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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 23, 2026

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling
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Published on: April 6, 2018

Why Do Children From Age 4 Fail True Belief Tasks? A Decision Experiment Testing Competence Versus Performance

Lydia Paulin Schidelko1, Hannes Rakoczy1

  • 1Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Göttingen.

Cognitive Science
|June 6, 2025
PubMed
Summary

Children master Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks by age 4, contrary to recent findings. Difficulties with true belief (TB) tasks stem from pragmatic factors, not a lack of meta-representational ability, supporting the standard ToM view.

Keywords:
False belief taskMeta‐representationPragmaticsTheory of MindTrue belief task

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Last Updated: Jun 23, 2026

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Published on: April 6, 2018

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Published on: January 23, 2017

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Theory of Mind Research

Background:

  • The standard view posits that mastering the false belief (FB) task around age 4 signifies the emergence of full meta-representational Theory of Mind (ToM).
  • A recent challenge to this view is the finding that children who master FB tasks subsequently fail true belief (TB) control tasks, questioning FB task validity.
  • Two explanations exist: the perceptual access reasoning account (competence limitation) and the pragmatics approach (performance limitation).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To empirically test competing predictions of the perceptual access reasoning account and the pragmatics approach regarding children's performance on TB tasks.
  • To investigate whether modifications to heuristic and pragmatic factors in TB tasks can resolve the puzzling failure observed in typically developing children.
  • To re-evaluate the standard view of ToM development in light of children's performance on modified TB tasks.

Main Methods:

  • A decision experiment was conducted with 165 children aged 4 to 7 years.
  • Children completed modified FB and TB tasks designed to address heuristic and pragmatic factors.
  • Performance on adapted TB tasks was compared against predictions from the perceptual access and pragmatics accounts.

Main Results:

  • Failure in TB tasks was eliminated when tasks were modified to account for heuristic and pragmatic factors.
  • Children successfully mastered both FB and TB tasks under these modified conditions.
  • Results aligned with the pragmatics account's predictions for success while contradicting the perceptual access account's predictions for failure.

Conclusions:

  • The findings support the standard view that children possess meta-representational ToM by age 4.
  • Difficulties observed in TB tasks are attributed to performance limitations related to pragmatic factors, not competence limitations.
  • The study suggests that ToM development is robust and that task-specific pragmatic challenges can be overcome with appropriate modifications.