Can 18-Month-Olds Revise Attributed Beliefs?

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Development
• Social Cognition
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Social interactions require updating beliefs about others.
• Beliefs can be revised prospectively or retrospectively.
• Infant capacity for belief revision remains under investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if 18-month-old infants can revise a false belief (FB) into a true belief (TB).
• To determine if infants update an agent's belief when presented with new evidence about the agent's perspective.

Main Methods:

• Infants observed an agent hide objects, then witnessed a location swap while the agent was absent.
• In one condition, infants saw the agent gain visual access to the room (FB-revised-to-TB).
• In a control condition, the agent did not gain visual access (FB-stays-FB).

Main Results:

• In the FB-stays-FB condition, infants selected the object consistent with the agent's initial false belief.
• In the FB-revised-to-TB condition, infants selected the object consistent with the agent's updated true belief.
• This indicates infants revised the agent's false belief based on new visual evidence.

Conclusions:

• 18-month-old infants demonstrate the ability to revise attributed false beliefs.
• This revision occurs when infants receive evidence suggesting the initial belief attribution was incorrect.
• Findings suggest early developing capacities for sophisticated belief tracking and revision in social cognition.