy story' (Sullivan, Zaitchik, & Tager-Flusberg, 1994), which is a simplified version of the ''ice-cream van'' developed by Perner and Wimmer (1985). The Sullivan et al (1994) task is characterised by a deceptive context, and has been shown to elicit better performance in ND children, thanks to a simplified procedure (Hayashi, 2007) and an additional question about the content of the belief (Miller, 2012). However, its wording is more complex than Perner and Wimmer's, and the beneficial effects of deception on second-order false belief understanding are not so clear (Miller, 2012).…”

Scaling of Advanced Theory‐of‐Mind Tasks

“…There is convincing evidence for elementary school children's progressive understanding of AToM on a large number of tasks (Brent, Rios, Happ e, & Charman, 2004;Charman, Carroll, & Sturge, 2001;Coull, Leekam, & Bennett, 2006;Naito & Seki, 2009), with mastery occurring later than success on first-order reasoning tasks (Hayashi, 2007;Peterson, Wellman, & Slaughter, 2012). For example, Perner and Wimmer (1985) showed that most 5-year-olds (71%) cannot perform a secondorder false-belief reasoning task, whereas most 7year-olds (78%) understand that someone may hold a false belief about another's belief.…”

Entwicklungspsychologische Grundlagen der Theory of Mind und ihre Bedeutung für psychiatrische Erkrankungen

“…Während die Basisbegriffe "Absicht" und "Über-zeugung" im Alter von vier Jahren somit fest etabliert sind, verstehen Sechsjährige, dass eine Annahme über die Meinung eines anderen falsch sein kann (secondorder belief: "X denkt, dass Y glaubt, dass …" [12]). Dies gilt u.a.…”