title: Processing demands in belief-desire reasoning: inhibition or general difficulty?
abstract: Most 4-year-olds can predict the behavior of a person who wants an object but is mistaken about its location. More difficult is predicting behavior when the person is mistaken about location and wants to avoid the object. We tested between two explanations for children's difficulties with avoidance false belief: the Selection Processing model of inhibitory processing and a General Difficulty account. Children were presented with a false belief task and a control task, in which belief attribution was as difficult as in the false belief task. Predicting behavior in light of the character's desire to avoid the object added more difficulty in the false belief task. This finding is consistent with the Selection Processing model, but not with the General Difficulty account.
authors.affiliation: Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, NJ 08854, USA. ori@ruccs.rutgers.edu
authors.forename: Ori
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.forename: Alan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Leslie
mesh_terms: D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D003469:Culture; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011936:Reality Testing