The many faces of belief: reflections on Fodor's and the child's theory of mind.
I contrast Fodor's theory of the child's Very Simple Theory of Mind (VSTM), which differs from adult folk psychology only in that it recognizes fewer intentional objects, with my view that children's concepts cross-cut the adult conceptual system. More specifically, young children do not distinguish between the state of affairs a belief is about and how this state of affairs is though of, which puts a severe limit on their understanding of belief as distinct from pretence. The two different positions are evaluated against empirical data on children's developing "theory of mind".
Perner
J
J
Institut für Psychologie, Universität Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012660:Semantics