Preschoolers' implicit and explicit false-belief understanding: relations with complex syntactical mastery.
Three studies were carried out to investigate sentential complements being the critical device that allows for false-belief understanding in 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 102). Participants across studies accurately gazed in anticipation of a character's mistaken belief in a predictive looking task despite erring on verbal responses for direct false-belief questions. Gaze was independent of complement mastery. These patterns held when other low-verbal false-belief tasks were considered and the predictive looking task was presented as a time-controlled film. While implicit (gaze) knowledge predicted explicit (verbal) false-belief understanding, complement mastery and cognitive flexibility also supported explicit reasoning. Overall, explicit false-belief understanding is complexly underpinned by implicit knowledge and input from higher-order systems of language and executive control.
Low
Jason
J
School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand. Jason.Low@vuw.ac.nz
D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D018187:Personal Construct Theory; D011340:Problem Solving; D012660:Semantics