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Children's developing knowledge of the relationship between mental awareness and pretense
1Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. David_Sobel_1@brown.edu
Child Development
|May 18, 2004
Summary
Children aged 3-4 years demonstrate a developing understanding of pretense and mental awareness. By age 4, they grasp that pretenders are aware of their actions, but this understanding is not yet complete.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Theory of Mind
Background:
- Understanding pretense is crucial for social cognition.
- Previous research suggests a developmental trajectory in children's grasp of pretense and mental states.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate 3- and 4-year-olds' comprehension of the link between pretense and mental awareness.
- To examine how linguistic demands affect performance in pretense tasks.
Main Methods:
- Four experiments were conducted with 3- and 4-year-old children.
- Tasks were designed to assess understanding of pretense in relation to character awareness.
- Linguistic demands were systematically varied across experiments.
Main Results:
- Initial experiments showed limited success in identifying non-pretending characters (e.g., sleeping) among 4-year-olds.
- Reducing linguistic demands improved performance, with children recognizing pretenders' awareness.
- However, a complete understanding of the pretense-awareness link was not achieved even with modified procedures.
Conclusions:
- By age 4, children possess partial understanding of the relationship between pretense and mental awareness.
- The development of this understanding is influenced by task demands, particularly linguistic complexity.
- Further development is needed for a complete comprehension of pretense and its connection to mental states.
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