title: Chinese preschoolers' implicit and explicit false-belief understanding.
abstract: Mandarin-speaking preschoolers in Mainland China (3- to 4-year-olds; N= 192) were tested for dissociations between anticipatory looking (AL) and verbal judgments on false-belief tasks. The dissociation between the two kinds of understanding was robust despite direct false-belief test questions using a Mandarin specific think-falsely verb and despite participants living in a culture that promotes early self-control. Children showed coherent AL across different belief-formation scenarios. Manipulation of inhibitory demand in the false-belief task did not affect preschoolers' verbal judgments any more than their AL, and yet separate measures executive function correlated only with direct judgments and not looking responses. The findings are discussed in terms of an implicit-explicit cognitive systems account of false-belief understanding.
authors.affiliation: Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Low
authors.forename: Zhang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jing
authors.forename: Qu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Qinghua
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D003469:Culture; D008192:Deception; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014796:Visual Perception